Lab tech, element hunter, plant botherer. Here comes the science...

Scotchland
Joined March 2020
Autumn leaves will soon replace summer flowers, such as those in this field of zinnias. Each color comes from a different molecule: Yellows from anthchlors (marein) and aurones (maritimein) 🟨 Oranges from beta-carotene 🟧 Pinks and reds from anthocyanidins (pelargonidin and cyanidin) 🟥 The sugars appended to the color-producing parts of the molecules increase the pigments’ water solubility in the cell. Anthocyanidins give blueberries, red cabbage, berries, and many, many flowers their colors, which can change with pH.
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
We received nice colourful gift today, agapanthus flowers! The extraction was fairly easy, beautiful blue extract in water and very pretty purple extract when the petals were soaked in dilute HCl. Hopefully a video will be ready soon. #Gardenindicators
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Today is Monday but also #MoonDay which marks the anniversary of the first moon landing as part of the Apollo 11 mission on 20th July 1969. 🚀 A few years ago we wrote a short thread of how scrap metal from #Orkney may just have ended up on the moon! 👇 xitter.cf/OrkneyLibrary/status/1…
Today (24th July) is the 50th anniversary of #Apollo11 returning back to Earth from the Moon which is an amazing story but here is another amazing story that you might never have heard before. (It also might not be true but that doesn’t stop it being a good story) #Apollo50
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Really excited for the 13th International Symposium on Microscale Chemistry on Wednesday. Getting ready for my #DropletArt session. Come and have a go! Here’s a purple petunia extract pH1-13 #13ISMC26 #GardenIndicators
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
The world’s entire manufactured supply of radium was produced between 1898-1960s, we only have really been making radium on a commercial scale for roughly 50 years. In the U.S alone (even before production fully ramped up) about 70 grams of radium was sold just for radioluminescent paint used in consumer items between 1913-1920. Public demand for radium was so crazy that by the 1930s, doctors were complaining there wasn’t enough left over for medical and scientific work. Only around a few thousand grams were ever produced worldwide across that period. Every bit of it still exists in some form today (thanks to its 1,600 year half-life like you mentioned) but we only know the exact location of roughly 2–5% of it. The rest is scattered everywhere. Over 40% of global radium output was sold directly to the public in luminous compounds for quack medicines, pocket watches, alarm clocks, paint kits, light switches, pull chains and all other sorts of novelty items like you see me posting. Another 20–30% went to the military for luminous paint applications. The British Navy was one of the biggest users, their standard allowed up to 250 µCi of radium per gram of paint because I guess they REALLY wanted to see in the dark. Anyways, that makes it the ultimate treasure hunt for me and I’ll gladly contribute some of my space in life for helping preserve some of it. haha, radium go brrrrrrr ☢️ (I just bought this watch, btw)
Replying to @radioactivered
You're nuts collecting stuff like this. The half life of Radium is 1600 years. These watches are hot and should be stored in a lead lined vault.
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Production of F-centres in alkali halide salts using a Tesla coil. #pointdefects #colouration #highenergyradiation #trappedelectrons
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
The story behind this is highlighted here pubs.rsc.org/en/content/arti…
Mulled wine? No, it's that other festive favourite, mulled vitriol. @iain_smellie got me a red cabbage for Christmas so I've steeped it in dilute H₂SO₄'s to find the safest extract that stores well. Hold tight for the update this time next year. #JamesWatt #GardenIndicators
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To put these into perspective, here are 20 activities showing their equivalent radiation dose in terms of eating bananas
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It’s Christmas cookie season! Check the infographic to see which molecules flavor your favorite!
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It’s the annual art exhibition at school. These are my RGB plots showing the pH profiles from 1-14 of a pink gladiolus (top left), Blackberry (top right), bright pink Busy Lizzie (bottom right) and purple pansy (bottom left). All similar, subtly different #GardenIndicators
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
It’s been a long time, but I’ve made a new Shinoda test video for the @Gardenindicators YouTube channel. This one features onion skin, the outer part so very easy to extract. youtu.be/HF94JGwLaEw?si=pUYj…
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Rainbow fizz neutralisation with N5 Chemistry this morning! 🌈 hydrochloric acid reacting with sodium carbonate to produce sodium chloride + water + carbon dioxide! 🫧 @MonifiethHigh #Nat5 #chemistry #neutralisation P.S. it turns green at the end!
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As #autumn days get shorter and cooler, deciduous leaves break down their green chlorophyll to let other pigments shine! 🍃💨🍂 Reds and purples from anthocyanins like cyanin and its derivatives such as chysanthemin. These molecules also lend their colors to many species of flowering plants. Their colors are adjusted by modifications to the groups substituted on the molecule. Other reds come from lycopene, familiar as an antioxidant in tomatoes. Many oranges and yellows originate from the same class of molecules called the carotenoids. Xanthophylls like zeaxanthin provide the yellows and beta-carotene gives the oranges (also in carrots and pumpkins). Get out and experience some leaf chemistry today!
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Closeup of some of the black crystals. They look really cool.
I left some scrap copper sitting in a jar of copper acetate solution. Found this at the bottom a few months later!
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Further tinned fruit results today, mixing the juice from tinned peaches with bramble extract gives a beautiful purple colour! The left glass contains a mixture of bramble juice, tinned peach juice and water. The right glass is diluted bramble juice. #Gardenindicators
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AngusAlchemist retweeted
Not just hibiscus tea #Gardenindicators, @heterocat has inspired a new colour changing Gin and Tonic mix too! Small amounts of tin in canned pineapple juice, as well as anthocyanins likely to be involved here.
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A few lenticular Schrödinger's cat cards to helps us for our #QuantumPhysics open day next Sat. 6th September! #IYQ2025 🐱
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