Coffee continues to inspire.....

Really it was rather early in the morning to realize that first you don't see it then you do...... made me wonder if there is something in my coffee other than caffeine for a moment. But then I realized it is an everyday example of where science and art meet. Well the science here is not creating but augmenting the art. I was really intrigued how the top coat of paint actually caused the paint of the image it was coating to disappear from a certain angle. There are lots of cool things that can be done with paint, like this link where the room shown was created to provide kids with positive moments while having blood drawn. Hmmm, I am headed to get my blood drawn soon.... where is my positive moment?! Humph.

This must be me still on a high from attending Beakerhead last Saturday, where science and art merge. Four other individuals from the Faculty of Science and myself were running around with cowboy hats trying to teach people math. Usually, we started with three hats with a prize under one of them. We asked people to guess which one had the prize, then removed one of the other hats that did not. The probability of winning for the remaining two hats should inform one of whether they stay with their initial choice or not. Did you think it was 50:50? Probabilities, just like the orbitals for electrons that are probabilities of pesky electron waves.... lol

There are going to be lots of pics in this week's blog....take a look at those red bugs.....ewwwwwww.

These were on a garden ornament across the street from my house. The city of Calgary has a webpage about these guys! Sadly, I was starting my walk with Molly and thought that I would kill them when I returned but too late... they were gone when we got back. Made me reminisce back to when I worked at what was then called Safer's but is now Saferbrand. I worked in the herbicide division but we did occasionally dabble in insecticides. One experiment I did with a potato beetle had it live in a jar with KCN until it starved to death. What does that say about Dr. Mozol? Hopefully none of her students are related to potato beetles. I am dying to find out what chemical is responsible for the redness of these guys. Did you know that the most popular red food dye is made from beetles that eat cacti? Interesting how this article circled back to Starbucks!!!!!!! A derivative of the chemical is carminic acid.

I think I will get the Chem 201 class to finish AND correct the erroneous Lewis of this molecule and hey, what about resonance, VSEPR and even bonding!?!?!??! A great idea inspired by bugs. Attention everyone: I am serious!!

Now, how to finish today's blog off with a bang? Well, better to eat a red dye made from bugs than a red dye that might lead to negative behavioural anomalies in children.