pH test

Yesterday I had red cabbage for dinner. After cooking it, I saved some of the water.

As you can see it's a lovely purple colour. This can be used to test the pH of a material. pH is a numerical scale to measure whether something is acid or alkaline. First I mixed it with vinegar - which is acidic - and washing up liquid - which is alkaline - to find out what colour it would go.

The vinegar went a dark pink colour.

 The washing up when a greeny-blue colour.

So acidic things go dark pink when mixed with cabbage juice and alkali things go greeny-blue. If it stays purple it is neutral - not really acid or alkali. I tested a few other things in my kitchen.

So next time to have to eat red cabbage you can try this yourself. You can also use it to test the pH of the soil in your garden. Some plants grow better in either acid or alkali soils.

What happens when a Venus fly trap dries out

A few weeks ago I was away for a conference. It was very interesting and I have a great time. However, while I was away the friends I had asked to look after the fly trap forgot and it dried out! I have been watering it a lot since I got back and it is beginning to recover.

You can see a lot of the heads have gone black but there are plenty of new green stems growing. Unfortunately the flowers I planted didn't do so well. In the pictures below you can see that just behind the heads of the flowers the stems have gone black. This blackness continued down the length of the whole stem over time.

I pulled one of the flowers out to see if it have grown roots before it died, and it had! In the picture below you can see a few very short roots that have bound to sand grains. So if it hadn't died due to lack of water it would probably have grown into a new plant. I will try again if the Venus fly trap grows any more flowers.

The fly trap got fried

It seems that 3 hours in the x-ray machine was too much for our fly trap. The edges of the trap got burnt and dried up. The head containing the moth is dying. Here is a picture. You can see where the moth's wings are sticking out and where the trap has gone brown and yellow around the outside.

Now we have to start over again! We will have to get another insect, put it in the trap and scan it again. Although this time we will scan it for a much shorter time - we have to learn from our mistakes!

P.S. You may have noticed the unusual background in the picture. This is because I went on holiday and didn't want to leave the flytrap on it's own in case it dried out, so it came with us! Here is a picture of it with some of our luggage in the back of the car. It is now very well travelled as came with us to Leeds and back!

X-raying the fly trap

Sharif put the fly trap in the X-ray machine for three hours to get a good image of the moth in the trap. We had to cut some of the stems and the flowers off so that the trap we wanted to scan was the tallest. We propped it up right using a straw and a piece of carbon rod.

Photos to follow...