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The quest for the perfect pop leads to kitchen science…

Tuesday, February 24th, 2015 | EMILY HALL | No Comments

popcorn

Popcorn in the pan – first pop!

Popcorn is a great snack – I’m not talking about movie popcorn, yummy as it is, I’m talking about the high fibre, low calorie nutrient fest that is naked popcorn. The easiness of popcorn just amps up the appeal, chuck some kernels in a lightly greased pan on the stove and a delicious hot snack appears in a matter of minutes.

But what is popcorn really? Despite my enthusiasm for popcorn eating, I never thought much about what makes popcorn, well, pop! Enter this news article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/66105879/scientists-unravel-the-secrets-of-popcorn-physics

A quick google search revealed similar interpretations of the same research on many news sites, including this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/science/why-popcorn-also-jumps.html which has the video footage from the research showing (mesmerising) slow motion kernels popping one at a time.

I couldn’t let this one go – I looked up the names of the authors of the papers. Super helpfully, one of them has a website and has not only included links to the originally published papers that all these news articles were based on, but added lots more video and content around the popping of popcorn. http://emmanuel-virot.weebly.com/popcorn.html

Another cool thing I learned from all this popcorn reading and watching was that you can pop other grains, not just popcorn. Time for some kitchen science!

I tried popping wild rice, white quinoa, red quinoa and black quinoa – without a doubt, the wild rice and the red quinoa made the best pop (although not as spectacular as popcorn)

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Wild Rice before and after

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White Quinoa before and after

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Red Quinoa before and after

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also couldn’t believe the sound of the popping grains – just like popcorn!  Here is a video of wild rice popping and also at the end I mixed all the quinoa I had leftover and popped it all together. Wild Rice Popping, Quinoa Pop.  Apologies for the poor video quality – it was filmed on my phone 🙂  Finally – the big question – how did they taste???  Well, interestingly quite similar to popcorn really although the wild rice husk made it slightly more unpleasant to eat than the quinoa. I don’t think popped quinoa is going to take the world by storm yet though, it would take an awful lot of quinoa to make a satisfying snack quantity!

How do you spell success??

Monday, February 2nd, 2015 | EMILY HALL | No Comments

Wsuccesshat do you think about when you think about someone is successful – what do they have that separates them from the unsuccessful? Are they talented? Lucky?

Psychologists have determined that success, whether it is sporting, academic or otherwise, is less a matter of luck or talent and more a matter of practise and perseverance. You may even have heard about the concept that 10,000 hours of practice can make you an expert in anything.

In fact, although the 10,000 hour concept continues to be debated, it does have a modicum of truth. The 10,000 hour concept came from a research paper written in the 90s by an American psychologist who was looking at the work of a group of psychologists in Germany. The German psychologists had been looking at violin students and trying to figure out if there was a difference between those students who go on to become successful – professional violinists at the highest levels of their art, and those who remain hobbyists. What they found was that although all the students that they were following had similar amounts of practice time between the ages of 5 and 8, by the time they had reached 20, the successful performers had averaged 10,000 hours of practice each, compared to the average of 4,000 hours of practice in the less able performers.

There’s been some interesting debate including people using themselves as the subject of experiments to determine whether or not 10,000 hours of practice will enable them to become experts in some skill for example playing a sport or learning an instrument.
Regardless of whether or not the 10,000 hour theory is correct, one thing is certain. Success is less a product of natural talent and more the effect of pure hard work.

This last year of high school is an interesting one. There are academic results to aim for, leadership roles in the school, sporting and cultural commitments outside the classroom. In what seems like a heartbeat, the year will be over along with the end of 13 years of formal education. What happens next is entirely in your own hands.

So, before it all starts to become a busy, activity filled blur, take time to think about what you want out of the year. Make yourself some goals and make sure that you are SMART about them. Another resource to look at is the student study resources at the HEDC. Although it is aimed at University students, specifically first year students, there are a lot of useful tools in there that could be helpful to you in this last year of High School. I particularly like the weekly time planner – a template that you can download, print and use to organise all your activities one week at a time. There are also useful tips on time management, learning, studying, researching and other topics that will help you out this year and with further education.

So, get going and get organising – make this last year your most successful yet 