Australia's Science Forum

Do we get to choose our own massage partners?

Hi trish If they breaking that much glassware, maybe remove the lot or replace with plastic beakers, etc. I do keep glassware in labs (front cupboards), yeah teachers like it and I only have small Equipment/Prep rooms. I check each lab once a fortnight and leave report for teacher showing how much s...

Make a buffer solution of 5.4g Tris and 2.75g Boric acid in water to 1 litre. Weigh 1g agarose into 250ml conical flask, add 100ml buffer, and heat to near boiling. Allow to cool ~55degC and pour into your container to set. Before running the gel, pour 50-100ml buffer over the gel, making sure the w...

What Judy said; phosgene was used by the Kaiser to gas allied soldiers on the Western Front during WW1. Don't open the bottle, high levels of phosgene have been known to develop in the head space (15,000ppm) and 1.1% in the liquid, making researchers very sick at the University of California who wer...

I'm not a revengeful type myself either, but I've heard a prawn inside a hubcup works a treat.

SBF- yeh we entered Barbara in the same show the next year but didn't get a look-in; a slick outfit from out of town cleaned up all the coloured sheep awards. Barbara was such a boof-head. We have wooden steps running off the verandah to the backyard. The ground underneath slopes down at a less obli...

Rosalie - Big W probably have the 2-part airlock; the principle is the same. The removable (round) top piece fits inside a sleeve in the bottom part which contains water. This allows excess CO 2 from the fermenter to escape (through the water sitting in the sleeve) whilst preventing airborne bugs co...

2 years ago, SSA supplied us with a 2.5L bottle of H 2 SO 4 in a bottle that was shorter & wider than a Winchester, and (of course) it won't fit in the carrier. Also, look out for the sugar dehydration demo; the fumes can cause asthma attacks. Better to use small amount (or sugar cube) in a 50ml...

A few years back, we bought the kids a Merino sheep for $50, for a Christmas present. A few months later, we bundled Barbara into the back of an old Toyota Corolla hatchback and took her to the local show. Blow me down if she didn't win a ribbon (2nd coloured sheep-ewe). We didn't know the ropes, an...

Smithy, try Scope Instrument Services: Ph 4625 9631 [6 Tumut, Ruse, 2560]
ABN: 37 003 290 060

Also impressive : put a 50ml beaker of water in the bell jar and watch it boil @ room temp.

You'd need to do several distillations because of the small differential in boiling points (ethanol 78.5degC, water 100degC) and you'll get a tiny yield from typically school fermented sucrose solution. Maybe start with a high gravity sucrose solution and ferment with a good fresh wine yeast to get ...

Hi Robb

2 keen teachers and it sure would be neat to have one, but we got a thumbs-down so its flame bottles for now.

Who's got the IEC spectrometer for flame emission, and AA experiments with the sodium light source? Serrata's got the spectrometer at $1390 and light source at $350 (ex GST). Any cheaper suppliers ?

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What size engine/s do you need to launch that one, Robb? Makes our cardboard tube and balsa rockets look like toothpicks.

Anyone got a Risk Assessment for mouse-trap cars?

We use the Estes solid rocket engines glue-gunned into a thin cardboard tube with wadding and recovery system (parachute made from cotton and plastic sheet) attached to nose cone (sanded-down balsa block) with a thumb-tack which is in turn attached to the tube with rubber bands linked togeteher. Bal...

re teachers actually reading the RAs and MSDS; if they haven't done so before the prac period, they won't do so during the prac. If little Jonny splashes acid in his eye or has an asthma attack from I 2 fumes, its a bit late in the day to start reading the safety literature. :w00t: BTW, since I was ...

Will Bart's start fast?

CO 2 from the air reacts with 2 water molecules forming bicarbonate : HCO 3 plus hydronium ion : H 3 O Its the increased hydronium ion concentration that causes lower pH. We use a Millipore filter; no wasted water and I just checked it with UI, it was ph 7. Stills are water bandits and those bench-t...