Back off, man, I’m a scientist.

NOTE: This entry doesn’t really have much to do with ‘actual’ science. It’s more of a silly hypothesis that I wanted to mess around with and have been bouncing the idea back and forth for quite some time. So if you’re looking for some science, check some back entries or wait for my next post. My apologies in advance!

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you exhibit A.

Exhibit A: The Double Down.

This is the new KFC Double Down. It has been long been rumored around the blogosphere as being quite possibly the worst fast food item in the world. A sandwich consisting of two pieces of fried chicken as bread, two slices of cheese, two slices of bacon, and the “colonel’s sauce.” (I dare you not to take that out of context.) If you’re me, you’re thinking “oh my science, this is probably the worst thing you could possibly eat.” And you’d be wrong – that’d be the Wendy’s Triple Baconator.

Let’s get some stats here before we move on. A crispy Double Down has 540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and 1380 mg of sodium. Sweet fancy Moses on buttered toast, that’s a handful. If you’re wondering, that translates to 13 Weight Watchers points – surprisingly, about the same amount as a single Baconator or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. I understand the risks a Double Down poses and have decided to take on the challenge of my own free will, for science’s sake.

The Hypothesis: Will eating a Double Down make me sicker than I have ever been before?

Testing: The subjects would arrive at the neighborhood KFC at approximately 12:30 PM on Friday, May 7, 2010. Two Double Downs would be ordered, one for each, and consumption would begin shortly afterwards.

Subject A, or Scientist 1 (yours truly) is a 23-year-old female with a Three Keyboard Cat Moon shirt and a severe craving for fried chicken. I am pictured here holding the “sandwich,” and I use that term quite loosely, and preparing for the first bite.

Subject B, or Scientists 2 & 3 simultaneously (my sister, Karyn), is a 22-year-old female with considerably better fashion sense and an extreme distaste for bacon. She too is pictured holding the “sandwich” and anticipating…well, I’m not entirely sure what we were anticipating at this point in time.

Procedure: Well, we took a bite. I found it hard to hold the “sandwich” and eat, so I ended up fork and knifing it.

The “sandwich” itself was a lot smaller than pictured on the sign, which I took as a good sign. And surprisingly…it was kind of good. In the sense that oh hey, I’ll eat it once and never pick it up again. It was INCREDIBLY salty (well no shit, having 1300mg of sodium will do that to you) and difficult to hold, but not as disgusting as it sounds. There was a point when I was holding it that grease dripped down my hand and that grossed me out.

So then we had to do a vlog about it.

Conclusion: The Double Down, while seemingly disgusting, could be hella worse for you. It could be a sandwich from the Rutgers Grease Trucks. Will I be eating one ever again? Probably not. But I didn’t vomit immediately upon eating it, so I suppose I disproved my hypothesis.

Man, I love volcanoes. Seriously. I’ve been haphazardly following the story of our potentially least favorite volcano, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull. Therefore, most of this month’s BLAG Science Round-Up is going to focus on it! Hooray!

Via the Washington Post: Scientists find it difficult to predict volcano behavior. My initial response? Duh. However, it addresses some of the key points people have been debating in regards to our wonderful lava buddy: No, it’s not spewing enough crap to seriously damage the climate; its good neighbor Katla (which is considerably easier to pronounce) is probably going to erupt too, and that Katla is probably going to be much worse; and that it might not be your best bet to fly to Europe any time soon. My favorite quote from the entire article:

“Volcanic risk is actually rising, not because we’re not doing our jobs, but because people are putting themselves nearer volcanoes, particularly with air travel,” said Marianne Guffanti, a geologist with the USGS.

From boston.com’s Big Picture: Iceland’s disruptive volcano and More From Eyjafjallajokull. These are some of the most gorgeous pictures of the eruption as well as the area surrounding the volcano. I’d include them here, but they’re desktop background sized. Absolutely stunning.

And now for something unrelated to The Volcano! Our good friends over at Aspex (you know, the dudes behind Send In Your Sample?) have a new contest running! This one’s called Name That Sample, and it’s pretty simple. They’ve taken a picture of a random object under SEM magnification, and it’s up to you to guess what it is! The person who comes closest to identifying what it is wins a brand new netbook!

It’s amusing…a few months ago, in class, I had remarked that it somehow slipped my mind that Iceland is a hot spot. My friends laughed at me because face it, it’s pretty apparent – and so I whipped up this handy little macro. Who knew that months later it would be appropriate?

Nevar forget.

tl;dr version of my life lately: Back in January I joined Weight Watchers. Since then I’ve dropped nearly 14 pounds, and started cooking for myself quite a bit (also with the addition of some very helpful and encouraging new people in my life ) and it’s made a world of difference.

The other night, the beau and I were at a loss for what to eat for dinner. We didn’t want to go out, because restaurant food is notorious for high POINTS values, so we rooted around the kitchen to see what we came up with. What I ended up coming up with was this – something I had never really tried before – making my own recipe! I’m sure there’ll be things like this on the internet in places, but I feel really encouraged after making this. No pictures unfortunately but hopefully the taste will be enough to give it away!

