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Making chicken transparent using Dorito dust
Hraness wrote this summary from a saved copy of the source. Quotations are taken word for word from the source.
gist
A home scientist tries to replicate a 2024 Science paper that made tissue transparent with tartrazine, the yellow dye on Doritos, by soaking raw chicken breast. A 12-hour soak at about 0.19 M left thin slices partly see-through, while the strongest solution crystallised. A Lorentz-oscillator derivation explains how a dye raises water's refractive index towards that of protein.
ideas
- Home protocol. Tartrazine at 0%, 10% and 30% w/w in tap water, chicken slices soaked 6 or 12 hours at room temperature, then photographed over a 5 mm grid.
- Partial result. Thin 2 mm parts of the 12-hour sample let grid lines show through with a gummy-bear look, but thicker folds stayed opaque and results fell short of the paper.
- Two causes of opacity. Materials go opaque by absorbing light or by scattering it at boundaries between sub-materials with different refractive indices.
- Index matching. Raising water's index from 1.33 towards about 1.45 shrinks the mismatch with proteins and lipids, so rays bend less and pass nearly straight through.
- Why a dye works. Below its 425 nm absorption peak, tartrazine adds a positive index shift while absorbing little red light, a result partly derived with AI assistance.
quotes
“I got partial transparency but not to the degree of the paper.”
“The chicken, even though the texture to the touch is the same, has a visual quality like that of gummy bears.”
“Effective observation at low cost is one of the themes of my research.”