Something about Hydrophilic Tails

First I must preface this post with an apology for once again falling off the planet for a few days.

I know that your hopes and dreams rise and set with the publishing of each new blog post, so I’m sorry to have left you in a lurch these past few days.

I have no excuse other than this: “Divergent”.

So yeah, after much coaxing, cajoling, and whining (ok, not so much the whining, but the other two for sure) by my 13yo, I began reading it.

And since he’s not a “reader” that should have been my clue that it was pretty good.

As an aside, I’m certain that his affinity for the books have nothing at all to do with the girl (one of my future DILs perhaps…my fingers are crossed!) who has been giving him reading assignments which have helped propel him through the book series.

I mean, the boy’s been staying up to read and reading on his own time…all to keep this girl from “yelling” (she’s not a yeller that I have ever seen, BTW) at him.

But again…I am CERTAIN she has nothing to do with his interest in the books…

I digress…

And while I do not find “Divergent” to be the finest piece of literature ever written, the story is thought-provoking and engaging.

Clearly…as it has been enough to keep me from you lovely people.

Not that I am all that far along in it (ok, true confession…I’m on chapter 29 out of 36)…but my spare moments have been spent reading instead of blogging.

I’m certain that you understand.

And now, with that matter of my humble little apology out of the way, I bring you my actual reason for writing.

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So…I saw on FB yesterday a video with this little experiment.

I found it interesting enough to share it with you lovely people…because I know how you love it when I do this. Because who doesn’t love little sciencey-type things with little to no practical application to daily life?

Preschool teachers, that’s who.

So yes, mostly I am thinking that my vast array of preschool-teaching friends will latch on to this; but I know my audience. I know that there are others out there who may want to try it. Just for funsies.

And still others may just find it interesting, whether they actually perform the experiment or not.

The rest of you can simply by-pass this whole thing altogether. You’ve already opened the file so it will count in my “views” so we’re all good there.

Because that’s what I live for.

Don’t judge.

Now, as opposed to all the other preschool-type activities I have done, there’s no cutesy name for it.

So if you can come up with one, I’d love to use it. Just submit your suggestions in the comments below…because I also live for comments.

Don’t judge.

Now because I have strung you along for a while (so you feel like you’re getting your full money’s worth from this post), I shall delve into the experiment.

It’s really quite simple…here’s what you need. You know that I don’t like to “assume” so instead I would venture to guess that most of you have all 3 of these ingredients in your home:

• Milk (whole works better but any other kind would work too, but to a lesser degree)
• Food coloring
• Dish soap
• A plate or pan or something to put the whole concoction in (and yes, I am ending my sentence with a preposition…don’t judge. As an aside, you seem to be very judgmental today…not your best side, I must admit.)

Begin by putting enough milk in the pan to cover the bottom, but the milk doesn’t need to be very deep.

Then put in a few drops of food coloring…I would use as many colors as you have so you can really see the reaction.

Make sure to spread them out, not clumping (yes it is a real word, in fact…no red squiggly line underneath it or anything) the drops all together.

Then put in 2-4 drops of liquid dish soap.

Sit back and watch the fun.

Now for those of you who want to know the why what happens happens (read that aloud if you need to…I know it looks odd, but I wrote what I meant to say right there; it makes sense, even if I’m getting all sorts of squiggly lines under it in Word), the best I can offer you is this explanation which someone typed under the original video I watched on FB.

And yes, I lifted it directly from her post, so any typos, grammatical errors, etc…don’t try to pin them on me. I’m not going down for them.

But this will at least give you a semblance of an idea of why this happens. She seems to know what she’s talking about and I’ve never known her to lie.

In fact, I’ve never really known her at all.

I think it has to do with the fact that dish soap has molecules that have hydrophobic "heads" and long hydrophillic "tails" and act as surfactants. The hydropobic heads will surround the fats from the milk; at the same time, the hydrophillic tails will mix with the watery part of the milk (and food coloring, which is water soluble). The dish soap will move around the surface of the milk and try to gather larger and larger pieces of milk fat together; as it does, the food coloring will mix together.

Oh…one more thing. I did take a video of our experiment. And since I do not have a Youtube account, I can’t post it here…because Blogger won’t let me.

At least, I can't figure out how to do it...which may or may not mean that Blogger "won't let me". I don't mean to disparage Blogger, but...

However, I won't leave you twisting in the wind entirely: you can see it on FB and Instagram…because contrary to what you may have guessed, I have stumbled upon out how to post video there.

Go figure.

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