How an Ice Cream Soda or Float Works

How an Ice Cream Soda or Float Works An ice cream soda or ice cream float (called a spider in Australia and New Zealand) is made by adding soda pop or seltzer to ice cream. Some people add flavoring, like chocolate syrup, or a little milk. However you make it, as soon as the soda hits the ice cream you get fizzy, frothy, tasty bubbles.Do you know how it works? Its basically the same as what is going on with the Mentos and Soda Fountain, except not as messy. You are knocking the carbon dioxide in the soda out of solution. Bubbles of air in the ice cream provide nucleation sites around which carbon dioxide bubbles can form and grow. Some ingredients in the ice cream lower the surface tension of the soda so the gas bubbles can expand, while other ingredients trap the bubbles in much the same way as small amounts of protein in seawater trap air to form seafoam.You can make all types of floats, including black cows (coke floats with cola and vanilla ice cream), brown cows (root beer float with root beer and vanilla ice cream ), and purple cows (grape soda and vanilla ice cream), but you can use other ingredients. Heres a recipe for a coffee cola Float, which is bubbly and caffeinated and therefore a double-win: 2-1/2 cups coffee (room temperature or chilled)2/3 cup light cream or milkcoffee, chocolate or vanilla ice creamcola Mix the coffee and cream or milk, pour it into glasses, add scoops of ice cream, and top it off with cola. You can garnish it with whipped cream, chocolate covered coffee beans, or a little coffee powder or cocoa.

Give up willpower this year - Emphasis

Give up willpower this year Give up willpower this year At this time of year, our thoughts inevitably turn to fresh starts and making resolutions for better ways to live and work. If youve pledged to give up cake or make the gym your second home, youre certainly in good company. My friend Philippa is one of many who have declared this Dry January (which I confidently predict will be followed by Wet February – you heard it here first). Or maybe youve decided its your working habits that need to shape up, that this is the year you wont leave writing up reports, emails and proposals to the last minute anymore. Its an issue many of us struggle with, and some to a very dramatic extent. I recently read of a man who always left writing reports until the night before they were due. Well, he did that until he discovered that he could get up at 4am on the actual day he had to submit them and write them then. Clearly, thats no way to live. And definitely not a great route to writing great reports. Being unsure of where to begin your document can lead to a lot of wasted time and (if were honest) procrastination. Too often, we dont start to write until the fear of writing something imperfect gets displaced by the fear of not writing anything at all. Of course, lots of people put off starting that crucial document or critical email for much longer than they might like to admit. The fear factor The trouble is that willpower sometimes just wont cut it. If your brain perceives something to be a threat (the prospect of failure), it will do all it can to avoid that threat until a bigger one (the consequences of not writing anything at all) comes along. Believe me, your willpower is not much of a match for millions of years of evolution. The way to get round this is to trick your brain by still avoiding the threat while doing something that actually moves you closer to finishing. So if writing is the problem, dont write. Plan instead. The art of getting started Most painters sketch out the general outlines of their pictures before putting paint to canvas. This gets all the elements in the right place and then naturally leads them into the act of painting itself. When you take time to plan, you do the same thing with your writing. In fact, planning is doubly useful. Not only does it overcome procrastination, it separates your writing and thinking processes. And that separation will produce much better results. Too many people use the writing process to work out what they think. This is actually dangerous. First, its likely to result in quite a disordered document or email. Second, it fools you into believing that what youve written is logical. More likely is that what youve written is the record of what could be a jumbled thought process – a record that you then inflict on the reader. Map it out There are many ways to plan. Lists are better than nothing. Mind maps are much better, as they are non-linear: they allow you to make connections between ideas that may not have initially occurred to you. But, however you plan, try not to do it on-screen: this will make it difficult to get the necessary perspective. And let’s not forget, your computer is also where all the tempting distractions of the internet lurk. So, instead, use a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. (Yes, paper.) And switch off – or even step away from – your screen if it helps. Since you’re unlikely to beat evolution, you may as well work with it to get the results you want. As well as have the occasional lie-in. Image credit: alphaspirit / Shutterstock

