Matilda's Lab Newsletter #40
This week we make sourdough and watch water boil. If that sounds dull, just wait until we get to the secret penguins and the Hell Chicken!
What we’ve been up to
Our weekend was dominated by sorting things out at home. It was our first weekend at home, all together with no plans for a long time. I thought that I would have nothing to write about in the newsletter this week, but when science is literally a part of everything that you do, opportunities arise.
The first impromptu science lesson came from dinner time. The children were having Mac ‘n’ Cheese for dinner and Matilda was keen to cook it all herself. She found herself getting captivated by watching the water in the pan warm up and boil. She’s interested, great; here comes the science…
The first that she noticed was that she could see swirls within the water, even though the pan conatined nothing but water. I explained that what she was seeing was convection currents. She already knows that water bends light (it’s how you can see a clear water when it’s in a clear glass), but the amount that water bends light changes with its temperature. While the pan heats from the bottom, the warm water rises to the top and the cold water sinks to the bottom, as they pass each other the light travelling between the two bends so swirls become visible.
By the time we had seen this, bubbles in the pan started to appear. This wasn’t boiling yet. These are gases in the water being forced out in a processes that is opposite of dissolving: A heat generated soda. We continued talking fluid dynamics until we had a full boil in the go.
The there was the sourdough bread. I had a sourdough starter dough years ago but I didn’t keep it up. Now we’re starting again with some home microbiology. The different between normal bread and sourdough bread is that normal bread is made with highly cultivated fast-acting yeasts. Sourdough uses wild occuring yeast. This means that the dough takes much longer to prove, but as a result it develops a much greater flavour profile.
How do you make a sourdough starter? It’s actually very simple. You need 2 things, water and flour (I’ve been recommended rye flour, it worked last time so I stuck with it). Then you need your yeast, but you already have that. It’s everywhere. Onces you’ve made a soft dough, just leave it outside, or by an open window for a hour. The yeast will find their own way in there. Then you leave it to grow. One reason why this weeks post is a bit late is that I’ve had to wait until it is finished so I can report how it’s gone. The result: pretty good.
New Blog content
I’ve not shared as much as I would have like this week, it’s been a busy one with work which has got in the way. But I have managed to update the map of life, including a whole new phylum, the cnidaria.
A lot of effort has gone into recording as well. Now that I have relased the first Matilda’s Lab track (which is now available on streaming platforms (you can find it here), I’m trying to keep the ball rolling and keep material coming this year. We’ll be getting mathematical next month.
From the Archive
Just one this week. It’s Dr. Ken:
Science News
As we enter a new Leap Year, the future of the leap second is in doubt. We may be about to convert to a leap minute.
Who doesn’t want penguin news? Satellite imagery has discovered 4 previously unknown colonies of Emperor penguins.
NASA have done some amazing things. They’ve put men on the moon, sent crafts to different planets and even outide of the solat system. In their most recent groundbreaking achieve, NASA have finally managed, after 4 months, to open a container that they themselves made. Although that container does hold asteroid rocks that a NASA space craft managed to blask out of the asteroid, collect and then bring back to Earth. That’s the really impressive part about this story.
New species alert. It’s a Hell Chicken! A what? I hear you ask. It’s a type of dinosaur, an oviraptor. It’s discovery goes against the common idea that dinosaurs were already dying out at the time of the fateful asteroid impact.
Kicking back
Fun time…click the links to brighten your day with fun things that I’ve found elsewhere.
Your global guide to capybaras
The next time that you freak out about a spider in the bath, remember, it could be worse…
I expect to see this little guy standing guard outside Buckingham Palace soon.
Men grow, but don’t always grow up…
How many animals we eat, and plenty of time to pre-empt what’s a number 1
That’s it for this week.
Please feel free to get in contact with any questions, suggestions or comments either via Substack or at matildaslab@gmail.com.
Please share this with anyone who you think will appreciate it. And remember to share with me any cool sciencey stuff that you find to make sure that I can pack this newsletter with best new science content each week.
Until next time, remember that one person’s old news is another’s revelation; so explore. Sometimes it’s not about being the first up the hill. The view’s still going to be breath-taking, no matter how many people have seen it before you.