Spontaneous Assembly (or "Self Assembly") of Hot Dog Slices and Meatballs

Originally posted May 22, 2012:

Cut hot dogs into ~1 cm thick slices and place them in a pan of water. They will float at the water's surface and attractive capillary interactions will draw them together into an organized close-packed array.

References:

Dungey, K. E. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 618.

Campbell, D. J.; Freidinger, E. R.; Hastings, J. M.; Querns, M. K. "Spontaneous Assembly of Soda Straws." J. Chem. Educ., 2002, 79, 201.

Campbell, D. J.; Freidinger, E. R.; Querns, M. K. "Spontaneous Assembly of Magnetic LEGO® Bricks." The Chemical Educator, 2001, 6, 321.

Campbell, D. J.; Freidinger, E. R.; Hastings, J. M.; Querns, M. K. "Spontaneous Assembly of LEGO®s." Chem13 News, Sept., 2001, 8.

ABOVE LEFT: Cutting hot dogs into slices. ABOVE RIGHT: Floating them in a pan of water. Note: sometimes tapping the pan will help shake out some of the defects in the assembled pattern.

Updated January 22, 2014:

BELOW: Assembly of meatballs after being churned about in boiling water.

A Redneck "Bleeper"?

It seems that when I fire a piezoelectric grill lighter near my TV tuner, it interferes with the picture a little and cuts out the sound for a about one syllable's length of time.  Another lighter on another tuner seems to just make a brief horizontal line on the screen but not so effective with cutting the sound.  Must be some radio-frequency emission in that electrical pulse? The effect happened on the 3 channels I tried. I do not really have a picture for that experiment, so I will use this pic of a fiery demo. The Bradley University Chemistry Club Demo Crew had their 120th show on Wednesday.  Thank God, we finally reached the 10,000 customer mark.  I was acting as the spotter as a student squirted water into burning liquid wax. If overdone, the flames could probably hit the lecture hall ceiling.  

"Yogurt Lab" (not a demo)

My family and I were in Minneapolis, MN, this past Friday, and while we were exploring the skyway we found a frozen yogurt place called "Yogurt Lab."  It's part of a chain in Minnesota, see: http://www.yogurtlabs.com/. We enjoyed the snack and I loved the decor, especially the lamps that looked (but happily did not smell) like triethylamine molecules.

Very hot water in very cold air

During the present cold snap that is gripping much of the nation (-8 F for a high here in Peoria today), the Internet and other media outlets have been describing what happens when you toss near-boiling water into the very cold air.  Basically, the hot water breaks into fine droplets which instantly freeze to make an ice cloud, see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/04/boiling-water-extreme-cold-water-gun-ice-crystals_n_4538522.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular for more explanation.  I tried it, too, with cold water as a control experiment (no "cloud" was produced).  CAUTION: I have heard that people are burning themselves with hot water!  The air is not cold enough to freeze all of the water.  Throw the water away from you and downwind!

Racquetball Modified to Jingle Bell using Liquid Nitrogen

A racquetball can be modified to ring like a jingle bell when chilled with liquid nitrogen.  First, attach a wire or string to the ball.  Next, cut an "X" into the ball and insert a glass marble into the ball.  At room temperature, the rubber is flexible and the jingle bell ball does not ring.  When the ball is cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature, the rubber cools to a glassy material (polymer chain mobility is decreased) and the jingle bell ball rings.  A movie of the demo has been posted to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfIm29nNo8g.  Happy Holidays!

Hoarfrost crystals

I like how these ice crystals on my car this morning had symmetry resembling full hexagonal or truncated snowflakes.

Comments on Tangle Proteins Building Set

I recently purchased a Tangle Proteins Building Set from Educational Innovations and just put together the first model in the set: the third IgG-binding domain from Streptococcal Protein G.  The pieces in the primary chain were hard to wrestle together. My assembly tactics ranged from dish soap to sandpaper to leather gloves to simple "elbow grease",  and the pieces eventually came together.  The clear lengths of plastic used to make hydrogen bonds should have probably been just a smidge longer.  The directions in the book had issues, too.  It was difficult to tell from the photographs where one structural element ended and the other began.  I have experienced similar difficulties in displaying the seams between LEGO bricks on my Exploring the Nanoworld with LEGO Bricks website (they are also brightly colored plastic pieces).  On the LEGO site, we have had to sometimes color the seams between the bricks with permanent markers to emphasize them.  The  first model also has an error in the instructions: only 12 red helix pieces were given in the list for the primary sequence, yet everywhere else in the instructions 14 red pieces are required.  Despite all these challenges, I think this little protein model is pretty cool when finally assembled. It features an alpha helix and a beta pleated sheet, and this inorganic materials chemist can appreciate the fact that, as others have said, the hydrogen bonds and other secondary interactions between various parts of the primary chain  really direct the structure of the entire molecule.  Two other models are also described, but this inorganic materials chemist would love to eventually see some metal binding sites (e.g. a heme group) added.