My child's Science Project

[Guest Texasshutterbug]

My child is doing her first full-blown science project. We decided to test the effects of four popular soft drinks on three objects: A chicken bone, a nail and stew meat. These are the observable changes in those jars with the stew meat:

 

(1) Dark "cola" product looses its color

(2) A sludge-like substance has settled to the bottom of the jar.

 

 

We have different hypotheses as to what the sludge is:

 

(1) Something in the meat or a chemical reaction between the meat and the cola caused the caramel coloring to come out of solution, form a solid and settle to the bottom.

(2) The cola caused the blood to leach out of the meat, coagulate, and fall to the bottom as sludge

(3) The sludge is actually bits of meat "etched" from the main piece due to the phosphoric acid in the soft drink.

 

What are your ideas?

[blike]

It could probably be a number of things..

 

Was the meat cooked? How long were the jars left out?

 

Did you have any control jars? If you had one with soda alone, and then one with the stew meat in some water, you could have narrowed down the possibilities.

 

Its likely a mixture of things. The acid probably did break down some of the meat. It probably does contain some blood too. As you mentioned, the soda lost its color. This is probably due to the soda not being fully homogenous. I don't think it was a precipitate caused by a chemical reaction.

 

I'm assuming this is a highschool or lower science project, so you probably weren't thinking much about control groups, but they really help narrow down possibilities for results.

 

what color was the sludge? What was its consistency?

[YT2095]

just a guess here, assuming the meat was raw, it`s known that acids will actualy "cook" meat a bit like steak tartar or certain types of Sushi. it cause the Proteins in the meat to denature and shrink, hence the need to let meat "relax" a while before carving or eating it, it allows time for the tightly coiled protein chains to extend a little, my guess it that the caramel (a suspension of carbon made from burned sugar) got trapped in these protein chains as they were contracting, a bit like stretching a spring, putting it in sand then slowly letting it reform to shrunk, it will pick up sand grains within the coils.

this is ONLY a guess though )

[Kettle]

Originally posted by YT2095

Oh dear

I tried to edit a spelling mistake by using the back button and posted twice

sorry folks, I couldn`t see how to edit it or delete it?

 

Heh - easily done

 

At the top of your post is a line that says "Posted on .... [Edit]". Click on the [Edit] - this will take you back into your post.

 

Either you can edit it and then click on the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

 

Or you can delete it - at the top of the page is a "Delete Post" checkbox - click on it to check the box and click on the "Delete Now" button to the right of the check box.

 

[Dudde]

or just wait for the friendly mod to come around;)

[YT2095]

Thnx both

 

Another I came up with (equaly guess work) is that whatever kept the carbon molecules in suspension (some sort of emulsifier) may have been exhasted (chemicaly) by attacking the meat, leaving the carbon free to fall to the bottom. was there any dark particulate mater in your sludge, maybe like streaks of black/brown? or was it just one homogenous mass of yuckyness?

[Intelligence]

Quark. I don't know you nor anything about you. But I would like to say I AM SO PLEASED TO HERE YOU ARE TEACHING YOUR CHILD THE CRITIAL THINKING OBJECTIVE PROCESS OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTATION.

 

You just made my dammed day.

[Edmond Nzivugira]

Maybe in the meat there are some chemicals that have breaching properties which made the dark cola to lose it color... thank you, that was my point.