Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-10 (Skunked Beer)

Hello! Friends; how you doing? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared with a bottle of beer; just kidding! But if your beer is skunking lately then don't forget to read this post.  

Attention beer lovers. We’re about to save you the trauma of losing anymore brews to skunking. It’s a miserable feeling when you’ve cracked open a cold one on a beautiful sunny day, only to take a sip and find out that it tastes and smells like a skunk’s behind. So what the heck happened to your once delicious beer, and how can you stop it from happening in again?

Skunking is a photo-chemical reaction. This means that is things are going down deep inside your beer at the molecular level. To understand the reaction that causes skunking, first you’ve got to get a sense of the chemical makeup of your beer and in particular, the things that give beers their distinct flavors. Hops and barley. These are the two  main ingredients that give beer its flavor, but when talking skunks, the culprit is the hops. During  the brewing process, hops are boiled and release bitter flavor compounds known as ISO-alpha acids. These alpha acids, when hit with sunlight, break down into free radicals that then get mixed up with proteins that have sulfur in them. That reaction that occurs then creates this putrid molecule, which is almost indistinguishable from the stuff in skunks behind. The worst part is that’s its insanely potent! People can detect this stuff when in concentrations as low as 1 part per billion. So in other words, if you  fill an Olympic sized swimming pool with beer, one    eye drop of this stuff would change the way it tasted. A skunked beer is also known as a ‘light-struck’ beer. Sounds dramatic, right? The best tip: Get rid of light, get rid of the skunk. Draft beers in glass cups should be kept in the shade as much as possible. If you notice, a lot of craft brews come in either aluminum cans or brown bottles. These two containers do the best at keeping light out of the picture, but brown glass can let in enough light over time to skunk your beer so keep that cooler lid shut! Some people say that you have to keep your beers out of the heat to stop them from being skunked. Well it’s time to debunk that myth. Heat and temperature changes don’t skunk beers. Instead, heat increases the rate of oxidation in the beer, which in turn can make your beer really a stale like cardboard, but that doesn’t mean it’s skunked. Even if it’s skunked no one out there likes to drink a hot stale beer anyways. So stick to  the shade and watch out where you’re storing your favorite beers if you want to keep them tasting good. So look folks, I don’t need to tell you, but I’m going to anyways, always drink responsibly. 

Alright all you life hackers out there, hope you enjoyed this new post of the Chemistry Life Hacks. Stay safe and enjoy your drinks. Thank you!

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-9 (Balanced Protein For Muscular Body)

 Alright readers it’s time to hit the gym. And if you’re trying to bulk up, you know you need protein to help build muscle. But how does that work? How much protein do you need? How much is too much? Ahhh it’s also confusing!

 First things first, there’s three different types of muscles; skeletal, cardiac and smooth. We’ll be talking about skeletal muscles. You know, biceps, triceps, quads, and so on. They’re the most adaptable tissues in the human body and can be molded through working out or … by sitting on the couch. The way you can build muscles is by … well, damaging them. Not real damage, like a major tear that will keep you on the side lines. When you do intense exercise like resistance training, little microtears occur in your muscles that need to be repaired. But before we talk about repair, we need to talk protein. Proteins are essential because they are made of amino acids, which are responsible for most of the reactions and processes in living cells. Your main source of amino acids is through proteins in your diet. Foods like meat, fish, eggs, and seitan are chockful of amino acids, some more so than others. After you eat protein, your body breaks it down into it’s amino acid parts. Which brings us back to your damaged muscles. The damage causes your body to string together amino acids into new proteins to repair the microtears. The damage also activates satellite cells, which are kind of like stem cells. The satellite cells flood the damaged area where they multiply, and fuse onto the muscle fibers to repair the strand and make it bigger and stronger. So here’s where your swole comes in. Muscle growth only occurs when you have enough amino acids to repair all the microtears, plus some extra left over. The extra amino acids can be used for further muscle growth, bulking you up. But if you don’t have enough amino acids, your muscles won’t heal, you won’t bulk up, and you’ll be more prone to injuries and muscle loss. To prevent that, you need to eat enough protein. So how much protein is that, you ask? Well it’s all relative. Gender, body size, body composition, age, and hormone levels all determine how much protein you need. Someone with amore muscular body that is pumping heavier iron will use more protein than someone who is smaller and just starting to work out. Women don’t gain muscle nearly as fast as men, because more testosterone means more muscle. But don’t start taking T just to bulk up. There can be serious consequences. It is recommended that you eat 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight to maintain muscle. For a 175 pound person, that would be 63 grams of protein per day. Not bad. However, some dietitians recommend up to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for athletes. Think Michael Phelps or Cam Newton. At 1.8g/kg, that 175 pound person would need to consume 143g of protein per day. Now that’s a lot of protein. To get 143 grams of protein you’d need to eat 24 eggs, or 4 chicken breasts or around 6 scoops of protein powder. This is why some athletes drink protein supplements. It gives them a lot of protein without having to eat as many calories. Still, it doesn’t have nutrients like vitamins, fiber, minerals and so on. So don’t depend on them completely. But when should you eat your protein? One study suggests that for young men, protein’s benefits max out at 20 grams after a workout. With that said, everyone’s different and there’s a lot of conflicting research out there. But you can’t just eat a whole bunch of protein and expect to hulk out. In fact, excess protein is metabolized into glucose and used for energy or stored as fat. So when you’re trying to bulk up, make sure to consult a specialist to get your protein consumption right. Have any science-backed workout tips that you swear by? 

