Color-Changing Cocktails
Discover the chemistry behind one of nature’s most colorful ingredients in the latest episode of Chemists in the Kitchen. Using butterfly pea flowers to create vibrant cocktails, our chemists investigate the natural pigments called anthocyanins and reveal why a splash of lemon juice can transform a deep blue drink into brilliant shades of purple and pink. Along the way, they compare butterfly pea flowers with red cabbage and demonstrate how changes in pH alter the way these pigments interact with light.
From brewing a simple syrup to experimenting with acidic and basic ingredients, this episode brings together chemistry, cooking, and a little bit of mixology to uncover the science behind every color change. Whether you’re a chemistry enthusiast or simply curious about the science behind everyday foods and drinks, you’ll never look at a colorful beverage the same way again.
Investigating the Math Behind Pokérus
LabX is teaming up with YouTube creator adef on a new series that explores science and math through the world of video games. Known for using games like Pokémon to turn complicated ideas into entertaining investigations, adef has built an audience around asking the kinds of oddly specific questions that make you want to know the answer. That approach fits right into LabX’s mission: experimenting with unexpected ways to make science engaging, relevant, and genuinely fun.
The first installment, “Investigating the Math Behind Pokérus,” dives into one of Pokémon’s strangest in-game phenomena and puts its underlying numbers under the microscope. Using Pokérus as the jumping-off point, adef turns an obscure piece of Pokémon mechanics into a mathematical investigation—showing how much there is to discover when you start asking scientific questions about the worlds we already love exploring. It’s exactly what this collaboration is about: bringing science into gaming culture without taking the fun out of either one.
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LabX is a public engagement testbed at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that boldly experiments with a variety of creative—sometimes even unorthodox—approaches designed to reach diverse audiences. Like all experiments, some of them fail. Some of them succeed! Either way, it will be interesting … dare we say fun?