Give up willpower this year - Emphasis

Give up willpower this year Give up willpower this year At this time of year, our thoughts inevitably turn to fresh starts and making resolutions for better ways to live and work. If youve pledged to give up cake or make the gym your second home, youre certainly in good company. My friend Philippa is one of many who have declared this Dry January (which I confidently predict will be followed by Wet February – you heard it here first). Or maybe youve decided its your working habits that need to shape up, that this is the year you wont leave writing up reports, emails and proposals to the last minute anymore. Its an issue many of us struggle with, and some to a very dramatic extent. I recently read of a man who always left writing reports until the night before they were due. Well, he did that until he discovered that he could get up at 4am on the actual day he had to submit them and write them then. Clearly, thats no way to live. And definitely not a great route to writing great reports. Being unsure of where to begin your document can lead to a lot of wasted time and (if were honest) procrastination. Too often, we dont start to write until the fear of writing something imperfect gets displaced by the fear of not writing anything at all. Of course, lots of people put off starting that crucial document or critical email for much longer than they might like to admit. The fear factor The trouble is that willpower sometimes just wont cut it. If your brain perceives something to be a threat (the prospect of failure), it will do all it can to avoid that threat until a bigger one (the consequences of not writing anything at all) comes along. Believe me, your willpower is not much of a match for millions of years of evolution. The way to get round this is to trick your brain by still avoiding the threat while doing something that actually moves you closer to finishing. So if writing is the problem, dont write. Plan instead. The art of getting started Most painters sketch out the general outlines of their pictures before putting paint to canvas. This gets all the elements in the right place and then naturally leads them into the act of painting itself. When you take time to plan, you do the same thing with your writing. In fact, planning is doubly useful. Not only does it overcome procrastination, it separates your writing and thinking processes. And that separation will produce much better results. Too many people use the writing process to work out what they think. This is actually dangerous. First, its likely to result in quite a disordered document or email. Second, it fools you into believing that what youve written is logical. More likely is that what youve written is the record of what could be a jumbled thought process – a record that you then inflict on the reader. Map it out There are many ways to plan. Lists are better than nothing. Mind maps are much better, as they are non-linear: they allow you to make connections between ideas that may not have initially occurred to you. But, however you plan, try not to do it on-screen: this will make it difficult to get the necessary perspective. And let’s not forget, your computer is also where all the tempting distractions of the internet lurk. So, instead, use a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. (Yes, paper.) And switch off – or even step away from – your screen if it helps. Since you’re unlikely to beat evolution, you may as well work with it to get the results you want. As well as have the occasional lie-in. Image credit: alphaspirit / Shutterstock

Give up willpower this year - Emphasis

Give up willpower this year Give up willpower this year At this time of year, our thoughts inevitably turn to fresh starts and making resolutions for better ways to live and work. If youve pledged to give up cake or make the gym your second home, youre certainly in good company. My friend Philippa is one of many who have declared this Dry January (which I confidently predict will be followed by Wet February – you heard it here first). Or maybe youve decided its your working habits that need to shape up, that this is the year you wont leave writing up reports, emails and proposals to the last minute anymore. Its an issue many of us struggle with, and some to a very dramatic extent. I recently read of a man who always left writing reports until the night before they were due. Well, he did that until he discovered that he could get up at 4am on the actual day he had to submit them and write them then. Clearly, thats no way to live. And definitely not a great route to writing great reports. Being unsure of where to begin your document can lead to a lot of wasted time and (if were honest) procrastination. Too often, we dont start to write until the fear of writing something imperfect gets displaced by the fear of not writing anything at all. Of course, lots of people put off starting that crucial document or critical email for much longer than they might like to admit. The fear factor The trouble is that willpower sometimes just wont cut it. If your brain perceives something to be a threat (the prospect of failure), it will do all it can to avoid that threat until a bigger one (the consequences of not writing anything at all) comes along. Believe me, your willpower is not much of a match for millions of years of evolution. The way to get round this is to trick your brain by still avoiding the threat while doing something that actually moves you closer to finishing. So if writing is the problem, dont write. Plan instead. The art of getting started Most painters sketch out the general outlines of their pictures before putting paint to canvas. This gets all the elements in the right place and then naturally leads them into the act of painting itself. When you take time to plan, you do the same thing with your writing. In fact, planning is doubly useful. Not only does it overcome procrastination, it separates your writing and thinking processes. And that separation will produce much better results. Too many people use the writing process to work out what they think. This is actually dangerous. First, its likely to result in quite a disordered document or email. Second, it fools you into believing that what youve written is logical. More likely is that what youve written is the record of what could be a jumbled thought process – a record that you then inflict on the reader. Map it out There are many ways to plan. Lists are better than nothing. Mind maps are much better, as they are non-linear: they allow you to make connections between ideas that may not have initially occurred to you. But, however you plan, try not to do it on-screen: this will make it difficult to get the necessary perspective. And let’s not forget, your computer is also where all the tempting distractions of the internet lurk. So, instead, use a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. (Yes, paper.) And switch off – or even step away from – your screen if it helps. Since you’re unlikely to beat evolution, you may as well work with it to get the results you want. As well as have the occasional lie-in. Image credit: alphaspirit / Shutterstock