That's it for today and good luck for your strong and muscular body. Did you take a balanced protein diet while doing work out?  Let us know in the comment section. And hey, thanks for reading. 

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-8 ( Stay Awake Sleepy Head)

 We’ve all hit that tough spot within the day when your brain’s given everything it's to offer but you don’t want to slam back another coffee because you really want to sleep in the dark. So here are some tips to urge back up at full speed without the caffeine jitters.

1. Watch a few Cat videos:- Here’s a tip you would possibly already follow through of habit. When you’re feeling tired, look no further than viral cat videos. Why cat videos? Because they’re nearly impossible to not enjoy, and pleasure is that the key here. Research has shown that watching cute videos featuring kittens and, yes, puppies too, improves your mood and temporarily boosts your attention to detail. Oxytocin and cortisol are both hormones that influence our body’s physiological response to emotion. Oxytocin can influence positive feelings of trust and connection, while cortisol may be a hormone linked to worry. Like spending time with a pet face to face, watching cute cat videos increases oxytocin levels in your brain, and reduces cortisol levels.

 
2. Chug a Glass of Water:- Sometimes there's no better boost than an enormous glass of normal old H2O. Not drinking enough water during the day can cause dehydration and dehydration can cause fatigue, to not mention more serious symptoms like confusion, heart palpitations, and fainting. The adult physical body is 50-65% water, and it’s your prerogative to stay those numbers consistent. We typically start getting thirsty when we’ve lost 2-3% of our body’s water, but believe it or not, it can affect you mentally and physically when you’ve lost only one percent. this is often because water may be a major component of the plasma in our blood. By the way, blood is pretty important because it transports oxygen, proteins and other nutrients your body needs. Dehydration stresses your body, raising its temperature and making your heart beat faster. this is often why you get fatigued when dehydrated. So bottoms up! 

3. Rise up and Dance to Your Favorite Song:- If you’re a touch groggy, placed on your favorite tune, get up, and dance like nobody’s looking. And if they're looking, whatever. you are doing you. Dancing and other sorts of exercise produces feel-good endorphins within the body, which reduce pain and help us feel happier and more energized. Pair that with the stimulating effects of singing along to your favorite jams and you'll probably convince your boss to throw a dance party. Taking note of your favorite songs activates the pleasure circuit in your brain, releasing even more feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. This chemical cocktail gives you a boost that can keep you nice and wide-eyed. 

4. Bath Yourself in Bright lights:- If you’ve been stuck performing at your desk all day and therefore the dance moves didn’t get you up and running again, it'd be time for a dose of bright light. Some research has shown an immediate connection between bright lights in general generate an alertness. Turning on bright lights activates neurons within the hypothalamus that release a neurotransmitter called hypocretin, or orexin. these things helps us stay awake and alert during the day. Getting out and taking a quick walk in the sun might just be all you need to make the day running smoothly. If these four tips don’t work for you, it’s probably time to bite the bullet…sometimes all there's to try to to is take a nap. 
If you feel like sleepy after reading this post, go ahead and try these tips on. Stay safe and enjoy your time with your coffee or whatever you like. These tricks mentioned above surely cheers you up without your tea or coffee.  That's it for today, Thank you folks!  

Chernobyl Tragedy (Nuclear Annihilation )

What's up folks? Today; lets get back to the past tragic incident of Chernobyl.

  On April 26, 1986 the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl Power Complex nuclear reactor 4 exploded. The explosion was caused by major fundamental flaws in the reactor design on top of a total disregard for protocol by some of the higher ranking people in charge, despite some serious reservations from more junior members of the staff. But before we get into all of that, let’s start at the beginning, with nuclear energy. 

Nuclear energy is created by splitting apart certain types of large isotopes, called fissile isotopes. Isotopes are variations of an element that have different numbers of neutrons, and some are more stable than others. A fissile isotope breaks apart when a neutron hits it, and even once in a while on its own. When it breaks apart, that’s called nuclear fission, and it’s the isotope’s way of trying to become more stable. When it does, kinetic energy that’s converted to heat is released. And that energy is ultimately what powers an electrical grid. So, why would we use nuclear energy and not just fossil fuels? Well, the energy released from one fission reaction is around a million times greater than the energy released when one fossil fuel molecule is burned. 

Now back to Chernobyl. There were many reasons Chernobyl exploded. To understand them let’s first take a look at how the reactor worked and how it was controlled. The Chernobyl RBMK-1000 reactor is a model specific to the former Soviet Union--it has never been used anywhere else. Nuclear power is considered safe--as long as protocols are followed, proper materials are used, and the reactor is designed to keep itself at a stable power level. All reactors in operation today have this design feature, but the reactors at Chernobyl didn’t. Like all modern reactors, Chernobyl used uranium-dioxide fuel enriched with uranium-235, an isotope of uranium that’s really prone to undergo fission. When uranium-235 is hit by a neutron it splits into two other atoms, plus 2-3 other neutrons. One of the atoms sometimes produced by uranium-235’s fission is Xenon-135, which played an important role in the accident. So we’ll get back to that shortly. Those 2-3 neutrons released are important because some go on to hit other atoms of uranium-235, continuing the chain reaction and continuing to create energy in the reactor. The RBMK-1000 reactor used large graphite blocks to moderate the speed of the neutrons, slowing them down by reducing their energy. Although it may sound counterintuitive, fast-moving neutrons are less likely to hit and break apart uranium-235, they simply whizz by too fast. By slowing them down it increased the chance that each neutron would hit uranium-235 and cause it to undergo fission, keeping the reaction going and releasing energy needed to heat water in the reactor. And that water is essential. The whole point of uranium-235 fission is to create enough energy to boil water in the reactor into steam. That steam is what spins the turbines that drive the electricity generators to power the electrical grid. 

