Plane tails

People will often give me suggestions on what to write. Sometimes the suggestions are solicited and sometimes they are not. About a year ago, my wife, Cory, was brainstorming with me about what to write. We were in the car looking around and she wondered about jet contrails, those long white lines that stretch across the sky in the wake of a jet plane.

A year had passed and I had not delved into this topic for fear I would not have enough content. That explanation was never quite accepted by Cory who has not let me forget about not looking into her idea. I explained that sometimes I need to fully process an idea myself before breaking into the mysteries of science, a notion that has offered Cory little solace.

Thankfully, I was struck by inspiration earlier this month when I happened to be outside as the sun was setting. It was one of those beautiful sunsets we have in Helena and I started thinking about clouds, colors, and, yes, jet contrails!

It turns out contrails are very similar to clouds. They are formed out of similar “ingredients” and the process, while completely different, has the same result.

Contrails are formed when water vapor and other small particles from the exhaust of the plane condenses and freezes along with the surrounding air. Once this happens, the conditions through which the plane is flying come into play, because as Cory pointed out, sometimes we see contrails behind planes and sometimes we do not.

To see the contrails, the conditions need to meet specific criteria. This criteria consist of cold temperatures (minus 40 degrees) and enough moisture in the atmosphere to support the contrail.

While the water vapor to form the contrail is in part from the plane, it is also in part from the air around the plane, the very same air from which clouds are made. The air we breathe contains water in the form of water vapor. Throughout the day, air warms up and rises, and as it rises it expands and cools. When it gets cold enough, the water vapor freezes to tiny dust particles similar to the way the water vapor freezes to the exhaust particles of the plane. When there are billions of these particles together they become a cloud or a contrail.

In comparing clouds and contrails, I have noticed they are often the same colors, mainly white and gray.

Clouds and contrails appear white because they are reflecting the light of the sun; which are all the colors in a rainbow. White is all we see because we see the exact same amount of every color. On the occasion when clouds and contrails appear gray it is likely because there are other clouds or contrails casting shadows. They might also be so dense light cannot fully penetrate them to scatter the light equally.

There you have it Cory, science! Sorry it took me a little over a year to get to it! I hope it answers your questions; it has been so long, I really can’t remember what they were.

Humans best friends!

My family loves dogs and, being surrounded by dogs my whole life, I have experienced great times and tragic times with our pets. Sadly, we recently had a string of sorrow because we had to put Abby, Millie and Minnie to sleep. They were great, old dogs that lived wonderful lives and certainly touched ours. And, probably like your dogs, they had interesting habits and peculiar behaviors worthy of scientific inquiry.

Abby was my dog, Millie was my parents’ dog and Minnie was my father-in-law’s. Abby was a loveable black Lab, and true to form, she ate everything she could find. Under normal circumstances, this would not be a problem, but Abby also had a sensitive stomach. After she ate something she was not supposed to, she would go outside and start eating grass, which was nice because I did not have to mow. One time she ate a lot of grass, came inside and upchucked what my wife Cory and I call the “grass log.”

There is a lot of discussion as to why dogs eat grass. Some speculate dogs like the taste of grass or maybe want to add some roughage to their diet. Others say dogs eat grass to make themselves vomit, which was likely the case with Abby.

When swallowed, the grass tickles the throat and stomach, which may trigger the dog’s “emesis” response to clear its stomach. Upon observation, I would usually discover that the grass was never chewed, rather it was gulped down, which is what some veterinarians believe is an indication that the dog tried to relieve an upset stomach. Whatever the reason, there were definite times when Abby would eat grass — like after gobbling down a few dozen old crab apples off the ground.

Millie was a fantastic dog. She could do a cool, little dance that would make her short of breath. It was kind of a Catch-22 because we would enjoy her amazing moves but then we would have to suffer her very bad breath. This made us think about so many people judge a dog’s mouth as being cleaner than their own, or loaded with some special germ-killing antiseptic?

Author and vet Marty Becker offers his perspective. He believes people think dogs have cleaner mouths because when a dog is injured they spend a lot of time licking their wounds. This action seems to heal the wounds very quickly. Yet, dogs do not have super healing saliva, rather, they are actually removing dead tissue in much the same way a surgeon does for us.

Of the three, Minnie was the oldest at 17. One of my favorite memories of Minnie is having my wife Cory pulling up in her car with Minnie barking her head off. This always perplexed me because Minnie seldom barked —  except when she was in the car. What was it about the car that caused her to bark?

