Archive for June, 2021
Squids out of water seeking escape from vicious double-jawed eels
Posted by mark in Nature, Uncategorized on June 23, 2021
Two science reports on squids caught my eye today. On the one hand, the New York Times informed me that “When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray”. It’s not so funny for the squid who get sucked down off of dry land by creatures with two jaws—an outer one to seize their prey and an inner one that leaps forward to drag it deeper. That’s really creepy. If you have a strong stomach, check out this video by Rita S. Mehta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She and her colleague report all the gory experimental details in this month’s Journal of Experimental Biology.
The second bit of news about squids—this one from Complex—seems a bit cheerier: NASA Launches Dozens of Baby Squid Into Space for Experiment. Learn more about this mission by University of Florida researcher Jamie Foster here. Check out the video of the cute little baby squids. Far out!
PS: Heads up: Squids can fly, as detailed in this January 2021 TED-Ed video:
Marshmallows and s’mores—an underappreciated wonder of food science
My family gathered around a campfire recently to enjoy s’mores—a tasty sandwich made with graham crackers, milk chocolate bars and marshmallows.
The trickiest part of putting together these calorific concoctions is the roasting. I prefer sticking my marshmallows in just the right place where they turn golden brown. Others just go for the burn and blow out the flames quickly enough to keep the ashes from overwhelming the gooey sweetness. Either way, most s’more fans take their marshmallows for granted, never realizing their precise chemistry.
I became enlightened when Chemical and Engineering News in their 4/28 issue* explained how the three ingredients in marshmallows—sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin—“come together in a complex chemical dance to make your taste buds sing.”
The trick is to put these components together in just the right ratios so they can be foamed with air into a stable form. This only works because of the elasticity provided by the gelatin—a triple helix. Furthermore, gelatin is thermo-reversible, so it can melt and reset. Even better, it does so at just the right temperature to melt in your mouth.
Check out this new video showing how to make s’mores completely from scratch—far more delicious than using store-bought ingredients.
Savor s’mores and their association with good times around a campfire. But also, appreciate the unique combination of their ingredients, as well as the science behind them that makes such a sweet sensation of smooth chewiness. Yum!
*Reference: What’s in marshmallows, and how do the ingredients work together to make ooey-gooey treats?.