Ok, so now we have a good idea of how we can keep a reactor generating energy, but what about if we want to slow it down or even stop it? The general way to slow down a reactor is to have fewer neutrons hitting and splitting apart uranium-235. And the way to do that is by having neutron absorbers. So, in addition to being used to create steam, water was also used in the reactor to act as a neutron absorber. Every element absorbs neutrons to some degree, even the hydrogen and oxygen in water. While each individual hydrogen and oxygen atom aren’t that likely to absorb neutrons, there is so much water in the reactor that combined, the water acts as a good absorber. If that water were to disappear, it would throw the neutron balance out of whack. Another absorber is xenon-135, the uranium-235 fission product we mentioned earlier. Xenon-135 is a very good absorber - one of the best of all the isotopes in the universe. Just a tiny bit can completely stop a nuclear chain reaction. And finally, boron carbide control rods. Boron carbide absorbs neutrons extremely well, slowing down the nuclear chain reaction. The RBMK-1000 reactor had over 200 of them, and they were moved in and out to decrease and increase the rate of fission. So, all of these things work together to keep fission going while still controlling it. Let’s, very briefly, turn to physics to explain why Chernobyl’s reactor was so different from the ones in operation today. Today’s nuclear reactors are designed to have a negative void coefficient, which might sound very complicated, but here’s the basic premise: it’s a negative feedback loop. If the water in a reactor starts to run low the reactor power drops so that it doesn’t get out of control. That was NOT the case with Chernobyl. To cut costs, the RBMK reactors were the only commercial reactors in the world designed with a positive void coefficient, which isa positive feedback loop. So, unlike other reactors, as water boiled into steam or leaked out and that void was created, instead of power decreasing, it increased, which caused more water to boil, more steam to form, and the cycle to continue. Ok, so, I’ll admit that there are a lot of things going on here, but we are about to bring them all together. 

What exactly happened the night of April 26,1986? Well the irony of that night was that they were actually doing a safety test on Chernobyl’s reactor 4. They wanted to see if, in the event that the reactor lost power, it could keep its own safety systems running until the backup generator kicked in. That safety test was, as you’d imagine, never completed. The safety test required that the nuclear reactor’s power be turned down, and it was, by lowering the control rods--but it was turned down below what normal operating protocol allowed. Turning it down so low was an issue because Xenon-135 was still being created and absorbing neutrons. Some Xenon-135 is unavoidable -- but you don’t want too much of it, because it can keep the power too low. And that’s what happened on the night of April 26, 1986. That night, the power was way too low, and they knew it. But because of all the xenon built up they were in a bind--the only way to raise the power was to start removing control rods, which are there to absorb neutrons and keep uranium-235 fission from happening too often. Under orders from shift supervisor and deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, the operators made the disastrous mistake of removing all but 8 of the over 200 control rods, in blatant violation of safety procedures. What they should have done was raise the power slowly and safely over the course of a couple days, to get it to a place where the things moderating and controlling the reaction were again balanced and there wasn’t a danger of too much pressure building. With the control rods out the power went up, but only slightly. And xenon continued to build, keeping reactor power low. The next step in the safety test was to shutdown the pumps that would normally be sending water through the reactor. Without that water, uranium fission increased, and without the control rods in, there was no stopping the next series of events. Power began to increase, and with that, water at the bottom of the reactor core boiled and turned to steam. With the water pumps shut down for the safety test no water rushed in to replace it. That positive void coefficient that we mentioned earlier was making things worse. And steam pressure was building in the reactor; too fast. As power shot up, at least one of the workers at Chernobyl responded as they were trained to--they hit the emergency shutdown button, which inserts all of the control rods at once to stop the reaction. But they were past the point of no return--too much pressure from the steam had built up. On top of that, when those control rods started to go in, they ran into another major design flaw. The tips of the control rods were made of graphite, which keeps uranium fission going. So before the control rods could help, that graphite made the power level sky-rocket. And, just moments later, the crazy amount of pressure that built up caused the reactor to explode. As it did, atmospheric oxygen rushed in and reacted with the hot graphite blocks. Graphite was now the fuel in a combustion reaction, causing a second, fiery, explosion. The damage of the immediate explosion was minor compared to what was to come. The world became aware of the events at Chernobyl when radiation was first noticed outside a reactor in Sweden--much of eastern Europe was being exposed to the radioactive cloud. The night of the explosion only two plant workers died, but over 200 people, many of whom were fire-fighters who eventually putout the fire, came down with acute radiation syndrome. Within 2 weeks, 28 of them were dead. Chernobyl serves as a reminder of what can happen when a safety culture becomes unhinged. In the words of the late Dr. Valery Legasov, a Soviet inorganic chemist and chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster, “I advocate the respect for human engineering and sound man-machine interaction. This is a lesson that Chernobyl taught us”. The ruins of the Chernobyl reactor now sit under a metal shell--but some of the radioactive isotopes under that shell and in the surrounding areas have a half-life in the tens of thousands of years, which means they’ll exist long after we, and dozens of generations after us, are gone. 

Read Also: Ammonium Nitrate - Common Fertilizer or A Dynamite?

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 7 (Sexy Chemistry)

Hello! Folks; What's up? How you doing? Today we are going to discuss about very important part about our life; definitely that is sex. Can you imagine life without sex? Or Can you exist without sex? Whatever! Chemistry has transformed the late night happenings of your bedroom and provided you the happy, romantic, satisfactory sex life. So we put together a list of four sexual innovations provided by chemistry just for you. 

1. Condoms:- Condoms, rubbers or whatever you want to call them, now those are a brilliant way to stop pregnancy at the source. They’re pretty cheap, pretty reliable, and protect you from not-so-sexy STDs. Most of you out there probably know that a majority condoms are made out of a stretchy polymer called latex. Polymers are large molecules that are made up of chains of smaller molecules called monomers. In case of latex, the monomer is isoprene. When used properly, condoms do a great job stopping these little guys from reaching their final destination. 

2. Lubricants:- Now, when using condoms, it’s always wise to have a bottle of lube nearby to smooth things out a little bit; too much friction can break a condom, which gives these guys free reign. Lubes come in a handful of forms, some water based, some oil based, and some silicone based. At the surface level, all of these lubes work the same way on any two surfaces that happen to be rubbing together. When two solid surfaces rub together, they have tons of super small imperfections that create friction. When a lubricant is applied, it produces a film between these two solid layers and removes immediate contact from the two imperfect surfaces, which smooth’s things out quite well. But be careful folks; the use of oil-based lubricants can lead to breakage in condoms because petroleum based products will consume latex. There are also some additives that go into lubes that give them certain sensations like warming. Simulating the sense of warmth on the skin is called thermoception. In most warming lubricants, glycerol is the main ingredient as it helps aid the ingredients that cause the heating sensation. Some warming lubes even contain capsaicin, a molecule found in hot peppers, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “spice up your sex life.” 

3. Pills (Plan B):-  Okay; so safe sex is always the way to go. Then there is Plan B; the morning after pill. This controversial form of emergency contraception route has lead to wide range of debate in society, but we’ll leave that aside for now and just get right into the chemistry of how it works. Plan B is actually a dose of a synthetic hormone called levonorgestrel. This hormone binds to the same protein receptors as other sex hormones like estradiol and progesterone, which aid in making women fertile, but instead, levonorgestrel interrupts ovulation or impairs the fertilization of egg cells. It is also thought that plan B might stop an already fertilized egg from adhering to the uterine inner wall, preventing embryonic development. 

4. Birth Control:- Chemist Carl Djerrasi was a forerunner of birth control in the 1950s. Djerrasi developed the first orally deliverable version of Progestin – a primary ingredient in all birth control methods. Progestin is the synthetic form of the body’s hormone progesterone. When combined with estrogen, these hormones can control a woman’s ovulation cycle and prevent egg release. The birth control pill, revolutionized the way that people get it on when it was approved by the FDA in the early 1960s. Djerrasi’s innovation in chemistry completely reconfigured the way society thinks about sex. 

Okay, that's it for today. We hope that you enjoy reading chemistry behind all these stuff you enjoy in your bedroom. Stay safe and enjoy your time with your loved ones. 

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 6 (Stinky Fish)

What's up folks? How you doing? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared with the stinky, rotten fish; wait rotten fish? Not really..

So let’s say you’ve got some fresh salmon in the back of the fridge. Or at least it was fresh a day or two days ago; before you totally forgot about it. Now you pull that pricey filet out, and get a nasty whiff of super-fishy stink. But don’t throw out that salmon! We’ve got some quick tricks to un-stinky our fish. First, here’s a short reviews of the chemistry behind the stinky smell. The cells of many fish have loads of an odorless chemical called trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO, plus lots of free amino acids. These amino acids give fish its sweet, savory flavor. But fish didn’t evolve extra-tasty cells just to make your sushi delicious. Their cells load up with these dissolved chemicals, called solutes, to prevent osmosis. Otherwise, fish cells shrivel up as water moved from an area with few solutes like a cell’s insides into an area with lots of solutes, like the salty ocean. Shriveled cells equals dead fish, well before it ever gets big enough to eat. When your salmon was first caught, it smelled fresh and clean. Then, the bacteria on it started breaking down TMAO into TMA, that’s trimethylamine. 

That distinct fishy aroma is an amine, which is an organic molecule, and it can evaporate, go up your nose, and make you smell fish. Amines are notoriously smelly- if you’ve ever had a whiff of decaying meat, that’s an amine. So let’s get rid of that stink with chemistry. Here are three tricks to make fish less fishy: When a fish finally gets to your fridge, bacteria on its surfaces have had a few days to churn out smelly TMA. We can’t tell you how to go back in time to stop those bacteria, but we can tell you this. 

