Play with Goop, it's fun; Marzipan, Baker's Clay and what is a colloidal suspension?

There is no time like the present to enjoy today. Happy Yuletide!

Squirrels are worth appreciating and corn starch goop is fun.

The wonders of the world are worth celebrating while we can enjoy them. Many of us have lost loved ones in the recent years or lost our health. Capitalizing on life is something that doesn’t always require much money and money may even get in the way, the pursuit of money. People on their death beds tend to list not spending time with friends and family as their regret. Not spending enough time just having fun is likely also common in our bustling world - is browsing online “fun”? Or just habit forming?

I was telling someone about corn starch goop and went and got some cornstarch to show her and test the online recipe ratio. Seriously, it is kind of a blast at least once in your life to experience it. Can something be both a solid and a liquid at the same time? Seemingly so. Try it for yourself. … I dare you.

I double dare you…. and I will see you on the playground at recess later!

Myth Busters Episode 78, Walking on Water... could a ninja silently “walk on water” - yes with adequate supplies of corn starch which the Myth Busters not available and therefore the myth was considered ‘busted’. mythresults.com/episode78. The team used 1000 pounds of corn starch for the video: (Youtube)… and it worked.

*Corn starch Goop is a colloidal suspension showing non-Newtonian behavior. Grade schoolers need to know this, right? The Myth Busters mixed 200 gallons of water with 1000 pounds of cornstarch. That would be 1600 cups of water mixed with approximately 16000 ounces of cornstarch (weight of a powder in a packed cup versus fluffier can vary a bit) or about 3200 cups of cornstarch. The children’s recipe for Goop is 3 parts cornstarch to 2 parts water. 3200/1600 equals a two to one ratio. The Myth Busters used a slightly less dilute batch for their walking on water stunt - 1/2 cup of cornstarch mixed with a 1/4 cup of water instead of with 1/3 cup. **Visually in the video it does look thicker than the batch I made based on the recipe online for preschool Goop.

Non-Newtonian behavior - Brownian attraction between particles causes the solid like resistance and “shear” - the goop can be ‘broken’ in parts with a clear line, while it will also ooze into a flattened drip rather than stay rolled in a ball. The goop will part for the tip of a spoon but resist the flat of the spoon - allowing “walking on water”!

What is “Quicksand”?

Is Quicksand a Colloidal Suspension?

Based on the provided search results, it is clear that quicksand is indeed a colloid, specifically a hydrocolloid gel. A colloid is a mixture where microscopically dispersed insoluble particles (such as clay, sand, or silt) are suspended in another substance, like water.

Quicksand is composed of fine granular material (sand, silt, or clay) and water, which forms a colloid hydrogel. The search results consistently describe quicksand as a colloid, using terms like “colloid hydrogel,” “colloid made up of fine granular material and water,” and “hydrocolloid gel.”

In contrast, a suspension is a mixture where particles settle out over time, whereas colloids, like quicksand, maintain their uniform dispersion without settling. Quicksand’s properties, such as its shear-thinning and thixotropic behavior, also align with those of colloids.

Therefore, based on the search results, it is accurate to conclude that quicksand is a colloidal suspension, specifically a hydrocolloid gel. (Brave AI summary)

Funny quicksand aside - I saw a post by a woman I don’t remember in which she pointed out that of the childhood things that seemed scary at the time but turned out to never really be a threat in real life… was quicksand. Very true, I have never wandered by accident into a pit of quicksand.

*The Cornstarch Goop will settle into a layer of water on the top with a mass of cornstarch on the bottom of the bowl fairly quickly, rather than remaining in a colloidal suspension. Leave it to dry and it will be powdery again, gritty bits, but you could reuse it as cornstarch. Until it is heated, the raw starch remains raw starch.

Face the facts, squirrel appreciation is simply fate.

Using boiling water to make salt baker’s clay is cooking the starch and a smoother, softer playdough is made if the parent takes the extra step of using rubber gloves and kneading the boiling hot mass of flour into a soft dough.

