The science of glow sticks
I stumbled across this randomly on YouTube today and had to share. The first 3/4 of the video are a chemistry experiment breakdown of what goes into a glow stick and what each of those ingredients is meant to do. But what makes me LOVE it is that, at the end, all of this coalesces into a fine explanation of the difference between light-absorbing dyes and fluorescent dyes. Come for the glow-stick "how to", stay for the better understanding of how light works and how it influences what you see!
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Maggie Koerth-Baker
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
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