Week Five: The Chemistry of Color and Nutrition

1. Inert Gas of the Week: There are only two true elemental inert gases that don't react with anything else to form a compound. Helium and Neon. I'm picking helium because of its abundance in the sun and the fact that kids suck it out of balloons to make their voices high pitched. So noble and so silly all at once. I was happy to discover that it is non-toxic, as well as colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It has the lovely and simple atomic number of two. It has the lowest boiling and melting points of all the elements, and is always a gas except under very extreme circumstances. Here's my drawing of helium: .

A large reserve of helium was found in 1903 in the U.S., the largest helium supplier. Besides being used to inflate balloons, helium is also used industrially in welding, to cool superconducting magnets, to lift airships and in cryogenics as a very cold liquid to store human heads for future revival. Because it has such a low freezing point, it is used by quantum physicists in testing the effects that something near absolute zero has on matter.

It has the distinction of being the most abundant element in the known universe--though relatively rare on earth. It is also the second lightest, next to hydrogen.

2. The Color of Foods in My Kitchen



Today there is a lot of green and orange in my kitchen. The neighbor gave me a bunch of apples from his mother's tree. There are some little green heirloom tomatoes in my yard that just recently ripened (and they are delicious). I have kale, broccoli, a small pumpkin and some carrots. Yellow is always present - bananas -- they go in my daily morning protein shake. Besides the fresh stuff there are a lot of boxes and cans and jars with varying colors inside them. That stuff takes up a lot of room, but I never really access it unless I'm desperate. There's also a pile of homemade chocolate chip cookies on the table (brown) but for some reason that one picture refused to upload.



I think in general I'm pretty good at eating well, and that because I've been planting a garden for a few years now, I am more aware of seasonal foods and those are often in my kitchen. Working full time and being in school has led to less time and energy to cook, however. I realized the other day that it had been awhile since I'd had any "real" food -- it had all been things like Clif bars and burritos and coffee. That makes me feel lousy. I like to cook. I love food. And I enjoy eating good food.



3. Thoughts on the Links

Element colors in flames: We have a lot of campfires and sometimes the light burns green or blue, but mostly it is orange. I thought I might find out what kind of chemicals are being released when I see these colors, but it seems that there are so many possibilities that unless I was in a laboratory burning things in a controlled way there is really no way to know for sure. However, I think it's great that we have this knowledge, for safety reasons. If there is a fire somewhere and it is burning some color other than orange, we might have a clue as to what is burning.

Luminescence: I learned that this is "cold light." This is a new concept for me. I am particularly interested in the living things that are phosphorescent, like fireflies (which I grew up with) and those tiny little creatures in the ocean that glow when your oar moves through the water. What an amazing, magical experience that was when I lived on a bay and had a little row boat and the night was so dark and the phosphorescent glow, like little stars, filled the water.