Makin' Butter

We wish you a geeky Christmas, and a happy New Year!

About five years ago, my brother-in-law shared with us the tradition of making butter by hand to serve at Thanksgiving dinner. We each got our little jar of heavy cream with a bit of salt added, and sat shaking the darn things for 1-2 hours while we watched a movie. I like the final product well enough, but wanted to find a better way.

After some successful but labor-intensive experiments involving a backpack and a treadmill, I hit on the perfect solution: repurposing the rock tumbler as a butter churn.

You will need: a rock tumbler, a container that fits on it relatively well, and a small washable clean something (we used a small silicone condiment bowl) to use as a paddle. Also heavy cream, a bit of salt, and any other flavorings you'd like to add. (Ideas: truffle oil, herbs, honey...)  Take care not to buy sweetened cream!

The container shown here is from Gatorade powder.



Put your cream (with some room to slosh) and your butter paddle into the container, seal it tight, and put it on the rock tumbler.

 

 

If you have trouble finding a container that fits, you can use a glass jar placed in the rock tumbling barrel:










Keep checking the container, and soon you will have butter!  (You will have to dig out your butter paddle.)  Enjoy.

An Amazing Puzzle

By far one of the niftiest things I've found on the Internet recently:
Play Auditorium

Here's the level where I got stuck on my first attempt:

Art and Motorcycles, Part III

See earlier installments:
Motorcycles Part I: Making Motorcycles
Motorcycles Part II: Making Motorcycles Out of Cutlery

And now Motorcycles Part III: Dancing with Motorcycles



As far as I can glean from Ye Olde Internet, this was a motorbike show performed by Italian policemen in 1953.

Goodbye, princess

It is with deep sorrow that I share the news of the death of my cat, who has been a loving and sweet companion to me for thirteen years.

The Limerick Game, Part Two

See here for our earlier installment.

Some of the best lately:

July 22 - July 29

The princess of fairy tale lore
Slept on peas ‘neath her bed, but no more.
Since discovering them there,
In her ears and her hair,
"Henceforth, only futons!" she swore.

21 Dec. 2007 – 15 Jan. 2008

On the twelfth day of Christmas, she said,
“Are there MORE days of Christmas ahead?
All those pipers and rings
That the holiday brings…
Make me just want to go back to bed.

21 March 2008 (my favorite)

It seems that I never do learn
Why despite all the money I earn
My savings keep dwindling.
I can just afford kindling
Which means I have money to burn.

Beep

This stained glass piece took me five hours, from conception to completion. I am still practicing my soldering technique - some of the seams are practically perfect, but still some are lumpy. The clear glass was salvaged from an old ("antique") window frame. The design and title were inspired by one of the dot cartoons from Sesame Street, recently jogged in my memory after watching some old school Sesame Street on DVD.

Science Geek Humor

Courtesy of my Dad, my favorite engineer:

Understanding Engineers - Part One

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The second engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."


Understanding Engineers - Part Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.


Understanding Engineers - Part Three

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.

The engineer fumed, "What's with those blokes? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!" The priest said, "Here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."

He said, "Hello, George! what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group fell silent for a moment.

The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?

Breaking the Rule of Five

There are several reasons why this piece is significant:

* it is the first piece I made completely in my own studio
* I assembled the first half of the piece while I was in labor
* the blue glass is all leftovers from repairing the stained glass skylight in my house
* some of the blue glass is new, and some is over one hundred years old! (It is a perfect match in color but not in texture.)

Extra credit to those who can deduce why it is called "Breaking the Rule of Five" Click on the photo for an enlarged version for closer examination.

Special thanks to Dan Gamaldi at Cradle of the Sun for his help with the frame!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I can't think of anyone who needs to memorize square root approximations anymore, except perhaps carpenters and math tutors, but here's a trick I learned from a student ten years ago - for those of you who like kickin' it old school!

The Giggle Game

SAT prep for fun and rice

Use your brains to help others:
get started!

Yvie's smile

Finally, after being thwarted for eight weeks, we manage to capture the mega-smile!

Merry Christmas from Yvie

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night's sleep!