Marzipan “fruits”. Photo by Tamara Malaniy on Unsplash

Those are real strawberries on the top of the cake, but Marzipan may be used to make little flowers, fruits, or even little animals or mushrooms to decorate a Gingerbread house, a cake or a Yule Log cake. Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash

I am tired of bioweapons and stupid culling of our people by our own governments. I watched cheesy movies today as a change of pace.

A Christian radio station, Family Life Radio, (listen to myflr.org online) has been having funny bits “made for Family Radio Christmas movie moment - example a woman has to go to her childhood home for family reasons, meets childhood sweetheart who wants to help her rescue the family Christmas tree farm… love and marriage result, and family farm is saved. Cheesy but happy and hopeful!

• Playing right now - “Light of the World,” by Lauren Daigle - a favorite of mine on the Christian music stations, laurendaigle.com. “The world waits for a miracle, the heart longs for a little bit of hope” (lyrics on genius.com)

Hopeful, feel good stories can be nice. Hope is nice. Happy endings are nice - life can have positives and it is worth having a reminder of the good stories, not just the bad.

Life is for living, feel good tear-jerker movie - Alzheimer’s is bad um kay. And so is cancer, but life is to live and to dance.

• Feel good “bought a zoo” family friendly movie, based on a true “I bought a zoo” story. Watch on Youtube.

• Hollywood budget Ice skating movie - sabotage the competition isn’t good sportmanship (*but does seem to be standard instincts for monogamy genetics) and following your mother’s goal for your life isn’t following your own goals. “Ice Princess,” Youtube. Feel good movie mostly, geared for teens.

• Bigger Hollywood budget comedy romance - “First Wives Club” becomes the ‘Mistresses Meet the Wife and They All Become Good Friends Club’. The husband gets treated with funny/medically abusive revenge scenes and his financial chicanery gets busted by the not-a-mistress-if-you-didn’t-know-the-smuck-was-married (the other mistress knew she was dating a married man… but they all live happily ever after each having found a new man). I skimmed through this video, fast forwarding a bit here and there to get the gist. “The Other Woman”, Youtube.

• 1994, “It Could Be You,” Youtube - Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda movie - Good Samaritan cop gives a down-on-her-luck waitress half of the winning Lottery ticket that he had purchased on his wife’s insistence (but screwed up the numbers she had picked so she wouldn’t have won…). His mercenary wife is very mad at him, ensuing comedy results. Waitress and cop fall in love, divorces and marriage happens. Every Buddy Cop movie meets Every comedy-romance movie, and sensible women everywhere are left wondering why the waitress’s very first move after receiving money hadn’t been to immediately start divorce proceedings against her bad-luck marriage. *Romance stories tend to have a simple solution that one is left asking “Why hadn’t the dingbat done that right away?” … because then there would have been no story.

• Made for Netflix type of movie of feel-good family romance - “Cheaper by the Dozen” (book) meets “The Sound of Music” meets “The Parent Trap”. In the movie “Yours, Mine, and Ours”, Youtube, a military man widowed with eight kids meets his high school sweetheart, now also a widow but with four kids plus six adopted ones - ethnically diverse, flaky artist family with a pet pig that has the run of their house…. The new bigger family moves into an old lighthouse and Hallmark romance moments are on the way, after ridiculous sabotage by the kids. The kids learn that siblings can be a mixed bag and still stand up for each other against the not-always-nice school peer group. The kids learn that military organization does have value but artistic flakiness also has value.

A repeating theme and catch-phrase was “Why not?” Why not take a chance on love even if love seems impossible? Why not take a chance on your own dreams and interests… even if society or your husband or your mother has their dreams for you to follow on their behalf?

Why not dance or skate? Why not sail away for a houseboat type of nomadic lifestyle? Why not do something different? Why not help others if you can?

Why not make some Corn Starch Goop to play with?

Binge watching movies is escapism though - living someone else’s dreams or vision. The energy needs to be taken into your own life to live and fulfill your own goals.

Disclaimer: Eat pudding! or not! This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance, but playing with Corn Starch Goop is fun - likely it would work with tapioca or arrowroot starch too. The particle size has to be very fine for a colloidal suspension to form - 1 to 100 nanometers in size.