So today in class Prof. Didem brought in halva, a delicious dessert that contained walnuts. Fortunately, I do not have to constantly check labels to make sure they are “nut free” but when I babysit I have to constantly look … Continue reading
Going off of Houda’s awesome post, I looked into browning. Not being very handy around a kitchen myself, I had always though of “browning” as the undesirable decomposition of foods, especially fruits and vegetables. It turns out that the desirable … Continue reading
Based on the title, you can probably tell that I really love Pringles. You may as well! But, after our short introduction to carbohydrates in class today and talk about Pringles, you may have changed your mind about it since. … Continue reading
With inspiration from the delicious sweets from today’s class, I decided to look into another carbohydrate reaction that makes for sweet desserts: caramelization. Caramelization apparently is the result of the decomposition of more complex carbohydrates (ex. sucrose) into simpler sugars … Continue reading
In the chemical engineering lab that I just started working in this semester, we are working to find biosynthetic hydrogels/polymers for the human body. There are several gel ideas that are currently being tested in the lab and they are … Continue reading
We’ve discussed the chemistry behind and hair curl and perms a few times, but I started wondering about some of the less-permanent hair styling options out there. A hair “perm” is so-called because it is permanent: a strong reducing agent … Continue reading
In class (…yesterday? Oh dear, I should probably go to bed), we mentioned that the mechanism behind perming one’s hair involved breaking and reforming disulfide bonds. On the flip side, there are many treatments that tackle the problem of hair … Continue reading
On my way to the airport from home, my brother, father and I had actually been talking about 3D printing. While my father was getting gas for the car, my brother and I realized we didn’t really know how it … Continue reading
After catching a cold this week, I began searching for remedies that could shorten the duration of my symptoms. I found the usual suggestions- sleep, drink water, take vitamin c, and eat a balanced meal. However, I surprisingly came across … Continue reading
We’ve been talking about thiols and disulfide bonds a lot lately and it’s been super useful for my research. I rely a lot on thiol reactions in my research since thiols stick really well to gold. Sulfur-gold reactions are semi-covalent, … Continue reading