Magic Milk

Before you get all excited, this post has nothing to do with ridiculously beautiful men prancing around in nothing but their underwear. We keep it PG here on this blog :)

This experiment has been repeated in my house many times and, in fact, is how I managed to get dinner ready at a decent time this evening. The best part about it is you already have everything you need right in your kitchen. (If not, you desperately need to get yourself to the store!)

Materials:

• Milk (Whole works best...this project is based on the fat content of the milk)
• Food coloring
• Pie pan (or I guess a plate would work too)
• Dish detergent
• Q-tips

How do you do it?

Pour enough milk in your pan to completely cover the bottom. 1/4" will do. Then choose a few different colors of food coloring and put 3-4 drops of each near the center like this...

Next, coat one end of your Q-tip in the dish detergent, then place it in the middle of your pan of milk. Here, let Natalie show you how it's done!

All you have to do is hold the Q-tip still in the milk for about 30 seconds of awesomeness. Your milk will end up looking something like this. 

Cool, right? So how does it work?

Milk is made up of mostly water but it also contains fat and proteins. The dish soap, however, is made up of molecules that are bipolar (hydrophilic or, water-loving on the polar end, and hydrophobic, or water fearing on the non-polar end). I explained this to Jake as the opposite ends being somewhat like a magnet. The water-loving molecules are attracted to the water in the milk and dissolve. The water fearing molecules on the other hand, latched on to the fat and proteins. With all of that rearranging going on, everything gets pushed around very rapidly, which is what you see with the movement of the food coloring. 

Have fun!