There are many reasons why dogs bark, but among the primary reasons is they are trying to communicate with you or another dog. Barking is also how dogs express emotion. In Minnie’s case, we concluded, she was just excited about being in the car.

One additional way to enjoy your dog is to use science to explore some of his or her peculiar habits and build on the wonderful memories these faithful friends can offer. Thanks for these and all the great memories Abby, Millie and Minnie. We miss you dearly!

Does sugar make you hyper!?!?

As I watched my daughter and her friends run around like crazy after eating her birthday cake I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is it sugar that is responsible for this behavior?”

I asked a couple other adults and we decided it has to be because of everything we have heard.

Why then, when I eat candy by myself, don’t I run around my house like a maniac?

It turns out, sugar does not have a hyper-causing effect on how kids behave, rather it is situational. For example, when I think of the times when my daughter Marley is the most hyper after eating sugar, it is when she is in exciting situations with lots of other people. Situations like Halloween or birthday parties are prime examples. Another factor is often times the sugar she ingests is chocolate, which has caffeine that can make one hyper.

Like most things, sugar in moderation is OK. It is when one consumes large amounts of sugar that problems well beyond the perceived troubles of sugar-induced hyperactivity can develop. 

The average amount of sugar Americans consume per day is about 22 teaspoons or half a cooking cup. Some comes from foods that naturally have sugars in them, like fruit, but a lot of it comes from foods in which sugar is added, such as soda pop.

With this amount, we ingest almost 355 mostly empty calories. These are calories that are very high in energy but low in nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber and essential fatty acids. Sugars add calories to your diet while displacing nutritious foods. And too much sugar day-in and day-out can sneak up on one to cause some pretty destructive diseases, including diabetes and heart ailments.

I recently received this message loud and clear and decided to cut some sugar from my diet. Not in my coffee, though — I reasoned that because I use raw sugar it was better for me.

Sugar is actually the sap in sugarcane plants. To get the sap, the plants are crushed and the sugar juice is released. The sugar juice is then heated to make a thick dark molasses that contains sugar crystals. To remove the crystals, the molasses is poured into a large centrifuge to separate the syrup and crystals. What is left is the white granulated sugar.

The raw, brown-hued sugar I like to add to my coffee to make myself feel healthier contains a little molasses added back into the white sugar. It is called raw because it is just a little less refined since the molasses is added back into it. So, sadly,

1 tablespoon of so-called raw sugar a day did not make me any healthier. I was fooling myself by still adding empty calories, raw or not.

Now, I have been running around like crazy at ExplorationWorks. I guess sugar is partly responsible. Learning all this has shattered my perspective on sugar in a good way. It is not going to keep me from putting sugar in my coffee in the morning, but I will use it in moderation. And, because sugar is sugar is sugar, at least I will not freak out if it is not in the raw!

Brrrrrrrrain Freeze!

A brain freeze is a common affliction in summer. When a brain freeze happens, it is very painful, and while it may only last about a half minute, that half minute feels like an eternity.

When we consume something cold, like ice cream, a popsicle or an ice slushy, one of the first places it touches is the palate, or the roof of our mouth. Our palates contain nerves and blood vessels and it is their reaction to cold that gives us this brief period of excruciating, freezing pain.

When a cold object touches the middle of the palate, the cold temperature causes nerves to communicate to the blood vessels, telling them to increase blood flow to the head. It is this quick swelling of the blood vessels that causes our head to hurt.

Here’s a quick tip to avoid or limit a brain freeze: When you eat or drink something cold, simply keep it away from your palate. If this fails, try to warm up the area by touching your tongue to the palate, holding your breath or consuming something warm.

The dreaded brain freeze is just one type of headache. Are all the other headaches caused by swollen blood vessels, too?

Sadly, all headaches aren’t as easily understood as a brain freeze. Headaches are so complex they are placed in three different categories: primary, secondary and cranial neuralgias. Primary headaches include migraine, tension and cluster headaches. Secondary headaches are caused by a structural problem in the head or neck. Cranial neuralgias are caused by inflammation of nerves in the head and upper neck. 

Secondary and cranial neuralgias are specific and complex medical conditions.

Tension and migraine headaches — of the primary sort — are the two most common types of headaches and are similar in a couple ways. Both tension and migraine headaches are somewhat a mystery to medical professionals in that the experts do not really understand what causes them, but they do know there are triggers for them.

