Do you remember when I tried the instructions for making Glow in the Dark Mountain Dew? The instructions given in the video were shown to be fake but that doesn't mean you can't duplicate the glowing bottle of soda. In fact, the real project is as easy and inexpensive as the fake project. I've made a video debunking the myth and then showing you how to really make a Mountain Dew bottle glow. Here's how you do it:

Glow in the Dark Mountain Dew Materials

• 20-oz bottle of Mountain Dew™ (but any bottle will work)
• glowstick or lightstick
• scissors or wirecutters
• dishwashing liquid (I used Dawn™)
• hydrogen peroxide
• baking soda

Make It Glow

• Pour out or drink all but a small volume of the soft drink (~1/4 inch). If your bottle is empty, add a little water.
• Add a squirt of dishwashing liquid.
• Use scissors or wirecutters to cut the glowstick. (I do not recommend using a steak knife, but if it's all you can find, it will work.)
• Empty the contents of the glowstick into the bottle. I used a pair of tiny inch-long sticks intended for use as earrings, so I just cut them in half and tossed them in the bottle. If the liquid won't flow you can snip the glowstick into pieces and just add the pieces to the bottle.
• Add 1-3 capfuls of hydrogen peroxide.
• Add a pinch of baking soda and immediately seal the bottle.
• Turn out the lights (if you haven't already) and vigorously shake the bottle.
• You probably guessed this, but I'll say it anyway... don't drink the contents of the bottle. Keep it out of reach of children or anyone else who might be tempted to drink the liquid.

Things to Know

• There's nothing special about Mountain Dew. In fact, you don't even need soda.
• You can make the bottle glow any color you like. Just use the appropriate color of glowstick.
• You don't absolutely need the peroxide or baking soda either. The project works if you add a little detergent and the contents of a broken glowstick to any near-empty 20-oz bottle.
• However, if you add the peroxide and baking soda, you get an immediate bright glow. Enjoy the glow while you can because the chemiluminescence reaction proceeds rapidly. If you use peroxide you will notice the light starting to fade within about half a minute.

How Lightsticks Work | Glowstick Colors
Photo: You can't drink glowing Mountain Dew, but that doesn't make it any less cool. One bottle is glowing Mountain Dew. The other is red-glowing Dr. Pepper. (Anne Helmenstine)

May 23^rd is American physicist John Bardeen's birthday. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on two different occasions. The first prize was in 1956 for being part of the team that developed the semiconductor transistor. The second was in 1972 for his role in formulating the BCS theory of superconductivity. Bardeen is one of four people to have won two different Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger are the other three people who share this honor.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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I think my problem, this particular one anyway, started in grade school. In art class, we'd use a toothpick to mix a bit of paint into clear-drying school glue and adorn skin, clothes, desks, everything with glue 'jewels'. I grew careless with glue. After all, soap and water could handle any mess.

When Super Glue entered my life, I treated it casually. So, if you can stick it together (accidentally) with Super Glue, I've stuck it. Fingers, lips, hair, clothes, carpeting. It doesn't wash off. Fortunately, you can remove Super Glue from your skin and clothes. All you need is one household chemical, acetone, which you can find in some nail polish removers. Work the acetone into clothing or dab it onto skin with a cotton swab and it dissolves the glue. Acetone doesn't work for everything. For example, it dissolves acrylic as easily as the acrylate in the glue, plus you need to take other steps if you Super Glue your eyeballs or your mouth.

Tracing paper is translucent paper that you place over printed material or a drawing so you can trace over it. Would it surprise you to learn that tracing paper is essentially regular white paper?

The reason ordinary paper is opaque is because the air trapped between the cellulose fibers in paper scatters light. One way to make tracing paper is to press the air out of paper. Another method is to make paper from pulp that has been beaten in water long enough to divide and hydrolyze the cellulose fibers. A third way to make tracing paper involves a chemical process. When paper is soaked in sulfuric acid for a few seconds, rinsed, and dried, some of the cellulose is converted into a gelationous amyloid form.

No matter which process is used, tracing paper tends to be lighter and stronger than original paper. It's also lower in humidity and resists water damage.

Make Your Own Paper | Make Marbled Paper