Australia's Science Forum

Now, that IS interesting about Microwaves not sterilising germs. My wife used the microwave to sterilise our babies bottles, and I am sure that the StreamWatch girl told me to sterilise pipettes in the Microwave. 10 minutes with half a cup of water. I wet the pipettes and wrap them in Glad Wrap. I g...

Hi Lindy, Wow! :grin: I posted that question about Lego Logo back on 2nd March, and you are the first person to respond. Kind of like "a note in a bottle". You never know when it is going to be found! Yes, it is Lego TC logo that I was after, or more specifically, a program language instru...

My prep room is adjacent to the Science Staff room where the teachers have their lunches. The Microwave is in the staff room. We use the microwave for making lunch! We melt chocolate for chocolate fossils. I make my Agar in the pressure cooker, but store it in conical flasks, which I melt in the mic...

I paid $8.99 from IGA for a 15g vial (which sounds comparable). Actually, the IGA stuff is "Simply Junket" too.
It says to use 1/4 teaspoon full to set 500mL of milk. (I think it will last a while)
How does that compare in terms of usage rates? How much milk does 1 tablet set?

regards
Ian

We pensioned off the old still last year and bought a twin filter "VERTEX" benchtop filter from Serrata for $685. It produces 1L per minute and seems to satisft all my tests. It claims to produce "BS Grade 2 water" (whatever that means!) and when I have tested it with our StreamW...

I don't know if any of you are doing Junket in Senior Biology at the moment, but it is realted to the other enzyme pracs that the whole State seems to be doing at the moment. Having searched high and low for Junket tablets, in several Woolies, Coles and Bi Lo stores,(I have easy acces to 3 Woolies, ...

According to "The Laboratory", Conc HNO 3 is 16Molar or 70%. A 2M sol'n requires 128mL, so a 1M sol'n will require 64mL. My other reference suggests 2M requires 125mL, which would be 62.5mL for 1M. I wonder why they changed it in your book?. Make sure you mix it VERY slowly and in the fume...

I spent a lot of time last year on "Distilled Water" as our distiller was rapidly emptying Warragamba dam to condense only a few litres of water. We tried shop bought Distilled Water, and Shop bought deionised water, and eventually bought a very efficient filter system from Serrata. In eve...

What about MINT? Mint goes with lamb!
Ian

Thanks Robb,
I was hoping that you would shed light on this one.
From what you say, should we NOT add the acid if we are making a sat sol for crystal growing?

Cheers
Ian

Richard, The Avatar: We just call that "Poetic License". (It does show some similarities though. Fortunately my kids get their looks from their mother) I was telling you about our "round cow". I forgot to mention that (possibly due to the stress of being trapped for so long) our ...

Now, this a NON CHEMIST speaking, and I hope that I am not treading on Robb's toes. If you do not put the H 2 SO 4 in, then after a while (few days) the CuSO 4 goes a bit murky. It seems to get a greenish sludge in it (CuCO 3 , perhaps?) The H 2 SO 4 seems to dissolve, of prevent the formation of th...

"round cows", did I hear you say? We have a cow that is soooo round that it got stuck in the "crush" yesterday and took the Ag Assistant, teacher, and myself 2 hours to free it! Ended up having to dismantle the run into the crush with a hack saw to relieve the pressure on its hip...

I'll have to borrow the BIG tractor from the "Grounds" guys. The Ag tractor is just a baby!
Ian

Hell! I hope it is not us!!!! The Head Master has ordered the Ag Assistant to sell the cows, and has made suggestions about a Yabbie Farm (!!!) but that would be too much of a shock to our poor Ag teacher who has gone on one terms LS leave. My Assistant Fac head assures me that our Ag dept. is stayi...

Do you like Boiled Fruit cake? Maybe you could make a cake for Richards dog.

Ian

We do that one every year as an observation exercise in a Year 7 Prac test. Some years it works brilliantly, (like this year!) some years it is a flop (like last year!) The instructions we give the kids are as follows 1. Fill a beaker with water to the 150mL mark 2. Stir in one heaped teaspoon of Bi...

Yes. It is the computer software that has been my problem, not the Data Logger. The Easy Sence does seem like a very good one and easy to use. Having said that, we have a staff member who is currently completing her Dip Ed. (you can get away with that in the Independant system!!). On the Residential...

Yeah! I agree. Stupid! Their story is that when Apple went from System Software OS 9 to System software OS X the change was so great that the software would have to be re-written from scratch. They argue that there are so few Mac users on the planet that it was not worth their while financially to p...

The CSIS manual does seem to be VERY STRONGLY AGAINST making gun powder, doesn't it! There is probably a very good reason for this. I wonder how that would effect insurance, etc? The FOTI Fire Works factory is close to where I grew up. You occasionally hear horrendous stories of accidents that can o...