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.

Wolrd Turned Upside Down

OK, the title may be a bit dramatic but since moving to North Carolina there is one pressing issue that has captured my attention.

Like so many, I love my coffee in the morning. I watch the sun slowly waking up my world as the coffee slowly wakes me up; it really is one of my favorite things. Because of this, I decided a while back to take my coffee making to another level. I purchased a French press. 

For those who don't know, to use a French press one needs ground coffee and boiling water. The coffee is placed in the carafe followed by boiling water.  A screen/filter/plunger is then used to push the grounds down, thus allowing this barista to enjoy his coffee!

 Upon arriving in North Carolina, however, I found a glitch in the system. Water seems to take FOREVER to boil here! I know a watched pot never boils but this is a little ridiculous. How did the move to North Carolina change a seemingly simple operation?

It turns out there is quite a large difference, a little more than 3,500 feet to be exact. As a child I heard people taking about high altitude cooking directions and I thought they were crazy—up until now. As I agonize over the extra minutes of not having my coffee, I decided to take look into this interesting phenomenon.

 We moved from an elevation of 4,100 feet above sea level to an elevation of 564 feet above sea level. What this boils down to is the temperature at which water boils. I was taught it boiled at 212 degrees F or 100 degrees C and this is true, under specific circumstances. One of these is to be at sea level. The higher the elevation, the lower the temperature at which water boils.  In fact, every 500 feet lowers the boiling temperature by about 1 degree F.

In doing the calculation, this means water boils at 204 degrees F in our previous home, Helena Montana.  Eight degrees may not seem like that much of a difference, but when you are waiting on your coffee, I assure you it feels like hours!

Pressure is responsible for disrupting my morning coffee procedure. At sea level there is about 14.696 pounds of pressure per square inch pushing on you, water, everything. The amount of pressure in Helena (depending on where you are standing) is around 12.228 pounds.

We are accustomed to feeling the air “pushing” on us so we do not notice it unless we change elevations quickly--like driving over a mountain pass or flying in an airplane.

This affects the boiling point of water because at the higher elevations, water molecules are not held together as tightly as they are under the more weight.

Having come to the realization that there is really nothing I can do to make my water boil faster, I have given up my French press. That and I broke it, but still, lesson learned! C'est la vie!

For the Rare Lute Lovers

Christmas has come and gone and it seems every year it happens faster and faster.  I am sad to see most signs of the holidays leave but there is one I am not at all sad to say goodbye to.

My wife Cory calls me a Grinch because I do not particularly enjoy listening to Christmas music.  I feel Christmas music can be overdone very quickly, this year was particularly bad because here in Chapel Hill there is a station that plays it 24/7, and has since before Thanksgiving!

It is not that I totally dislike it; I just wish it was not the same songs with different people singing them.  Amazingly, almost every song I hear somehow reminds me of two of my favorite holiday movies, Home Alone and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.  This could stem from one of my family traditions I grew up with of watching Christmas movies on Christmas day.

I love my family dearly and appreciate the value of tradition but there is one I never could get on board with and am having a difficult time continuing.  If you have never had the pleasure of eating, smelling, or even seeing Lutefisk, I will do my best to illuminate the mystery behind this "fish".

My mom makes Lutefisk every Christmas Eve, as it is a traditional holiday meal for Scandinavian-Americans. 

Lutefisk is typically made from cod or ling that is skinned, deboned, salted and hung out to dry.  It is then soaked in cold water which is changed out every day for five days.  The next step is what gives Lutefisk its name.

Lutefisk translated means lye fish.  It is placed in a solution of lye and water and soaked for two days.  Yes lye; the corrosive alkaline that is used for soap making, biodiesel, and to clear clogged drain pipes. 

When removed, it hardly resembles a fish as it has swelled, lost half of its protein and has a pH of 11 – 12!  To make the fish edible, (edible because at that pH it is caustic; capable of burning, corroding, or destroying living tissue!) it is again soaked in cold water, which gets changed out every day for up to six days.

Once it is safe to eat you are left with the challenge of cooking it.  This is particularly difficult because the process of preparing the fish gives it a jellylike flakey appearance and consistency.  My mom opts for the boiling method, which should be another indicator of just how appetizing this “fish” is.

Not that I was ever a big fan of Lutefisk, but in learning all this, I really doubt I will eat it again.  Some people however, really love Lutefisk, my family included, which now makes me wonder if I should commend or commit them.

Finally, I cannot help but wonder why the lye?  People theorize it has to do with the preservation of the fish and to keep other animals, like dogs, from eating it. 

                I am sorry mom, please do not be upset with me, I will continue some of our other traditions and I will speak of this one, but I will probably not prepare it. 

Whatever your traditions are, I hope you had a fantastic holiday and a very great new year!