The wreck is believed to have sunk in the 1840s, and has already given up its bountiful booty including the world’s oldest bottle of champagne considered drinkable. That champagne was auctioned off and now scientists have turned their tech to a bottle of beer discovered in the wreck.

According to the researchers, the beer they analyzed had not stood the test of time well, but did retain its pale golden color. The scientists believe the beer originally had hints of rose, almond, and cloves. The researchers say that with their chemical analysis and the help of a master brewer it’s possible to re-create the beer so beer fans can have a taste of what sailors drank 170 years ago.

[via Reuters]

Just think: self-cleaning underwear, self-cleaning aprons, self-cleaning baby clothes, self-cleaning shirts, and so on and so forth. It seems too good to be true, but it’s all made possible because of a chemical compound called 2-anthraquinone carboxylic acid or 2-ACQ.

The compound was developed by a team of researchers from the University of California: Davis. Ning Liu, who came up with a method to incorporate 2-ACQ into cotton fabric, explained: “The new fabric has potential applications in biological and chemical protective clothing for health care, food processing and farmworkers, as well as military personnel.”

2-ACQ forms a strong bond with the cellulose in cotton, so it’s extremely hard to wash off. When the compound is exposed to light, it produced reactive oxygen species, such as hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radicals, that combat bacteria and cause organic compounds such as pesticides and other toxins to disintegrate.

[via medGadget via Oh Gizmo!]

The Caveman Cola kit includes the key ingredients for making your own competitor to Coca-Cola and Pepsi (that’s more than likely going to taste worse than warm RC.) Inside the box is some cola extract, yeast, a brewing funnel, labels for your cola concoction, along with the instructions for making your science experiment work. You’ll need to provide some unnamed “natural ingredients” (I’m assuming some sugar, food coloring and the like), as well as your own bottles.

You can find the Caveman Cola kit over at Copernicus Toys for $13.99 (USD). Or you could just buy a 12 pack of Coke a few dollars less.

You can feed people and educate them at the same time. That’s the most fun (and nutritious) way of bringing new geeks into the fold.

This set of four celebrates the spicier elements in your kitchen: allicin (garlic), piperine (pepper), oleocanthal (olive oil), and my favorite, capsaicin (peppers), but Etsy crafter anandi’s store is packed with all sorts of items that celebrate the best in food… and in holiday cheer, too. This set of four magnets is available for $12. Actual food sold separately.

The “I Survived the Large Hadron Collider” shirt celebrates the fact that we’re still alive even after the LHC was turned on. If you’re going “whaaaaaat?” right now then you might want to try this shirt, which explains the fundamental sciences in uber-layman’s terms:

What’s that? It’s way too corny?  So you want something more offensive? Then slay your Physics professors with this insult ala particle physics shirt:

Okay so it’s still corny. But at least you got the joke. All of these shirts – and other designs – are available at Neatorama’s shop. They’re all on sale too, down to $10 from $15. If you don’t want them, maybe your teachers will. *wink wink*

Now here is what separates geniuses from the rest of us: 50 IQ points. What? No. Here is what really separates geniuses from the rest of us: Theodore Gray misunderstood Sacks and thought that Sacks was referring to a table table, as in furniture. When his genius neurons kicked in seconds later and he realized his mistake, Gray also realized that a periodic table table was actually a great idea. See? Even at their dumbest moments they’re intelligent. So with the help of his friends, Theodore Gray – clearly a man possessed by his love for knowledge – built what is undoubtedly one of the geekiest and most useful pieces of furniture in the universe.

How geeky? Well aside from the fact that it’s a periodic table table dammit, each of the element groups – e.g. alkali metals, noble gases, etc – is represented by a different wood type, “with suitably clever analogies made between wood grain and chemical properties.” I know your nose is bleeding by now but this is just a glimpse of Theodore Gray’s nosebleed inducing awesomeness. Here’s a closer look at the periodic table table:

Have a look at another close -up while I stick cotton balls up my nose:

As you might have guessed, each of those tiles are removable. Beneath those tiles are compartments containing actual samples of the corresponding element, although I don’t think he has samples for all the elements yet. “By the way, if you have any depleted Uranium from Afghanistan, I could use it,” says Theodore “Nose Bleedingly Awesome” Gray.

