science videos

The Alkali Metal Series, Reacting with Air and Water

If I understand the annotations on this, YouTuber ironnica’s only posted video, correctly, the footage was produced by a New Jersey educational media company in 1991, and the delightfully British narration more recently by somebody associated with the UK’s Open University. In any case, it is a perfectly concise, interesting, and entertaining demonstration of the increasing reactivities of the group I metals lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan16
Tin Cans + Bucket of Sand = New Science

Tin Cans + Bucket of Sand = New Science

If you take two empty cans, one closed on the bottom and the other open (i.e. a tube), and turn them upside down, which will be harder to push into a bucket of sand? If, reasoning by analogy to liquids, you (like most people), said the closed one…well, you can sort of guess where this is heading: A closed can is, in fact, easier to push into a bed of sand than an open tube. Given the usual fine print. Adrian Cho explains over at ScienceNOW:

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan10