Dem Bones!

Moving right along in our study of science to muscles and BONES.  Here is our  simple dining-room table experiment with leftovers from supper to see “what will happen to bones.” 

Naomi’s got her scientist goggles on here, as she carefully pours the controlled substance into one of our experimental vials. 

Each vial contains a chicken bone, plus either a) plain water, b) Coke a leading brand of tinned cola beverage, or c) vinegar.  There’s also a control which is a paper plate with d) a dry bone.

We then did the scientific thing of “asking everybody in the room” what they thought would happen to all four bones.

My answers were the most boring, but probably the most scientifically accurate.  I secretly think Gavriel Zev’s answers were best, so I’m rooting for his, though some of them are a bit of a long shot:

1. water – “it will be not yummy”
2. vinegar – “there will be skeletons in the bone”
3. coke - “people will be in the coke”
4. dry - “it will melt”

The experiment just asked for vinegar (to demonstrate the effect of calcium on maintaining skeletal rigidity, but that’s so old-school and vanilla).  I wanted to add water as a control, and then Elisheva started asserting at supper that her friend’s family did it with Coke and it dissolved a bone. 

Having seen the mythbusters episode where that myth was debunked, YM & I asserted that Coke could do no such thing.  So I threw that into the experiment as well so we can settle it once and for all.

I guess the next step is to look up how long we’re supposed to let this thing sit before we check back.  Okay, 2 or 3 days.  I will definitely report back!