Finally a science lesson even Homer Simpson would find interesting.
It’s Okay To Be Smart explores the scientific processes behind brewing beer. Host Joe Hanson visited the Jester King Brewery in Austin, Texas and spoke with brewer Averie Swanson about the history of beer and the various strains of yeast that the brewery uses.
Enjoy!
Is beer the perfect beverage? Let’s see what science says
via Laughing Squid / Neatorama
Here’s an extremely simple way to tell if your alkaline batteries are dead or not. Just drop them from a low height on a hard surface: The good batteries will stay down while the bad ones will bounce like a man on a pogo stick.
You learn something new every day!
This test works equally well for AA, AAA, C, D and 9 Volt alkaline batteries.
It is our understanding that the following chemical reactions occur and helps to explain our observations.A non-rechargeable alkaline battery begins life using zinc powder mixed into a gel containing a potassium hydroxide electrolyte separated from a paste of manganese dioxide powder mixed with carbon powder using a porous membrane. To minimize hydrogen outgassing an extra measure of manganese dioxide is added. As the battery discharges manganese dioxide powder changes to manganese oxide causing the powdered granules to bond both chemically and physically. This packed-sand consistency reduces the antibounce effect exhibited by the gel mixture when the battery was fully charged.
Well, we’ve always wondered how this happens. And now we know, thanks to Men’s Health Magazine.
Open a can of beans and follow along.
Ever child learns the important ‘scientific’ poem as a child: Beans, beans their good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart. But why do we get gassy after eating healthy beans? Giant Ant explains the digestive process of beans in this cute and very viral animation they made for Men’s Health.
How does the world’s favorite drug actually work?
Mitchell Moffat and Gregory Brown of AsapSCIENCE explain the brain-boosting effects and the mechanisms of caffeine addiction.
Millions of people around the world start their day on coffee. Many claim to be addicted to the dark brew. That may explain why coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil. But how exactly does coffee work? What does it do to our bodies that makes us perk up? Asap Science explains the science of coffee in this new educational video.
James Zucker explains how one knows they exist.
Enjoy!
How do you know you’re real? Is existence all just a big dream? Has some mad scientist duped us into simply believing that we exist? James Zucker investigates all of these questions (and more) in this mind-boggling tribute to René Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy.