Anatomy of an Egg - Exploratorium
Shell. Bumpy and grainy in texture, an eggshell is covered with as many as 17,000 tiny pores. Eggshell is made almost entirely of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) crystals.It is a semipermeable membrane, which means that air and moisture can pass through its pores.
Build a Solar System Model | Exploratorium
One of the most exciting exercises I ever did as a kid was to make a scale model of the Solar System. Most of the pictures in my books made the distance between planets seem small and easy to travel.
Secret Language: Cryptography & Secret Codes | Exploratorium
Download the PDF file containing the cipher wheels.; Copy and cut out the two wheels. Place the smaller wheel on top of the larger wheel and rotate them so your "key letter" on the small wheel is beneath the "A" of the large wheel.
Your Weight on Other Worlds - Exploratorium
Mass and Weight. Before we get into the subject of gravity and how it acts, it's important to understand the difference between weight and mass.. We often use the terms "mass" and "weight" interchangeably in our daily speech, but to an astronomer or a physicist they are completely different things.
A Brief History of Pi (π) - Exploratorium
Learn about the long and rich history of π. Pi (π) has been known for almost 4000 years—but even if we calculated the number of seconds in those 4000 years and calculated π to that number of places, we would still only be approximating its actual value.
Science of Eggs: Egg Science | Exploratorium
Egg proteins change when you heat them, beat them, or mix them with other ingredients. Understanding these changes can help you understand the roles that eggs play in cooking. Proteins are made of long chains of amino acids. The proteins in an egg white are globular proteins, which means that the long protein molecule is twisted and folded and curled up into a …
What is Polynesia? - Exploratorium
Polynesia—from the Greek for "many islands"—is a collection of over 1,000 islands strewn over a broad region of the Pacific Ocean known as the Polynesian triangle.
Photosynthetic Floatation | Exploratorium
Make a 0.1% bicarbonate solution by mixing 0.5 grams baking soda with 2 cups (500 mL) water. Add a few drops of liquid dish soap to this solution and mix gently, trying to avoid making suds in the solution.
Agar Cell Diffusion | Exploratorium
All biological cells require the transport of materials across the plasma membrane into and out of the cell. By infusing cubes of agar with a pH indicator, and then soaking the treated cubes in vinegar, you can model how diffusion occurs in cells. Then, by observing cubes of different sizes, you can discover why larger cells might need extra help to transport materials.
Science of Bread: Bread Science 101 - Exploratorium
Yeast. Yeast, on the other hand, is a live, single-celled fungus. There are about 160 species of yeast, and many of them live all around us. However, most people are familiar with yeast in its mass-produced form: the beige granules that come in little paper packets.