1. Rinse off that stinky coating of bacteria and TMA by running cold tap water over your fish. Don’t use hot water, because it’ll cook your fish a little and you won’t get the same results when you whip up your best recipe. 

2. Pat dry and cook:- Soak your fish in milk for 20 minutes. Drain, pat dry, and cook. During the milk soak, a milk protein called casein binds to TMA and extracts it from the fish. When you pour off the milk, you’re pouring off that casein-bound TMA. If you’re out of milk, don’t despair! We have one more trick. 

3.Cook your smelly fish in acidic liquid, or dunk your cooked fish in acidic sauce. But not because you want to punish it! Remember that stinky TMA molecule? As we know that amine is basic, and if we introduce an acid to it, say lemon juice, or vinegar, or tartare sauce, the acid and base react and get neutralized. Acids and bases reacting make new products, something called an acid salt and water. The acid salt stays dissolved in the water, so the stink is contained. And if you can’t smell it, you don’t taste it either. Thanks chemistry! With these tricks, you can turn your stinky fish into tasty delish, and stop throwing out still-good salmon. But chemistry can’t protect you from truly rotten fish. The FDA recommends eating refrigerated fish within 48 hours, so don’t forget your Friday fillets until Monday. 

Alright all you life hackers out there, hope you enjoyed this new post of the Chemistry Life Hacks. Stay safe and enjoy your fish.

Hand Sanitizer-squeeze-bottle heroes (Friend during pandemic Coronavirus )

You know that the best way to prevent the spread of corona virus is to wash your hands or sanitize your hand with sanitizer. So, now sanitize your hand or wash out your hand and lets get ready to know about the hand sanitizer; a little friend of yours or we can say a tiny bodyguard for now.

 Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are the ubiquitous little squeeze-bottle heroes of airports and hospitals, our allies against the flu and supposedly effective against all the items that all. But what’s in there? And is it true that they kill 99.99% of germs, as popular brands claim? Most hand sanitizers are alcohol-based. The active ingredient is around 70% alcohol, depending on the formulation. The alcohol are often either ethanol, which is the same stuff that’s in your booze of choice; isopropanol, the things in rubbing alcohol; or n-propanol, rubbing alcohol’s chemical sibling. All of them just about work an equivalent way, which is by dissolving the outer coats of bacteria and viruses and basically exploding them. Alcohol is polar, with water-loving hydroxyl groups. And it likes to disrupt the protein and lipid molecules that structure both bacterial membranes and viral envelopes. When those all-important outer coats fall apart, these disease-causing culprits literally spill their guts everywhere the place, leaving them in no position to form anyone sick. But what about people that never touch hand sanitizer because it'll breed un-killable super-germs which will kill us all? That’s a legitimate concern with antibiotics, which are chemicals that focus on some specific point during a bacterium’s life cycle. The antibiotics in antimicrobial hand soap can cause the emergence of bacterial strains that are resistant and harder to kill. But resistance isn’t really a drag with alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Bacteria can’t develop resistance to having their proteins and membranes blasted. So these alcohol-based hand rubs aren’t going to prevent working? Confirm they're alcohol-based, though some contain antibiotics rather than alcohol, and people do carry the danger of resistance. But alcohol and water alone don't make goo. It’s alcohol that does the germ-murdering, but there’s other stuff in there too. The biggest one is glycerol. Glycerol is chemically an alcohol, but unlike its cousins, it’s in there to not kill germs but to offer the hand sanitizer its gooey consistency that makes it more portable and easier to use. Otherwise it’d be like pouring vodka on your hands. Don’t pour vodka on your hands, guys. Alcohol, water, and glycerol are all you really need to form a DIY hand sanitizer. contribute some peroxide to inactivate bacterial spores, and you’ve got a recipe that gets the U.N.’s seal of approval. But while alcohol is all you would like to kill germs, it’s not all that goes in there. Ethanol and isopropanol can dry your skin. Glycerol helps counteract that effect, but so do a number of other additives manufacturers might put in. This often includes tocopherol acetate, a molecule almost like vitamin E that also happens to be great for your skin, and some familiar stuff like aloe. A number of colors and fragrances might also go in there. None of these are necessary for the hand sanitizer to work, but they could make your hands smell nice. Ethanol-based hand sanitizer may additionally contain bitter or bad-tasting compounds to prevent the tiny percentage of desperate people out there who are willing to drink it because, well, it’s alcohol. So do these chemical goo recipes really kill 99.99% of germs? Those numbers are usually the results of lab testing. But real world is messier and therefore the effectiveness of hand sanitizer varies based on how oily or dirty your hands are, what proportion of alcohol is in there, and which germs you’re actually talking about. Under ideal conditions, some disease-causing germs really do get zapped at that rate, but others don’t. And another thing, hand sanitizers work best together with hand washing, because they don’t physically remove dirt and gunk from your hands. So don’t forget that soap and water. Are you usually packing hand sanitizer whenever you go? Whatever it kill coronavirus or not; just don't forget that using sanitizer reduces the chance of infection. So, that's all for today. Stay safe guys!

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks-5 (Liar Oven? Sharp Knife)

Hello! Friends; how you doing? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared.

