Washburn CHAOS Lab

10/15/2025

I found this pretty accurate.

10/14/2025

It's !

This year's (October 12-18) theme is "Energy Resources for Our Future."

Today's focus is , which celebrates the Landsat mission, a joint effort of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration to provide a continuous space-based record of the surface of the Earth since 1972. Every day, Landsat satellite imagery provides information to scientists, researchers, farmers, forest managers, policy makers, and many others that helps them make wise decisions about our resources and our environment.

https://americaview.org/earth-observation-day/

10/13/2025

Meet Nick Belen — explorer, citizen scientist, and Chairperson of the Louisville Grotto, the local branch of the National Speleological Society (aka the club for cavers and cave nerds 🦇).

Nick’s been crawling through Kentucky’s underground since he was a teenager and never looked back. He’s mapped passages, squeezed through mud tunnels, and even broke into a brand-new chamber no one had ever seen before — literally first human footprints in history. That’s the magic of caving: discovery still exists.

He’s one of the awesome guides who takes CHAOS Lab into the underworld to collect samples from deep, dark, and occasionally muddy science zones. 🧫💀

If you want to start caving? Nick says go with an experienced caver — someone who knows the cave, the safety, and the chaos. That’s how we roll, too.

10/11/2025

Heading to some haunts tonight 👻 and now I’m curious—what’s been your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever done? Drop it in the comments, bonus points for photos.

For me, nothing will ever top the year the stars finally aligned and I got to live the dream: our full Aliens trio—Ellen Ripley, Corporal Dwayne Hicks, and Newt. My daughter finally agreed (after years of gentle campaigning 😂) and it was everything I’d hoped for. Pic in the comments.

It’s still my favorite costume of all time because Aliens is the greatest movie ever made, full stop.

So tell me—what’s your ultimate Halloween costume win? 🎃

10/09/2025

From the lab that made “emotional-support flamethrower” a lifestyle… we proudly present: TACTICAL GLITTER. ✨

For science meltdowns.
For salty reviewers.
For the pettiest emergencies.

Standard CHAOS Lab issue — because sometimes you don’t need a solution, you need a sparkly escalation.

🔥 Warning: deployment is irreversible. Glitter is forever.

Now the real question is…
Would you want your very own official CHAOS Lab Tactical Glitter kit?
(Asking for a lab full of scientists with poor impulse control.)

10/08/2025

Somewhere between curiosity and frostbite lies a block of dry ice and one spectacularly bad idea...Can I lick it? 🧊

Dry ice — solid CO₂ at –109°F (–78°C) — where curiosity meets instant regret.

In the lab, we use it to keep samples cool and bacteria calm. Out in the wild, people use it to summon fake fog and bad decisions.

Can you lick it? Technically yes. Once. Because that’s exactly how long your tongue will last.

Verdict: Cool as hell, but unless you’re craving cryogenic regret, keep your taste buds out of it.

Got a weird rock, crystal, or mystery goo you’re tempted to lick? Tell me — I’ll do the science so you don’t have to. 🔬😈

10/07/2025

Is this rock interesting?

This mysterious little guy was a gift to our resident geologist, but with zero context. No origin story, no coordinates, no lore. We don’t know where it was found, who it used to hang out with, or what geological drama it survived to end up here. It just… appeared.

So we did what any responsible scientist with trust issues would do: we cut it in half. 💀

Inside? Some striking color and crystal structure that looked like gypsum—until we dropped acid. (The science kind. 10% hydrochloric. Calm down.)

If it bubbles, it’s calcite. If it doesn’t, it’s gypsum. This one effervesced like it had a caffeine addiction. So calcite it is.

Verdict from Alex? Not particularly interesting—unless you count the part where it fizzed like a sad little soda. Still, it’s visually striking, so it’s got that going for it.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Drop your vote in the comments.

And if you’ve got a mystery rock with no backstory and trust issues of its own—send it our way. We’ll drop acid on it for science. ⚡🧪

10/06/2025

🧬 Meet a Scientist: Goose P**p and Glory 🤘

This is our very first segment of Meet a Scientist! 🎉

While at the American Society of Pharmacognosy meeting this summer, I got to meet Dr. Brian Murphy from the University of Illinois Chicago — a total legend in natural product discovery. His team hunts for new antibiotics in lakes, oceans, and yes… goose p**p. 🪿💩

Here’s the best part: his lab teamed up with the Boys & Girls Club so middle schoolers could collect and analyze samples themselves. And one of those students found a brand-new compound in her own backyard! She’s now a published co-author and a professional society inductee.

That’s the kind of science that hits hard — messy, curious, and absolutely metal. Proof that discovery doesn’t just happen in high-tech labs; sometimes it starts with a kid, a backyard, and a goose with questionable aim.

**pDiscovery

10/05/2025

How I listen to metal music...all I wanted to do was blast ... and then I did.

I love the new shells for my .