Asiago Chicken and Veggies

Ingredients:
1 tbsp canola oil
1/2 lb whole grain pasta (we used Barilla Whole Grain Medium Shells to give it that mac-and-cheese feel)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 small can mushrooms (pieces and stems, but you can substitute fresh if possible)
1 cups shredded asiago cheese
1 substantial chicken breast, skinless and boneless
salt (to taste)
black pepper (to taste)
4 cloves garlic, chopped (we used the equivalent in pre-diced garlic)
3/4 cup milk

Directions:
Cook pasta according to package. Strain, return to pot, and add asiago and milk. Simmer uncovered and set aside.
Slice chicken into small strips. Add 2 cloves garlic, salt and pepper to taste, toss with chicken and marinate in a small bowl for a few minutes.
Heat a large frying pan. Swirl in oil, then add chicken mixture. Cook 2-3 minutes until chicken is no longer visibly pink, then add pepper, mushrooms, and remaining garlic. Cook until tender. Remove from heat and add pasta mixture. Serve warm.

I figured this to make approximately 4 servings (maybe more!) with a POINTS value of 8-9. So it’s a little on the high end, but still delicious! The only problem I found was that the asiago got a little “gloppy” and didn’t melt very well. Any suggestions?

Ellen left a great suggestion in the comments to prevent the cheese from glopping!

in a separate pot you can heat the milk over low heat. sprinkle in the cheese really slowly bit by bit, stir until it melts and add the next handful…repeat until all cheese is gone. Add a little bit of butter or margarine to the milk and it may help it as well.

What are your favorite healthy recipes? Would you like to see more of these in the future? Hit up the comments! Your regularly scheduled science will return with some info on the Icelandic eruptions sometime this week, fingers crossed.

Via good.is: Antarctic Glacier Has Five-Story Blood-Red Waterfall of Primoridial Ooze! I saw this and got immediately excited. Located in the McMurdo valleys, what basically happened is that a super bloom of microbes got trapped under the ice, and, unlike just about every living thing ever, it kept living. The lack of sunlight and oxygen has transformed them into something the Ninja Turtles could only dream of finding the secrets of, and every so often when the surface ice cracks and melts a tiny bit, it starts gooshing out. And yes, that’s a quite technical term. The best part? You can absolutely visit this oozefest, albeit only in Antarctic summer.

Via Salon.com: Deadly quakes are coincidence, scientists say. This one is something that I’ve been looking into a little bit, but honestly don’t know where to begin. A bunch of unnamed scientists say that the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey are completely unrelated. This also in, Pat Robertson is still an asshole.
One of the things I’ve been worried about is that the same day as the Chile earthquake, there was a smaller magnitude but still relatively severe earthquake in Salta, Argentina – a 6.4 on the Richter. We all know how much I love Argentina, and one of my friends from field camp lives in Salta. Unfortunately, nobody has any contact information for him – but luckily the USGS reported that there were no casualties. My fingers are crossed for you and your family, Nestor.

In entirely unrelated news, there have been two small earthquakes in my home county here in New Jersey: 2 Earthquakes Shake Somerset County; Second Time in Two Weeks (courtesy mycentraljersey.com). I am deeply saddened as I have not felt either of these, though they were at max 2.3 on the Richter scale. Is something afoot under central Jersey?

Via the HuffPo: World’s First Commercial Jetpack To Be Sold For $75,000. Some lucky bastards with lots of money will soon be able to purchase a really sweet jetpack produced by the Martin Aircraft Company. It carries a fairly hefty $75K price tag, but can travel up to 63mph, meets all FAA regulations, and can run for about half an hour. The best part? You won’t need a pilot’s license to fly one. Now this is something I can see wasting money on…providing I can find a nice supply of jet fuel.

What do you say, BLAGgers? Any more science you’d like me to know about? Leave a comment, or drop me a line via e-mail!

Side note…would you guys like to see a return of Random Sunday Night?

I was recently approached by the fine folks at ASPEX, a company that has started a pretty neat campaign. Dubbed “Send Us Your Sample,” the company is asking anyone and everyone to send in samples to be photographed under a Scanning Electron Microscope, or SEM for short.

An SEM is a pretty cool device. In essence, it takes a picture of a sample by scanning the surface with a high-energy electron beam and imaging it. For more info on how it works, check out the Wiki article.

What ASPEX is doing is allowing people to send in absolutely anything to have it imaged under the SEM. All you have to do is find an object, fill out the form, mail it in along with your sample, and in a few weeks they’ll post the SEM image up on their website.

The best part is that you can send in just about anything. Of course, stay away from things that you probably shouldn’t send through the mail (or illegal things, but that goes without saying), and know that you won’t be getting your item back. It’ll take about two weeks for the sample to be scanned and posted.