How To Make Sure Your Oven Isn't A Liar:- You’ve been trying to get that special family recipe right in the oven, but even when you follow step for step, it never seems to come out cooked to perfection. If you don’t have a thermometer on hand to make sure oven is pumping out the right levels of heat, here’s a quick tip to help you figure out if that dial is telling the truth. First set your oven to a crisp 180°C. While you wait for it to heat up, take two pieces of aluminum foil and fold them over into little miniature, makeshift pans. Now that you have your pans, add one spoonful of table sugar to each of them. When the oven is up to temp, put the first sample of sugar in for 15 minutes. When done, pull the sugar out, and reset your oven temperature to 190°C and give it some time to catch up. Once ready, place your second sample of sugar in the oven and give it another 15 minutes. If your oven is properly calibrated, your first sample of sugar should be stay white and granulated and the second one, nicely browned and melted. If both are browned, your oven reaches a higher temperature than you set it for, if both are still white, your oven isn’t getting as hot as you think. Regular table sugar is 99% sucrose which is usually extracted from sugarcane or sugar beats. Both of your table sugar samples begin to break down and decomposed through a chemical transformation process called caramelization, and in addition to caramelization, sucrose melts at a steady 186C (367F), that sweet spot between our two oven temperature experiments. So sweet - now you know if your oven is a little hot, a little cool, or right on the money.

How To Sharpen Your Knife Without A Sharpener:- You’ve got yourself a pile of tomatoes to cut up but that knife of yours just isn’t cutting it today. You open the drawer, can’t find your knife sharpener, so now what are you going to do? This hack has you looking no further than your dishware. Take a porcelain plate and put it upside down on the counter. Notice how there is a circle of rough porcelain that hasn’t been glazed over where the plate usually touches the surface of your table. Take your dull blade and slide it in one direction at a 20° angle against this rough edge of porcelain. Keep repeating on both sides of the blade several times. Rinse your knife afterwards, and get back to cutting. A stainless steel knife is sharp because of the way that the blade tapers down into a tight point. Now that tight point isn’t perfect, and there are little tiny fragments of steel that push outward, and act sort of like teeth on a saw. This is why pushing a knife straight down into food doesn’t cut as well as using a pulling or pushing motion The bottoms of a ceramic plate, bowl, or even coffee cup are actually hard enough offer a good temporary solution to both true your blade’s edge, that is, make it as straight as possible, and also remove some surface steel to create a refreshed edge. Best of all you can then use the plate for your food.

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 4 (Enjoy your Drink)

What's up Folks? Are you doing well? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared.

1. Chill Your Beer:-  You want to drink a chilled beer right now but the beer is too hot, so here’s a quick tip to get those beers down to blissful frosty goodness in no time at all. Take a bucket and fill it with water. Then, add a whole bunch of salt. Go ahead, just twist the lid off the salt-shaker and dump it all in there. Then, when the salt is dissolved in the water, add a whole lot of ice. Swish it around, stick your beers in there and they’ll be chilled in under 20 minutes. When salt molecules are dissolved in water, they have the ability to significantly reduce its freezing point. Normally, when water freezes at 0°C, its molecules begin to crystalize and form ice. Salt molecules interrupt this development, which means the water will cool lower than its normal freezing point. With beer cans fully submerged, the entire surface area is covered by freezing cold water, which means it will cool faster than just being on ice. Enjoy your drink. 

2.Gnat a Problem:- Fruit flies have been buzzing around the kitchen and you’ve come to realize that there are few and far things in this life as annoying. It’s time to make a change and move on to a fruit fly free existence. Here’s what you do. Take a small dish and pour a little bit of apple cider vinegar in it. Then, add a couple drops of dish soap. Put the dish near the fruit fly fiasco, and wrap the top tightly with saran wrap. The final step is to poke several holes in the saran wrap lid, to keep the flies from flying out when they enter. Those little guys are very much attracted to the scent of vinegar. This is because their larvae feed on bacteria that grow in fermenting environments. Then that addition of dish soap breaks the surface tension of the vinegar. So in other words, when a fly steps into the trap and checks out the vinegar, it falls right in, rather than being propped up by the surface tension of the vinegar. 

3. Holy Burgers:- You want to be the grill master of year, but you can’t seem to get your burgers right. Either they’re too pink in the middle, or you’ve gone overboard and burnt them to a crisp. Good news for you, we’ve got a technique for the prefect burger, without any health risks. When you squish your patties together, poke a quarter-sized hole right in the middle. When you grill this style of patty, it will cook evenly throughout. Every tiny bit of ground beef in that patty may have potentially been exposed to germ and bacteria. So when cooked, you got to get everything up to a safe 160 degrees Fahrenheit. As your grilling your burgers the browning patties are going through a tasty chemical transformation known as a Maillard reactions. When food is heated a reaction occurs between sugars and amino acids that gives cooked food its color and its excellent flavor. So by poking those holes in the patties, you open up the center of the burger for more equally spread heat, which means that they’ll cook faster inside, without the unnecessary charring outside. And the best part, is the hole will close up when it’s fully cooked. 

4. Stink Sponge Syndrome:- There’s no doubt about it, you’ve gotta keep those dishes clean, but half the time you wonder to yourself what’s the point when your kitchen sink smells like mildew all the time. That sponge of yours reeks, and it’s time to do something about it! Here’s a quick fix. Double up your sponges. Use one for the first half of the day, and the other for the second half. After every time you use a sponge, it’s important to thoroughly rinse it with water and let it dry before future use. With two sponges, you can always be certain to start with a dry sponge. You see, when your sponge stinks, it’s due to certain odorous chemicals that are produced by bacteria that thrive in wet environments. If you do your best to keep the sponge dry, chances are high that you won’t suffer from Stinky Sponge Syndrome any longer. 