Baby Science Part 2: Lipase

When Yvie was about a month old, I started pumping milk so I could build up a frozen supply. The books all say that breastmilk stays fresh for about 4-6 days in the fridge, but it seemed that mine went sour much faster, usually in less than 24 hours. By the time I made this discovery, two months of diligent pumping had gone by, and I ended up having to trash my whole frozen supply of milk, as it had all spoiled before being frozen.

I figured the problem was:

a) the containers the milk was stored in
b) the sterilization of the pump
c) the conditions of the fridge
d) my bad habit of storing milk in the pump (not airtight) overnight

"Maybe it's you," my husband joked, after I established an elaborate scientific process to test each of the possibilities. None of the conditions I listed seemed to explain the problem.

Turns out my husband was right. Some women produce an excess of the enzyme lipase in their breastmilk. Lipase is responsible for breaking down fats during digestion - we all have it in our bodies and all breast milk has some to make the fats easier for baby to digest. My milk had so much of it, the fat in the milk was being digested in the first six hours after it was pumped, before it got to the baby or to the freezer.

The solution, fortunately, is fairly simple: scald the milk before storing it, and the lipase is inactivated. The drawback to this is that some of the immunological properties of the milk are also killed off during scalding. This would be more of a problem if I were relying on pumped milk for full-time feeding, but since Yvie only gets a bottle once at day at the most, I am not concerned about it. Since I started scalding milk, I notice it separates less and reconstitutes much more easily than it did before. And it no longer tastes sour, soapy, or metallic, even when it's a day or two old.

Yvie has been complaining about my reintroducing bottle feeding after almost three weeks off, but I am bigger than she is and I have more stubborn in me, so gradually she is getting used to having a bottle once a day. I breath a sigh of relief knowing that I will be able to leave her with Papa or with a sitter for more than two hours at a time.

Inspiring Glass/Mixed Media Art

Check out this cool project! This is the work of Crystal Schenk.
Link to Schenk's work at Sculpture.org

Anyone know where I can get an antique shopping cart?

Baby Science Part 1: Jaundice

Baby has jaundice, so I have learned a little more about it in the last few days. In the womb, babies need a really good oxygen supply so their blood is really thick with red blood cells. After birth, the blood needs to be thinner in order to flow into the smaller capillaries. (That's why newborns have bluish/cold feet and hands for the first few days of life.) As the red blood cells break down, a byproduct called bilirubin is produced, which is what makes the skin and eyes yellow. It is very common for newborns to have jaundice. At high enough levels, bilirubin can cause brain damage.

Bilirubin can be removed from the body in two ways - it can be processed by the liver and excreted, or it can be broken down by light through the skin. A newborn's liver is typically immature and cannot handle the large amount of bilirubin that is produced after birth, so one form of treatment is to feed the baby frequently (every two hours or so) to get the liver excreting waste (including bilirubin) more quickly.

The second form of treatment involves exposing the baby to light, often in a hospital setting in a light box. We did home phototherapy with our little one, as seen above as she napped in a sunny spot by the window. Her jaundice peaked on day four of life, and after a lot of sun time her levels were well past danger by five days old. Her eyes are still a little yellowish, but her skin tone is much more pink today.

Project Mini-Me (Latest Construction Project)

Look what we made! Yvie Rae was born Wednesday morning. (Pronounced "E.V.")

My mother says all newborns fall into two categories: the ones that look like Abe Lincoln and the ones that look like George Washington. So, is Yvie an Abe or a George?

Nursery Mural

Yikes, it's been a long long time. My life has been more about art than science, since chemistry class ended in May, so this is what I have to show for my absence of the last few months. I found a photo online of a quilt, which was based on a Tiffany stained glass design, which I modified (to fit the proportion of the wall and accommodate the crib) and freehanded. It took me about 20 hours, I think, since I listened to the new Harry Potter audiobook from start to finish.

My Brush with Science Fame

Every science geek's wet dream? Sighting Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters in Trader Joe's this morning? I didn't speak to him. He tries not to make eye contact with people. On the show he comes across as intimidating, but maybe he's just shy....