My friend convinced me to try some new health and wellness products, made by the company Vasayo (https://vasayo.com/). What do these products do? Well I tried two of them (Vslim and Vtox). The Vslim claims that it will suppress appetite and stabilize blood sugar, which as someone who is mildly hypoglycemic, I was very interested in achieving. The Vtox apparently works to detoxify your body with a propriety blend of chemicals and extracts. I was more skeptical about the Vtox,

I read a book a few months ago that has really changed my perspective on life, and so this seems like a good opportunity to share it with you today. The book is called “10% Happier,” written by Dan Harris, and talks about how he was able to get control over his mind and the constant voice in his head. There were a number of life lessons that I took away from the book, including: 1. The idea of creating distance between the input data and the response. This is a big one for me

Here is another cool experiment that actually works as well in real life as it does on YouTube videos: kinetic popsicle sticks. What does that even mean, you might ask? It is an experiment that uses a lot of popsicle sticks, and interweaves them in such a way that it creates a lot of strain and builds up a lot of potential energy. If you do it in the right way, then after you are done weaving a lot of popsicle sticks (the more you weave, the higher the potential energy gets),

Continuing along in the categories of other things I have seen on youtube that I tried to reproduce in real life, I saw a video on youtube of a guy using lead from a pencil to create a gas lightbulb (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wucmSj7Z-dA). In the video it looked pretty cool, and so we decided to test this out. First of all, you need to figure out a good power source. We used eight D batteries all taped together with electrical tape, but it is not clear that the connecti

Have I mentioned lately how much I like bubbles? And also how much kids like bubbles? I didn’t think so. It turns out that it is relatively easy to make a super strong bubble solution, by using Dawn dish soap and warm-ish water and adding either sugar, glycerol, or lubricant to the bubble solution. All of these additives work by forming hydrogen bonds with the water, that reduces the surface tension and makes the bubbles less fragile. Once they are less fragile, what can you

One of my friends forwarded me a video she found online, which I am sure many of you have also seen. It involved taking a piece of coal, heating it up, and then covering it in peanut butter before freezing the entire mixture for a few days. Apparently if you then scrape away the peanut butter, carefully, you can create a crystal that looks like a diamond. “Is this true?” she wanted to know. “And if so, how does it work?” It turns out that it is pretty easy to test this experi

OK I decided it would be a good opportunity over the weekend to play with orbeez. Orbeez, for those people who may not be familiar, are also called ‘water beads,’ and refer to these tiny little beads that absorb several hundred times their weight in water and swell to the size of marbles. What is the orbeez, you might ask? Well it is a superabsorbent polymer, of course! It is related to the polymer that is found in disposable diapers, and allows the diapers to absorb lots and

Another fun activity to do as a demonstration in class (although not at home) (also it may require a fume hood) is to take a Coke can and put it in concentrated sulfuric acid. This acid dissolves the aluminum can fairly rapidly (and creates a lot of heat and smoke in the process). Interestingly, though, it does not dissolve the plastic liner, which is the only thing that remains after the acid digestion has been completed. This is interesting because the soda itself is usuall

There is a really cool event going on next weekend, but I am so excited about it that I needed to tell you now so hopefully you can still get tickets. There is a National Geographic Live show at the Museum of Science on Friday January 11th called “When Women Ruled the World,” and it is focused on a time in Egypt when women were viewed as powerful rulers and leaders of the Egyptian culture. Tickets are available using the link below: https://worldmusic.org/content/event_page/7

Happy New Year, readers! We are all full of resolutions for 2019 in my house, including grand plans to get organized, lose 20 pounds, travel the world, be patient and calm and kind to my children, and never raise my voice to anyone… I give it about a week before many of these plans end up in the trash. But for real, people, how are we going to make resolutions that we are able to stick to? Luckily social scientists have found a bunch of strategies that may work. Some of them