This month's cover has a whole lot of shakin' goin' on. It highlights the steps of a new take on a classic demonstration—the blue bottle. Noble and Wellman describe a version of the blue bottle that has a milder formulation, with accessible ingredients and reduced total consumption of ingredients in "Greening the Blue Bottle". The blue bottle involves a series of oxidation–reduction cycles in which methylene blue dye is reduced to its colorless form by ascorbic acid, followed by oxidation back to the blue form by O2, which is combined with the reaction mixture by vigorous shaking. The cycle can be repeated multiple times, with the color reappearing and disappearing each time. Noble also adapts the demonstration for use as an inquiry activity that uses consumer products in "Out of the Blue".
Photographs are by Erica K. Jacobsen, Jerrold J. Jacobsen, and Ashley Trantow.
The cover was designed by Betsy True.
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