These Hypnotic Science Gifs Are Unbelievably Satisfying

Fluorescein

Let's break it down: Fluorescein is a fluorescent tracer that can be used in a variety of ways, from microscopy of biological organisms to understanding the flow of rivers. NASA also used this to find space capsules that landed in the ocean. This non-toxic bright green color can be created in a glass bowl of water after the fluorescein has been harvested from ordinary highlighters.

Oobleck

Let's break it down: Fluids and solids typically behave very differently from one another, but that's not so with oobleck. A simple 2:1 ratio of starch and water, oobleck is known as a non-Newtonian fluid. While it has the regular, free-flowing attributes or an ordinary fluid most of the time, it firms up and acts like a solid when force is applied.

Dancing Oobleck

Let's break it down: Sure, sometimes applying force to oobleck in the form of punching or walking on it is pretty fun, but it's also pretty mesmerizing to let sound waves control this slimy substance. In order to make this ooze dance, put oobleck on top of a speaker, and crank up the bass. The sound waves will push the oobleck into forming solid shapes as they dance around. If this isn't hypnotizing enough for you, add in some food dye and watch the colors swirl together.

Freezing Water Instantly

Let's break it down: If you've been dying to control ice just like Elsa, now's your chance. Purified water is able to be cooled past freezing temperatures while staying as a liquid, as long as there isn't a nucleus for the ice crystal to form, like an impurity in the water or another piece of ice, as shown. The water is so cold, that the introduction of an ice crystal causes a runaway freezing effect throughout all of the supercooled water. 

Melting Spoon

Let's break it down: No, this spoon isn't stirring a nice hot cup of acid or anything like that. The utensil is actually made out of gallium, which is a metal with a melting point of only 85 degrees Fahrenheit. By merely stirring a mug of water barely warm enough to steep tea, the metal actually melts and breaks apart easily.

You can also melt gallium just by holding it in your hand, as your body temperature is enough to reduce the metal to a puddle. It's kind of like what your parents did with mercury, but a whole lot less toxic.

Magnetic Liquid

Let's break it down: The reason this black liquid can be manipulated through the glass is because it is a magnetic substance known as a ferrofluid. You can actually make a batch of this yourself, simply using ink toner, vegetable oil, and a rare Earth magnet that can be found at your local hardware store.

WARNING: Your productivity is sure to decrease with a jar of this on your desk.

Instant Hot Ice

Let's break it down: Just how the supercooled water had a runaway freezing effect when it came in contact with ice, sodium acetate (the stuff in reusable hand warmers) does the same thing. When the solution is disturbed enough to have a point of nucleation, the supersaturated formula quickly creates crystals and lets off heat. Pouring the solution out onto a plate will form "hot ice" sculptures.


Disappearing Marbles

Let's break it down: The spoon clearly pulls clear marbles out of the water, but the instant they're submersed, they seem to disappear. The marbles are made out of a super-absorbent polysaccharide which can hold over 300 times its weight in water.

When they're completely full of water, they have a refraction index very similar to water itself, meaning that light bends in the same way through water as it does through the marble. Without light bending in a way that differentiates the marble to our eyes, they're essentially invisible.

Colorful Milk Art

Let's break it down: The surface tension on the milk is reduced when it's touched by the cotton swab, which has been dipped in regular dish soap. The parts of the milk that haven't been affected by the soap try to run away, which ends up mixing the color in with the milk. Holding the swab in place for a while or putting in a couple of them in different places will cause even more crazy swirl patterns.

Dry Ice Bubble

Let's break it down: No, this isn't a mini nuclear explosion, this is what happens when the fun of bubbles intersects with the creepy-yet-cool nature of dry ice. Dry ice, which can be bought at nearly any grocery store, is frozen carbon dioxide. When a chunk of this ice is put into water, it produces a great deal of steam. By adding some dish soap to the water before adding the dry ice, you can make a bubble that takes up the entire area of the bowl. When the bubble pops, it has a hauntingly beautiful appearance as the steam is freed.


Waterproof Sand

Let's break it down: The sand being poured into the beaker has been coated with a hydrophobic chemical, which means that the sand does not like water. It won't dissolve, and the grains will clump together as best as they can to avoid contacting the water. This allows for the creation of snake-like underwater sculptures. When the sand is spooned back out of the water, it acts like ordinary sand once again, losing its shape.

Flammable Gummy Bears

Let's break it down: It's a total myth that eating sugar causes someone to have an excessive amount of energy. (Yep. The "sugar buzz" is completely made up.) However, you can get an incredibly energetic reaction from candy (well, the carbohydrates in the candy) by dropping it in a little heated potassium chlorate. The resulting reaction is extremely exothermic, meaning it releases heat.

Luckily, that's not at all what happens when a gummy bear (and 30 of his friends) get eaten by human beings.

Water Bending

Let's break it down: When a stream of water is flowing out of the bottle, the scientist is able to bend it just by holding a pipe near it. Is the water completely contaminated? Is this cause for concern?

Nah, it's just static electricity. The positively charged particles in the water are attracted to the negatively charged particle on the pipe. When they're brought close enough to one another, the water will actually bend toward the pipe. You can do the same thing by running a plastic comb through your hair a few times and holding it near water running out of a faucet.

