You've probably heard that Wint-O-Green Life Savers will spark if you bite them in the dark. The phenomenon is due to triboluminescence, the creation of light when chemical bonds are broken, in this case by crushing. Destin Sandlin, of the YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day," has captured the sparks with a high-speed camera and the results are pretty cool.
What a lot of people don't understand is that putting out birdseed within reach of squirrels and expecting them not to eat it just isn't realistic. But if you put out just a moderate amount of food expressly for the squirrels, we'll usually be willing to leave the birdfeeder alone. Especially if the birdfeeder has squirrel baffles on it.
On the other paw, if I have to sit there and watch the blue jays chowing down on sunflower seeds while my stomach is rumbling, well, things are going to get interesting.
I usually won't touch thistle seeds because they get stuck between my incisors, which results in a lisp: "Goth darn it. A thithle theed ith thtuck in my teeth. I hate when that happenth!" Then the chickadees start laughing at me and I have to go back home to floss. *sigh*
I was just reading a bit more about triboluminescence. It's pretty interesting. Apparently, every flavor of Life Savers will emit light when the candy is suddenly crushed. In fact, any hard sugar candy will. But in most instances, it's almost impossible to see because most of the light that's given off is ultraviolet, which is invisible to us. The reason we're able to see the flash of light with the Wint-O-Green Life Savers is because that particular flavor contains oil of wintergreen (AKA methyl salicylate), which has the peculiar property of absorbing ultraviolet light and re-emitting it in the visible spectrum as blue light.
Pretty amazing. Who knew all this physics and chemistry was hiding inside a roll of Life Savers?
btw Proverbs 25:2 = It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.