Find out what goes on behind closed doors in the kitchen. The closed door of the oven, that is. Cooking for Geeks, written by Jeff Potter, is a cookbook that goes beyond recipes and adds a little more spice to the mix. In it, you will learn:

• Why medium-rare steak is so popular.
• Why we bake some things at 350° F/175° C and others at 375° F/190° C.
• How quickly a pizza will cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000° F/540° C.
• How to initialize your kitchen and calibrate your tools.
• Important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook.
• How to play with your food using hydrocolloids and sous vide cooking.

Read on for a couple of sample recipes.

[Read more →]

No fancy tricks here, just science. Order your own disappearing spoon, but don’t think that’s water you’re drinking. (It’s full of gallium!)

(Via Boing Boing)

Some people need to watch their caffeine intake, others may want to. Well, the way to do that quickly and easily is with the Laboratory Beaker Mug. With a capacity of about 12-ounces, the glass beaker-that-looks-like-a-mug is sure to keep coffee drinkers alert, awake and paying attention to anything and everything.

[Read more →]

Credit: Gizmodo

A few years ago I witnessed an eCoupled presentation of wireless power. While the underlying tech is nothing new, the execution is probably miles away from what Nikola Tesla imagined. For example, news coming out of CES 2011… food that cooks directly in the packaging… and no, not in a microwave.

[Read more →]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Clarke’s Third Law

Of course, you are not going to be fooling anyone if you don’t have a magic wand. Everybody knows that magic requires a magic wand. That’s like Magic’s First Law. But in a pinch, a thing that looks like a magic wand will do. Especially when faced with a case of beer.

The UTILO Deluxe Bottle Opener with Black Handle by Blomus is a uniquely styled bottle opener. Similar in styling to a classic magic wand, the bottle opener may not fool anyone into believing you magically opened the beer, but open enough of ‘em and they just might.

Have a hankerin’ for milk and Pepsi but hate Pepsi? Well, if you’ve been suffering through the ultra sweet taste of that suspect combination just to get bubbles in milk, it’s time to let science lead you to better living. The U-FIZZ Drink Carbonation Kit consists of little more than a couple of plastic tubes and a hose (luckily with a $6.99 price tag to match—good job ThinkGeek), but manages to turn any beverage into a bubbling fountain of nose-tickling goodness. Whether it be juice, coffee, tea or the aforementioned milk, your favorite beverage can now be made better. How? Science. By using baking soda and vinegar to produce carbon dioxide, the gadget captures the escaping gas and puts it into your drink. Better living through chemistry, indeed.