Friday flyer: issue 128

Hello again everyone!

We’ll be covering two of our sessions here this time, so we’ll try to keep it short :)

Recently, we had our very first experimental session! We were delighted to bring the topic 'Can we eat water?' into discussion along with a demonstration conducted. Hosted by both our core and official members: Thaara, Jing Xean, Jing Ren, Jing Yan and Darshinie, we have successfully made bubbles of water whilst bringing up awareness about environmental problems and the science behind these bubbles.

To start off, did you know how many disposable water bottles are purchased to drink throughout normal daily life? Within this session, we talked about how disposable water bottles can have a highly negative impact on the environment, but can also contain harmful chemicals such as BPA that can damage your health. Around 80% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills and it takes up to 1,000 years for every single bottle to decompose - a detrimental effect that is brought to the Earth!

Therefore, in our session, we mentioned Ooho! (a bite-sized blob of water) which was invented and introduced to the public by a start-up company named Skipping Rocks Lab. The idea was originally developed for molecular gastronomy by chef Ferran Adrià by using chemical techniques to produce unusual dishes with unexpected contrasts of flavour/temperature/texture. This bite-sized blob of water is surrounded by a membrane, and if you choose not to eat it, it is completely fine as the membrane is biodegradable - eradicating the use of plastic bottles.

Next, it's THE demonstration time!

For our demonstration, we decided to recreate what was seen in videos and blogs online. Some primary materials we had to prepare were sodium alginate and calcium lactate (these help to form the edible membrane). The process is actually very simple - if you would like to have more detailed instructions and equipment, you can follow them here: How to make edible water bottles. If you would like to see ours, have a look at the pictures!

The science behind it - How does it work?

Apart from the fun of making these edible bubbles, there is science behind it to explain it all! To simplify, there is a reaction between the primary components, sodium alginate and calcium lactate - when they react, a process called spherification takes place (where liquid gets held together within soft spherical capsules). Calcium ions replace sodium to form calcium alginate, this will be the gel membrane that encapsulates the water!

Our demonstration went really successfully, and we loved the audience participation. Everyone was curious and some couldn't wait to get their hands on making their own edible water bubble, while others watched in awe. Although only a few remained intact by the end of the session, being able to bring awareness of reducing the use of plastic bottles and explaining the science behind this experiment came across clearly and we hoped that everyone enjoyed our presentation, at the same time, learnt something new.

After this successful experiment session, our final gathering was held last Friday to fully hand it over to the new core team: Keira, Leo, Minsol, Xin Ling, Everest and Elisa! We are sure they’ll do an amazing job and work their best to put out new ideas and events they have planned. We hope the same amount of enthusiasm and support will be shown to them, just as it was for us! All the best to the new core team! :D

Lastly, thank you to the ScienZ Core Team 2021/22 (Jing Xean, Thaara, Keira, Elizabeth, Darshinie and Khai Yue) and our Official Members from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for your hard work and dedication towards ScienZ - consistently contributing while handling your heavy academic workload - we wouldn’t have done this much without each one of you!<3

Cheers,

The ScienZ Society 2021/22