You can send your sample to the following address:

ASPEX Corporation
Free Sample Submissions
175 Sheffield Dr.
Delmont, PA 15626

This is a pretty cool opportunity, if you ask me. We have an SEM in our lab here at Montclair, but I haven’t been trained on the machine yet. I’ll definitely be sending a sample of my thesis granites in to see how it turns out, and I encourage you to send in something for yourself! Maybe it’s a toy, a weird leaf, or just something you’ve had lying around the house for years. I’d say it’s pretty cool to be able to see ANYTHING under that high magnification – 200 µm is a pretty tiny scale. That picture above? I bet you’ll never be able to guess what it actually is. (Answer behind the jump!)

Give up? It’s actually a toy rabbit.

If it weren’t for him and Beakman (of Beakman’s World fame), I might not be as into science as I am. What do you think?

Also, be prepared for a very cool post coming within the next couple days – I promise you’ll be just as excited as I am!!

9. Bea Arthur
The world lost at least 25% of its sass that day.

8. Patrick Swayze
His inclusion is more for Karyn, though his struggle with pancreatic cancer was quite admirable.

7. Soupy Sales
I’ll admit it – I’m a game show addict, and his appearances on the Match Game were some of the best. My parents remember his innovation in television comedy, and I’ll never look at a cream pie the same way ever again.

6. Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein
Let’s face it – the guy survives a near-fatal plane crash only to be killed by an overdose less than a year later. Admirable? Not so much, but his memory will live on.

5. James Owen “The Rev” Sullivan
Drummer for Avenged Sevenfold, The Rev passed away in late December – one of the last to make the cut. He was 28 years old…too young to die. (But then again, who isn’t?)

4. Edward Kennedy
The Liberal Lion. Without his efforts, perhaps the health care debate wouldn’t have reached the point it has. (I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.)

3. John Hughes
In my senior year of high school, I did a presentation about The Breakfast Club. The movie has become one of my ultimate favorites, and I’ll never forget what Hughes did for the genre – he made it slightly more realistic.

2. Les Paul
Music as we know it would not be the same without the innovations of Les Paul.

1. Billy Mays
Okay, I’m going to try and elaborate a little bit on this one, since Mr. Mays is a strange choice. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated by infomercials. I’ll stay up late or wake up early to catch a bit of the Showtime Rotisserie Grill, the Magic Bullet, hell, anything presented in long-form informercial form is something that will catch my attention. And then the world gave us Billy Mays, and everything was changed. He was able to compress the energy and urgency of a regular infomercial into a few sweet minutes. He got your attention, and he kept it. He wouldn’t advertise anything that didn’t work, which is why to this day my family still uses Oxi-Clean and Kaboom. He was taken from us far too early in life – June 28, 2009 – and the world will never be the same.

So to you, Mr. Mays, I raise a toast. It’s hot chocolate, but it’s heartfelt nonetheless. May you be pitching wherever you are now, and I hope that whoever you’re with has a lifetime supply of Mighty Putty and Hercules Hooks, because they’ll absolutely need them.

Wait. I mean, sure, it’s time for holidays, but more importantly, it’s time for cookies! Now, since this is Bitch Like A Geologist, this means only one thing – SCIENCE COOKIES.

Now, the fantastic Professor George W. Hart has had a wonderful recipe for trilobite cookies lurking around the web for quite some time now, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. This seemed a bit dry and I’m not a fan of jam cookies, so I tried to amend the process a bit.

The recipe calls for a cookie gun, and the shape is obtained based on one key piece – the bar attachment. So I started looking around for a nicer recipe to use with a cookie gun, and came across a really nice one…in the box, of all places.

Classic Spritz Cookies
Note: this is English measurement, but I can translate to metric if requested!

You will need:
for the cookies
1 1/2 cups butter (three sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Don’t forget, you need a cookie gun with a bar attachment!

for the coating
1/2 lb. white chocolate merckens (I buy them from a local candy making supply store, but they can be purchased online here. Any color can be used, I just prefer white chocolate!)
an assortment of nonpareils

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375°. Thoroughly cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract and beat well. Stir together flour and baking powder and gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough. Do not chill. Place dough into cookie gun and press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12* minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on rack.

Makes 7-8 dozen cookies. (…or less if you can’t stop eating the dough!)

A few things: The dough really didn’t want to stick, so I found that if I moved quickly, they stuck better. I used parchment paper on the bottom of my baking sheets, and that seems to have really cut down the mess. This also cut down the cooking time, and ours stayed in the oven for only about 8 minutes. Now to the fun part…the icing!

I took a handful of the merckens and melted them in the microwave, checking and stirring every 30 seconds for about two minutes. This got them nice and melty. I then dipped the head of my trilobuddy into the chocolate, then the bottom, and set them to rest on some wax paper. Using a toothpick, I dipped the end into a little bit of chocolate, adhered a little nonpareil, and stuck that into the cookie chocolate for its eyes. I set them out to cool overnight, and in the morning…

SUCCESS!

I only made 12 with the icing, but based on the response they got, I’ll definitely be making more in the future.

Happy holidays to you and yours!