Periodic Table Challenge

 2019 is the International Year of the Periodic Table and IUPAC has a game you can play online!
Here is the link https://iupac.org/100/pt-challenge/

Before you can play, you need to choose an avatar (an element ofcourse!).
Now I don't want to influence your decision in anyway, but ..... the ONLY element named after a woman is Meitnerium, Mt, after Lise Meitner (Curium is named after the wife and husband team of Marie and Pierre Curie).

There are 15 multiple choice questions to answer.
Complete the quiz and generate your certificate.
Get 9 or more correct answers and you get the chance to enter the Nobelium Contest with a chance to win a limited edition Periodic Table autographed by a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

The questions are really interesting. Here is a sample..

•  In the 1920s, many companies promoted their products by adding radium. One of the top-selling radium-containing products was 'Radithor'. What was it?

• In the 1880s, Lord Rayleigh found that the density of nitrogen from air was 0.5% greater than the density of nitrogen obtained from other sources. What discovery resulted from this small discrepancy? 

• The 1944 American film ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’, starring Cary Grant, features what use of this chemical element? 

• Despite having few uses, erbium has one very important use that makes it beneficial to the modern world. Which one? 

• Whereas in humans oxygen is bound to iron-containing haemoglobin, spiders and other animals transport oxygen via a different protein in their blood, hemocyanin, which contains copper. What is the color of their blood?

• What happens when a teaspoon made of gallium is used to stir a cup of warm tea?

• The atomic weight of argon varies depending on its source. What is the reason for this phenomenon?

•  Vincent van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers is getting darker due to the presence of chromium in the paint. What is the chemistry behind this change in appearance?

•  When tellurium is absorbed through the skin, it is excreted through sweat as hydrogen telluride making you unfit for social interactions. Why?

• Indium is mostly used to make indium tin oxide which is an important part of touchscreens. How did indium get its name?

•  What name was proposed for bromine by its discoverer, the French scientist Antoine Balard?

 

Polypropene

Polypropene is one of the most widely used plastics in the world.
What is it? How do you make it? What properties does it have? What is it used for?

AUS-e-TUTE has just added a new tutorial, game, test, and exam for our members to help them understand polypropene, and apply that knowledge to answering test and exam questions.
AUS-e-TUTE Members should log-in to use these new resources.

If you are not an AUS-e-TUTE Member you can access a free-to-view tutorial for evaluation purposes at https://www.ausetute.com.au/polypropene.html

Micellar Water

Once upon a time you would buy a bar of soap and use it to wash your hands, face, body, and possibly even your hair.
Not today! Now you have hand-wash for your hands, body-wash for your body, shampoo for your hair, and a huge range of different products to clean your face including "micellar water" or "micellar cleansing water".
Unlike other face-cleaning products which need to be washed off with water, the makers of "micellar water" claim that it will cleanse your skin without vigorous rubbing or rinsing.
Intriguing! This "micellar water" sounds like some kind of magic doesn't it?
What's in "micellar water" and how does it work?

Read all about it in the September 2019 edition of AUS-e-NEWS, AUS-e-TUTE's free quarterly newsletter for chemistry students and teachers.

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Go to https://www.ausetute.com.au/ausenews.html