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 3 Baking Soda

Hello ! everybody; this is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. 

This time around, we’re talking sodium hydrogen carbonate, otherwise known as baking soda the ultimate, chemical multi-tool. 

1. STINK FREE FRIDGE:- Want to do something about that stink coming from your fridge? Get a box of baking soda, crack the top open and stick it in there. When food spoils, they start producing volatile, acidic and basic aroma compounds that linger and can even effect the way other foods taste in the fridge. Baking soda is amphoteric, it reacts with both acids and bases. This means that it will dampen the fridge odor by absorbing a lot of volatile compounds floating around, ultimately breaking them down into other not-so-stinky compounds. 

2. SKUNK SPRAY SOLUTION:- Your dog just got skunk sprayed. That’s a problem. Here’s a solution. Mix one quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide with one quarter cup of baking soda and two teaspoons of liquid hand soap. Lather that pooch up with the stuff, let it sit for five minutes and rinse with warm water. Skunk spray contains super stinky sulfur compounds called thiols that aren’t water soluble. Baking soda acts as a catalyst that helps the hydrogen peroxide oxidize these thiols, ultimately turning them into water soluble, stink-free sulfonates that rinse right off. 

3. CONVENIENT HOME CLEANER:- Here’s a  quick tip to make an awesome DIY home cleaner. Take a cup of baking soda and sprinkle a thin layer into the bottom of the pan. Stick it into the oven and set it at four hundred degrees, and pull it out a half hour later. When baking soda is heated up at high temperatures, it breaks down into another really alkaline compound called washing soda. Washing soda can be used in the wash to enhance laundry detergent, can be used as a cleaning solutions for bathrooms and kitchens, and in particular is great at dissolving grease. 

4. CLEVER QUICK BREAD:- Looking to bake some quick bread, but all out of baking powder? Here’s a tip to make it yourself with ingredients already up on your shelf. Mix one teaspoon of baking soda with two teaspoons of Cream of tarter. This mixture is the equivalent of four teaspoons of baking powder. Baking soda is basic while cream of tarter is acidic. These two compounds when mixed become a single-acting chemical leavener. This means that they’ll begin producing carbon dioxide when introduced to moist environment. So you’ve got to get that bread baking quick, to let it rise in the oven. Alright all you life hackers out there, hope you enjoyed this fourth installment of the Chemistry Life Hacks. 

Ammonium Nitrate - Common Fertilizer or A Dynamite?

On August 4, a major fire broke out in a Port of Beirut warehouse and spread to 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which had been impounded and stored for six years after it was seized from an abandoned ship in 2014. Yes, the common fertilizer ammonium Nitrate was exploded. How do fertilizers which we often think of as just natural elements good for the earth, explode so violently and considered as more dangerous than dynamite. Let's begin with slightly background on fertilizer itself.

Plants need a few of basic nutrients to grow and most of them are found within the air and water things like oxygen, carbon and hydrogen. Of course; they also need another elements which will or might not be rich in the soil they grow in that's where fertilizer comes in. It packs the dirt with the secondary elements needed to form a plant flourish. One of the main components in manufactured fertilizer is ammonium nitrate. Atmospheric nitrogen has a really strong chemical bond that plants can't easily break. So fertilizer companies create a nitrogen-based substance that's much easier for plants to take apart. Ammonium nitrate is one such compound and it's used for good reason. The ammonium part sticks around longer without evaporating. So it's great for decent summer fields and the nitrate is easily used by plants. Even more compelling within the agricultural industry, it's inexpensive to manufacture. You mix ammonia and nitric acid and you're done but what makes nitrate capable of such lethal explosions? Surprisingly, not much truly ammonium nitrate is a comparatively stable compound. In other words, when it's just sitting quietly somewhere ammonium nitrate isn't that big of a problem because it needs a relatively high energy of activation. The energy needed to cause a reaction to explode. However if an accident where some quite detonation sort of a spark or some kind of energy occurs you better believe that nitrate is deadly. The compound essentially makes its own fuel from the ammonium and oxidizer from the nitrate. 

So its reaction is violent and long lasting. Once a reaction is sparked ammonium nitrate explodes violently. The explosive force occurs when solid ammonium nitrate decomposes very rapidly into two gases nitrous oxide and water vapor. Quite 100 people were killed and nearly 4 000 people were injured on August 4th during a massive explosion in Lebanon's capital Beirut. The explanation for the explosion was due to 2 700 tons of ammonium nitrate which was stored for 6 years in the warehouse of the port. The impact was felt 200 kilometers radius leading to a huge 3.5 magnitude earthquake. 

For More: Chernobyl Tragedy (Nuclear Annihilation )

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 2 Cleaning chemistry

  You run out of your go-to cleaner, the store is a little too far away, but you just can’t let that mess sit. All the more reason to get yourself acquainted with these masterful  chemistry cleaning hacks to help keep your house looking sparkly, with all the evidence you need to back it up. 

