Happy lobster month!

I'm not sure how this has not come to my attention sooner, but August is Maine Lobster Month! Lobsters are, by my estimation, the tastiest arthropods. Maybe some people would disagree.

When you picture a delicious lobster, ready to eat, it's bright red in color. On the other hand, if you've ever fished one out of the ocean (or seen it done) you know that live lobsters aren't that color at all - they're generally brownish. In honor of lobster month, here is an interesting video about why lobsters turn bright red when you cook them. Enjoy!



Bonus fact: Lobsters are colorful in another way - they have blue blood (like spiders and some other crustaceans), thanks to hemocyanin, a protein that transports oxygen in their blood using copper. Our blood and the blood of many other vertebrates is red because of hemoglobin, which uses iron to transport oxygen.

(Thanks to Life Lines blog for the link!)

Old is gold...

I rarely talk about materials science on this blog, but today is your lucky day if you get excited about the physical properties of matter. As it turns out, all glass baking items are not created equal, because all types of glass are not created equal. A report in the Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society (also covered in this Scientific American Podcast) reports on changes in the material that Pyrex glassware is made from that affects its performance.

Prior to 1994, all Pyrex cookware was made of borosilicate glass (which is also what most laboratory glassware is made from). The advantage of this type of glass over normal glass is that it has a low coefficient of thermal expansion. This means that when the glass is heated, it expands less than normal glass. This might seem insignificant, but it can be important if the glass is going to be used in a way that results in it being rapidly headed or cooled, such as going from an oven to a refrigerator. Rapid changes in temperature can cause glass to expand unevenly, causing stress within the glass that leads to cracks or even breakage. Glass with a lower coefficient of thermal expansion is less likely to crack or shatter after exposure to rapid changes in temperature, making it ideal for kitchen (or laboratory) use.

However, since 1994, Corning has been licensing the Pyrex name to companies that produce products made of soda lime silicate glass, which is the type of glass found in most common glass items in your home. This glass is less likely to break when dropped (although this is not tested in the above bulletin), but has a coefficient of thermal expansion that is about three times that of borosilicate glass, making it more likely to shatter when exposed to thermal stress. In fact, the report says that a temperature change of 100 degrees F is enough to break the new Pyrex products, while a change of 330 degrees F was required to break the old borosilicate products. To put this in perspective, the difference between a raw, room-temperature roast and a hot oven is about 275 degrees F.

The take home message is that if you want the old, shatter-resistant formulation of Pyrex, look for older pieces (or, presumably, look for items that are labeled as being made from borosilicate glass). That casserole dish from the thrift store might be an even better deal than you previously thought. And, if you're a fan of pictures of glass shattering, definitely check out the full report from the ACS bulletin above!

(via BoingBoing)

(Image: IMG_5201, a Creative Commons 2.0 licensed image from gruntusk's photosream)

A New Kind of Cooking Class

I'd heard previously about the wildly successful "Kitchen Chemistry" class taught at MIT and how it combined chemistry and kitchen skills into a class about cooking that was based in science (and counted for a science credit). It turns out that this class might be part of a larger trend towards teaching the science behind what's happening in the kitchen. Classes are cropping up at other universities around the country, according to Chemical and Engineering News.

That's good news for several reasons. First, I think any topic that relates science to everyday life helps to engage students with science and results in more overall science literacy, which is important for a well-informed populace. Second, I think educating people about food and cooking helps to make them more enthusiastic and confident cooks. This in turn helps people that eat better, healthier food, increasing health and quality of life in our society. Lastly, it's great for me, since I'm pretty sure I can't think of  job I'd enjoy more than teaching such a class.

(via BoingBoing)

What Color is Your Cheese?

You've heard the saying that a diner eats first with her eyes, meaning that the way things look can influence our perception and enjoyment of food. Over at The Kitchn, the resident Cheesemonger Nora Singley wrote a post about the origins of the different colors of cheese and what they can indicate about the type of cheese you're looking at.

Here's the shorthand:
Orange: artificially colored cheese, including cheddar and processed cheese
Yellow: Grass-fed cows' milk
White: Goat
Blue: Contains mold

What I found most interesting was that, while cows' milk contains beta carotene, goats' milk does not. That means that if a cow consumes more beta carotine in its diet, its milk will contain more beta carotine and cheese made from this milk will be more yellow. On the other hand, no matter how much grass a goat eats, its milk and cheese will be perfectly white. Some food historians believe that the reason people began dyeing cheese orange was to mimic the yellow color of cows' milk cheeses from the spring and summer, times of the year that the cows' normally would be eating more grass and also times of the year when the milk was full of fat and flavor.

(Image: Blue Cheese, a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 image from Liz Davenport's photo stream)

The Perfect Bloody Mary

Here at Food/Science, we love us some brunch cocktails. Luckily, some folks with Ph.D.'s spent time and effort to determine, scientifically, the best way to make one such libation: that brunch classic, the Bloody Mary. At a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, scientists presented research showing that, basically, it boils down to using fresh, quality ingredients and cheap vodka. Hooray for thriftiness, and science!

Personally, I like mine garnished to the hilt, with pickles and olives a must.

Check out the full story here, (via The Kitchn).

Also, as a bonus, why not pair your scientifically-proven Bloody Mary with a Mobius Bagel? So much geekery, in one brunch!

(also via The Kitchn)