You can learn a lot from eggs. The versatile, dubiously delicious depending
on who you ask, humble chicken egg. You can unlock the secrets of the universe
with these lil guys, or at least a couple of them as they pertain to some DIY chemistry. Alright. It’s time to make some chickens really nervous. First off. You can ‘’’’cook’’’’ an egg
by dumping it in alcohol. Well, it’s not actually cooking, but the
molecular process is pretty similar. Before we get to that, we here at Reactions
care about your safety, so let me take a moment to remind you of the first rule of chemistry:
Do Not Lick the Science. Okay? Got it? Great. Back to the eggs. All you have to do is crack an egg into some
sort of alcohol and walk away for a bit. We used 91% rubbing alcohol [isopropanol]. The stronger the alcohol, the faster this
will go, but it still took us about an hour to get to this point. How’s it work? Egg white is made of mainly protein and water. [on screen: albumin] Proteins are made of
long chains of amino acids. Those chains fold up in a very specific way
to give the protein both its shape and its function. It’s a little like origami: every fold has
it’s purpose. The folds in an amino acid chain are held
together by a variety of chemical interactions, many are hydrogen bonds. These are weak chemical bonds that can be
easily broken by heat or other things, like alcohol or acid. When the hydrogen bonds are broken, the amino
acid chain can unravel. The egg white turns, uh, white, as the proteins
unravel and stick to one another. this chemical change takes place throughout. Congratulations! You have successfully used alcohol to denature
your albumin. Remember what I said about licking the science! Rubbing alcohol is poisonous. Do not eat this egg. How about making an egg bounce like a basketball? For that you’ll need a fresh egg and some
vinegar. Pour vinegar over your egg until it’s covered. After just a few minutes, you’ll start to
see bubbles forming all over its surface. You can cover it for the smell and leave it
for about 24 hours. Pull it out, give it a rinse, and… To see why this works, let’s check out a
regular ol’ eggshell. The outside is a shell made of calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate reacts with vinegar,
or acetic acid, to produce calcium acetate, which dissolves away, along with water and
carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is what’s making those
bubbles. But with the hard shell gone, there’s still
something keeping the egg together. It’s a sturdy membrane that provides another
line of defense for the chick. It’s flexible…and bouncy. And because it doesn’t let in any vinegar
in, the albumin is safe from denaturing, leaving the egg completely raw. Hey! there’s still no licking allowed. Finally, maybe you want to make green eggs,
because you’re a huge fan of Dr Seuss, or the color green, or learning about acid-base
chemistry in your kitchen. Oh, boy, have we got you covered. For this one, you’re gonna need some red
cabbage from the grocery store. Chop that cabbage up, cover it with some water,
and cook it for a while either in the microwave or on the stove. Strain out the cabbage and keep the water,
which should be nice and purple. Separate the egg white from the yolk and set
the yolk aside. Whisk some of your cabbage extract into the
egg white and….. BOOM It turned green! The pigment that gives red cabbage and lots
of other plants its color is called anthocyanin [an-tho-SIGH-an-in], and it actually changes
color depending on the pH of its surroundings. That’s right–you just made a pH indicator
in your kitchen. Egg white is slightly basic, and the higher
pH turns the indicator green. Splash that bad boy into a pan and replace
the egg yolk to fry up your green egg. And remember, do not lick the–Actually, this
one’s edible. But it tastes like cabbage, so maybe this
one is just about aesthetic. Do you know of any other chemistry principles
can you learn from eggs? Would you like us to mangle even more of them
in the name of science? Let us know in the comments, and hit thumbs
up and subscribe while you’re at it. Until next time, kitchen scientists!