Slowing Down Gravity

Let's break it down: No, the person in the video doesn't have lightning-fast reflexes that allow for the cube to be caught by the time it passes through the copper tube. The cube that is being spun into the tube is actually a magnet. The magnet actually isn't attracted to the copper pipe itself, but the magnetic field created by the pipe interacts with the one from the magnet itself, slowing the fall. The force of gravity is ultimately stronger than the force slowing it down, and the magnet does eventually fall out, albeit at a much slower pace than you'd expect.

Unusual Cat Species (21 Pics)

Andean Mountain Cat

This species of wild cat native to the Andes mountains in South America is rarely ever seen, let alone photographed. Scientists estimate there are only about 2,500 of them left. They are about the size of a large house-cat, and there are none currently in captivity.

Pallas’ Cat

These little fur-balls are also about the size of a domestic cat but have a whole lot more fur. Another thing that makes them unique is that they have round pupils instead of slits. Found in eastern Europe, this is believed to be the oldest species of cat, having evolved about 12 million years ago.

Fishing Cat

Native to south and southeast Asia, the fishing cat prefers to live near the water. It is the best swimmer in the cat family but is rapidly losing habitat due to human expansion.

Sand Cat

The sand cat calls Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and western Asia home. They have fur that grows between their toes, a feature that’s usually reserved for arctic cats, that insulates their paws against the hot sand. They’re also arguably the cutest feline in history, although we must admit that is more of an observation than a scientific fact.

Margay

The margay resembles the ocelot but is smaller. They are excellent climbers and inhabit a region that stretches from Central to Southern America. They live in rain forests and hunt at night, like many other cat species.

Black-footed Cats

These absolutely precious kitties are the smallest wild cat species in the world. The adult males weigh just over 4 pounds and the adult females weigh just under 3. Recently, the Philadelphia Zoo welcomed a litter of them and they are so cute you won’t be able to handle it.

Chinese Mountain Cat

The Chinese Mountain Cat is a wildcat subspecies that is listed as vulnerable. They live in areas of northwest China with high elevations (between 8,200 and 16,400 feet). They hunt small rodent, birds, and pikas.

African Golden Cat

The African Golden Cat is native to the rainforests of west and central Africa. It isn’t always golden, and has colors ranging from cinnamon to melanistic. It prefers moist, dense forests and is commonly found near rivers. It mainly hunts at night and like most other cats is a solitary creature. Its reclusive nature means it’s extremely hard to spot in the wild.

Bornean Bay Cat

This wild cat, listed as endangered, is native to the island of Borneo. Little is known about them because they are so rare. They are nocturnal and secretive, and from 2003 to 2006 scientists set up trap-cameras to spot the animals, and only came back with one photo.

Caracal

The name “caracal” comes from the Turkish word “karakulak,” meaning “black ears.” They hunt at night and often attack animals two or three times their size, such as antelope.

Flat-Headed Cat

These nocturnal cats are native to the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Sumatra. They feed mainly on fish.

Jaguarundi

These small cats are comfortable in trees but prefer to hunt on the ground of their Central and South American homes. They have also been sighted in Florida and parts of coastal Alabama.

Kodkod

The Kodkod is the smallest cat in the Americas and primarily is found in central and southern Chile. The tiny animal weighs between 4.4 and 5.5 lbs as an adult, and is listed as vulnerable. They are excellent climbers who feed on rodents, birds, and lizards.

Rusty-spotted Cat

This cat is only found in India and Sri Lanka and is pretty tiny. It typically only weighs about 2 to 3 and half pounds – yeah, that’s tiny. They spend a large amount of their day in trees but do their hunting on the ground.

Pampas Cat

Named after the pampas of South America, the pampas cat is found in a variety of terrains, such as grasslands, shrublands, and dry forests at elevations up to 16,000 feet. Little is known about their hunting habits but these adorable guys have been seen eating rodents and birds, even going after domestic poultry at times.

Cool Cat

Commonly sighted in discos in the seventies, these cats were responsible for over 70% of the murders on the dance floors and killings of DJs. They slowly disappeared during the rise of the fat cats of the 80s.

Fat Cat

A favorite among yuppies, the Fat Cat was most commonly found in board rooms or corner offices. Often responsible for large trust funds, the Fat Cat survived mainly on Lobster Thermidor and Russian Caviar before finally going extinct in the early nineties.

Crane Cat

The long-necked Crane Cats is believed to have been the original creators of the Great Wall of China, which they built in an effort to keep their natural enemies—the Cataphracts—at bay.

Cataphract

An unusual-looking species that somewhat resembles a man and a horse, this cats used to live in large numbers on the steppes of Mongolia and cause no end of trouble for the Crane Cats. Once the Great Wall was built, some of them mutated into Catamarans or Catapults.

Catamaran

The only known species of cat to have sails.

This shit is getting out of hand.

Catapult

Semi-airborne species that evolved as a reaction to the walls of the Crane Cats.

Alright, that's enough.

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Vintage Photos Show Slave Shackles Being Removed By British Sailors (4 Pics)

Back in October of 1907 the sailors of the HMS Sphinx noticed some people in a canoe that had escaped a slave trading village in an attempt to get to their ship. The sailors took them in, removed their shackles and made them feel right at home.

An Arab slave dealer in custody.

A British blacksmith removing the leg irons off a slave, 1907

The saved slaves on board of HMS Sphinx. The crew gave them new clothes

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