Triggers for tension headaches include stress, depression, anxiety, poor posture and jaw clenching. Migraine triggers can be hormonal changes, certain foods, stress, sensory stimuli, changes in sleep patterns and environment, physical factors and some medications.

To relieve these types of headaches simply warming up your palate will not work. There are prescription and over-the-counter medications for migraines, and over-the-counter medicines can work with tension headaches. Like all over-the-counter drugs, they are only relieving the symptoms temporarily, so if you are medicating a lot, it is recommended that you check with a doctor to see if a prescribed medication would offer a better alternative.

If reading about headaches has been one of your triggers, and you now have a headache, I sincerely apologize! Maybe you would like to have a say in what I write about next month. If so, find us on Facebook and cast your vote.

Easing the tension

This is the scientific follow up to the super fun bubble experiments we did on The Garage Creative. To see what we did, follow The Garage Creative.


In our house, we use a lot of soap, whether it is for washing dishes or the hands of our two little girls. Every time I use soap, I cannot help but wonder what it is about soap that causes it to lather while at the same time, kill whatever harmful bacteria it may be washing off.

First, why were we able to blow such big bubbles? If you think about water, it is "sticky", though not the way we normally think something is sticky. It holds itself to itself very well. When we fill our glass completely full, it does not pour out. We can even gently place a greasy paperclip on water and the surface tension of the water will keep it from sinking.

With water being that sticky it is difficult to stretch it to make a bubble. This is where soap comes in. Soap has properties that explain cleanliness question as well as the gigantic bubbles.

Soap is made from long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. One end of the chain loves water, which scientists call hydrophyllic. As you may have guessed, the other end of the chain does not like water, which scientists term hydrophobic. When we wash dishes or hands, the hydrophobic side of the chain attaches to the grease in the pan or hands and allows water to rush under it, sweeping it away!

So in reality, soap does not kill bacteria, rather it makes whatever we are washing more greasy so bacteria can be washed away. 

This is a very brief description of what happens, check out the eXploratoriums description if you would like more!

about density

We started this experiment very simply, by putting one drop of food coloring in cold water and one in hot. Simply put, the cold water is more dense than the hot water, as are other fluids such as air. When air warms it rises. This concept is responsible for what we know as convection currents found in weather and plate tectonics. The hot fluid moves up while the colder fluid sinks back down to get heated back up. This process keeps going and going and going.

When we saturated the water with salt, we made the water much more dense. It was almost so dense the solution could not hold anything else, not even one drop of food coloring, which is why it did not dissipate the way it did in the "pure" water solutions.

Next we then learned water and oil don't mix! Because they do not mix, scientists call them immiscible liquids. When we look at the glass with the water and the oil, the oil is on top of the water. This is because the one drop of oil weighs less than one drop of water. Scientists call this density and items that are less dense than water will float, those that are more dense, like salt, will sink.

To continue on with our experiment we poured salt in. It sank to the bottom taking some olive oil along with it. Remember, oil and water are immiscible so the oil returns to the top, which causes the movement within the solution.

All in all it is a great experiment and if you have not tried it, you should!

the glory that is goo

We made two different types of goo on my garage creative blog. What exactly is goo and why is it so fun!? The first type we made has many different names for it. I like to call it oobleck because I love Dr. Seuss and there is a great story that can go along with making it.

It is called a non Newtonian fluid because it has properties of both a solid and a liquid. It has the liquid properties of taking the shape of whatever container it is in and is pourable. It behaves as a solid when pressure is applied to it.

Scientists also call it a colloid because the cornstarch is very small solid particles that are suspended in the water. It acts like a solid because when we touch it, we are applying a sideways shearing force to the water. Not familiar with that? Me either. What that means is when we touch it, the water  moves away but the small particles of cornstarch do not. Think about trying to push sand out of the way on the beach.

While we made this non Newtonian fluid, there are plenty that we can purchase in the store. A couple of examples are jello, ketchup, barbecue sauce; what others can you think of?

The second goo we made acts a lot like flubber or silly putty. Unlike the oobleck, we can stretch it, bounce it, and tear it apart. This type of goo is called a polymer, which is a long chain of molecules.

Glue is made up of very long molecules. When we add the borax, it causes our molecules to stick together thus making a polymer!

Polymers are everywhere and have been used for a very long time.