Gray soon found himself building a website to catalog his element samples. Then his awesomeness emanated waves of awesome that simply could not be ignored: In 2002 The Annals of Improbable Research awarded his table the “Ig Nobel Prize”, an accolade given to “scientific work that cannot and should not be reproduced.”

His awesomeness doesn’t end there: Gray realized that he could use his new found popularity to share his knowledge and his love for knowledge, so he kept on improving his website. Now his website “contains the largest, most complete library of stock photographs of the elements and their applications available anywhere, as well as a large and growing collection of 3D images documenting hundreds of samples rotated through 360 degrees.”

Trust me, the amount of knowledge in the website – as well as the approachable and enjoyable manner in which that knowledge is shared – makes periodictable.com the best online reference for budding and even amateur chemists.

That’s the website’s frontpage. As you can see samples of the elements are shown as well. Clicking an element takes you to a more detailed page for that element:

I cannot stress enough the synergy between Gray’s philosophy behind his website and the tone and approach of his entries about the elements. Gray wants to encourage people – the youth in particular – to be curious about their surroundings, to go out and explore nature and to realize that even in our immediate surroundings we can find examples of elements, compounds and other things that we usually think are only present in labs, to be handled only by experts. In short, Gray wants kids to learn by handling stuff and doing all sorts of things with them, instead of being limited to passive and indirect means of acquiring information.

With that in mind, the information on his website is delivered in an approachable and totally non-textbook language. He uses interesting samples and applications as well. Take a look at one of his entries on the applications of Tungsten:

Wouldn’t it be nice if all learning materials reached out to people in this way? Anyway, I’ve said too much; if you love science or literature or art visit his website. Gray is also selling several fun and geeky chemistry kits, such as periodic table posters, place mats, and even a customizable banner, where you type in something and the website generates a banner that spells out what you typed using the symbols for the elements.

You can then order a printed copy of the banner; the price varies according to the size you want to order.

Theodore Gray should receive a Nobel Prize for Making Science (& Furniture) Fun. Him and Professor Beakman.

[via The Presurfer]

The Chemist shirt would have been much better if the ladies in it looked better.

Now there’s a sad geek shirt. You know what makes it worse? One Pluto year is equivalent to 248 Earth years, but Pluto was a planet for only 76 Earth years. What? You don’t think that’s sad? I don’t care.

Shirt with G.I. Joe-ish font ftw! I know the message has a kind of anti-geek twist, but it’s still awesome.

The Pi versus i shirt succeeds in making Math fun!

And I think the T-800 Bach shirt is a fitting way to end this post. I actually can’t decide if it’s funny or not because it’s such an old joke, but… Yeah it’s still funny.

Don’t have this in your bathroom if you’re planning to take your date home, otherwise she might just climb out of your bathroom window, screaming “Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr-” before collapsing from the sheer amount of information that she was forced to take in. Unless she also loves chemistry. And I’m talking about absolute devotion here. Anything less than that and you’re screwed. Or not.

What the hell. Forget stupid people. It’s available at Think Geek for $30 USD. Go and get it, and if your date thinks it’s stupid then she’s not for you. There are plenty more elements in the table.

[via Jason Bradbury's blog]

The scale shown above, unfortunately, is not part of the set. Instead, you get a sweet rack, an Erlenmeyer flask with a glass mixing rod for extra class (and authenticity), four two ounce shot glasses shaped like test tubes, and a completely unscientific shaker. Not included: any actual drink-mixing ability, but at least with this set, it’ll be fun to practice. You can always drink the results!

Just be careful, and remember that alcohol does in fact burn.

[via Think Geek]