1. Windows Cleaner:- This time around you realized you ran out of that blue stuff and those windows aren’t going to shine themselves. Here’s the trick, take your empty bottle of glass cleaner and add 2 cups of water, ½ a cup of vinegar, and ¼ cup of 70% concentrate rubbing alcohol. Put the lid back on the sprayer and have at those windows. Vinegar is a fantastic cleaner. It’s mostly water and acetic acid. The acetic acid is the the secret behind its cleaning capacity. Acetic acid sits at 2.4 on the pH scale, VERY acidic. Because of the acidity, vinegar can eat away at mineral deposits that have found their way onto your windows from moisture and dust in the air. But adding that rubbing alcohol to your mix makes a big difference. Alcohol dissolves greasy dirt, like fingerprints, really well. So the vinegar chomps up the grit while the alcohol sops up the grease, leaving your windows nice and clear. 

2. Red to White:-  It’s party time and the red wine has hit you as hard as it’s about to hit the white carpet you’re standing on. Spilling red wine seems like a doomsday party foul, but don’t panic, there’s some chemistry for that. First thing to remember when dealing with red wine stains is to act fast. Run and grab a bottle of the nearest high proof, clear liquor. Vodka, gin, or white rum will work. No, don’t drink it. Take the liquor and keep applying it to the stain, while soaking it up with a rag or paper towel until it’s all gone. Red wine is red because of several pigments such as anthocyanins, which are alcohol soluble. So when you pour on a higher concentration of alcohol, the colors dissolve into that, rather than drying up in the carpet. As you continue to apply more alcohol, the Red color dilutes, and can be soaked up With all the excess alcohol in the rag. Finish it off with some nice plain water, then grab yourself some water too to stave off that hangover.. 

3. Spit On it:-  So here’s a tip that may seem a little counter intuitive when it comes to cleaning. If you’ve got a little bit of a hardened food stain on a countertop or hard floor, you can use your own spit to help get the stuff up. Inside your saliva is an enzyme called amylase that’s used as one of the first steps of digestion in your body. Amylase speeds up the process of breaking down starches into easier to deal with, simpler sugars. You may have noticed when you eat certain starchy foods like potatoes or crackers, they have a slightly sweet taste when you chew them. This is amylase in action, and this same principle can be used to break down food spills into easier to rinse parts.. 

We hope you liked this post of Daily life Chemistry  Hacks and there’s gonna’ be plenty more to come. And if you have any tips of your own feel free to comment them our way and we’ll put them into upcoming posts. Thank You.

Daily Life Chemistry Hacks- 1

Hello ! everybody; this is our first post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. 

1. How to Save A Cookies:- You ate way too many, way too fast, passed out on the couch and left the cookies out. Now they’re rock hard, unappetizing, and spoiled your plans to spoil your diet. No problem! Here’s a little trick that’s been passed down for generations. If you put your cookies in a tin or large Ziploc bag with a piece of bread, and they will be as soft as they were when they came out of the oven. Cookies contain far more sugar than bread. Sugars are known to be hygroscopic – that is, they soak up moisture from the surrounding environment. This, along side the dense nature of cookies, allows them to absorb moisture coming from that piece of bread, keeping them nice and soft for a much longer period of time. 

2. Coffee and Salt:- You’re buying the best roast in town, but no matter what you do, your coffee always ends up bitter. Well, chances are you’re brewing with water that’s too hot. The hotter the water, the deeper the extraction from your beans, and the more bitter compounds end up in your brew. So we’ve got an excellent trick for you so you don’t have to worry about becoming a barista to get it right. A tiny little pinch of salt can save you from the bitterness. So if your coffee is bitter, just try it out and taste a world of difference. When salt dissolves, sodium ions break off into the coffee and block bitter molecules from reaching your tongue, greatly enhancing the flavor. Don’t have salt available at your neighborhood coffee shop? Just keep a couple of these in your purse or wallet and you’ll do just fine.

3.  Iron-rust and Coke:- So you didn’t feel like doing dishes after breakfast and threw your cast iron skillet into the sink. When you get home, the thing is covered in rust and you can’t bare to scrub it with a scouring pad for a half hour. Good news for you : open your fridge and grab that two liter of coke. Coke has an ingredient called orthophosphoric acid that's wont to add a sour punch to the super sweet beverage. Funny thing is that this chemical is also used industrially as a rust and tarnish remover! The Phosphoric acid present in the coke converts typical hard to clean, iron oxide rust into blackish ferric phosphate that can easily be scrubbed right off. Go ahead, try it for yourself. 

4. Brown Bagging Bananas:- You’re starving for some bananas but all they had at the store was a bunch of bright green ones. Bananas can take a day or two to ripen, but here is a quick tip to get them up to standard really, really quick. Put your bananas in a paper bag and throw a couple ripe tomatoes in there. The bananas, depending on how green they were to start, will ripen twice as fast. This is because of a plant hormone called ethylene that is used to make fruits ripen faster. When you place ripe tomatoes in the bag with the bananas, the bag traps in the ethylene gas that is produced by the already ripen tomatoes, which in turn forces the bananas to ripen much faster. Also, the riper the bananas get, the more ethylene they produce. 

We hope you liked this first post of Daily life Chemistry  Hacks and there’s gonna’ be plenty more to come. And if you have any tips of your own feel free to comment them our way and we’ll put them into upcoming posts.