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EM pulses affect milk?!!!



Usually I avoid posting much "weird science" on phys-L, but this bit from
the "Last Word" section of NEW SCIENTIST is hard to resist. It has an
independant replication! (see below)

The "thunderstorm milk-clotting" explanations don't solve the problem (the
EM explanation fails to take into account that milk is conductive enough
to self-shield against static e-fields.)

Might this phenomenon be caused by hard UV? If a dish of milk is exposed
to pulses of hard UV, will it curdle? A small amount of acid can cause
milk to curdle and separate, so if the UV of lightning flashes performs
some chemistry on the milk, this would account for the strange event.

Even stranger thought: does pulsed EM cause milk to curdle? Maybe not,
since it might cause some significant problems for cattle. (But then
aren't there some stories about cows which give curdled milk?) I see that
next weekend I need to set up my VDG machine for periodic discharges, and
expose a glass of milk to the e-field transients. Maybe do this in the
fridge somehow, so room-temperature milk is not an issue. (My wife
wouldn't appreciate this, but the people at work would probably get a kick
out of it if I set it up in the lunch-room fridge)

((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA 206-781-3320 freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L



http://www.last-word.com/lastword/answers/lwa273mysteries.html

q. One evening in the summer of 1994 I retired to bed with a glass of
milk. During the night there was a tremendous thunderstorm with plenty of
lightning and the following morning the remainder of the milk had curdled
into a solid mass.

My elderly relatives who remembered pre-refrigerator days held it as
common knowledge never to leave milk out in a thunderstorm. I had never
heard of this. What process had taken place?

RICHARD PARRY
Colwyn Bay
Clywd

_______________________________________________________

a. As a child in the 1920s I was told that thundery weather would turn
milk sour. My informants were farmers who were familiar with clean,
unpasteurised, raw milk.

Whatever the type of milk, spoilage would be hastened by increased
atmospheric temperature associated with thunder. Most bacteria found in
milk grow well between 22 and 33 0C.

ELLEN GARVIE
Dingwall
Ross-shire


a. The connection between thunderstorms and milk turning sour is not that
of cause and effect. Instead it is a result of several effects of a cause.
A combination of heat and humidity, a common occurrence on a summer night,
causes unstable atmospheric conditions in which thunderstorms form. Hot
humid conditions also trigger the release of microorganisms to initiate
the souring process and the heat warms the milk, aiding their growth. The
result: lightning and sour milk.

A similar non sequitur was reported after the Second World War when peace
made life more secure and prosperity allowed an interest in fashion. The
result was that the birth rate could be correlated in Europe with the
number of storks' nests and, in Britain, with the height of the hemline
above the ankle.

J WHITE
Reading
Berkshire


a. I read with interest the replies to the query about milk curdling
during thunderstroms. The explanations offered--that the warm, humid
conditions during storms encourage bacterial growth thereby souring the
milk--do not explain the phenomenon that I observed. Intrigued by the
original question, I decided to test it myself and deliberately left a
covered glass of fresh, pasteurised milk taken straight from the fridge on
the back doorstep during a thunderstorm. Within 15 minutes the milk in the
glass had separated into a clear whey-like layer overlaying a layer of
curd. Tasting the remixed milk confirmed that it had not turned sour, only
curdled.

The remaining milk in the bottle from which the glass was filled had been
kept in the fridge and remained unaffected. Why was this?

VAL DAWSON
Amersham
Buckinghamshire


a. It's good to see that New Scientist readers are prepared to experiment
for themselves. Can any reader offer an explanation for this new study?

EDITOR

a. Electrostatic fields within a certain range can break up emulsions by
polarising droplets and causing them to coalesce head to tail. During the
build-up to a lightning discharge, the field strength will presumably pass
through this range and may cause exposed milk to separate into its aqueous
and fatty components. Milk in a metal container would be shielded from the
field and remain emulsified.

P WILSON
Seascale
Cumbria