The Bone "Lick Test"

[Miocene_Mason]

14 minutes ago, RyanDye said:

I think a drawing would help me understand a little better, of course if your busy I can manage with that answer, thank you for sticking around so long to get this through my thick skull, I appreciate it! 

No thick skull, unless I am as well. This makes me really think about it, I’ve always just kinda went with it.

 

heres my understanding of the two ways, which is really just the same way on different scales.

 

 

green highlight represents microscoping pores where air is exuded from. Really they are all over, but for simplicity sake I only drew them on top. Once air is out water acts as a plug

[Miocene_Mason]

3 minutes ago, RyanDye said:

Maybe I should think of something else to demonstrate, but I just can't think of anything with bones or paleontology or anything of the sort that I could physically  demonstrate, any ideas?

Prep, sieving, consolidating. That’s all I got.

[RyanDye]

4 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

No thick skull, unless I am as well. This makes me really think about it, I’ve always just kinda went with it.

 

heres my understanding of the two ways, which is really just the same way on different scales.

 

 

green highlight represents microscoping pores where air is exuded from. Really they are all over, but for simplicity sake I only drew them on top. Once air is out water acts as a plug

So your saying the pore actually goes all the way through the bone and air escapes on the other side of the pore???

[RyanDye]

2 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

Prep, sieving, consolidating. That’s all I got.

I think I'll stick with my original idea since I can't really bring a giant bag of sand and dump it all over the classroom floor, and I've never consolidated a specimen before except on volunteer digs, I  also need a unstable specimen for that, and I have no tools for genuine preparation. Well, at the very least my worries about not being able to talk about my topic for 6-8 minutes are completely gone!  

[RyanDye]

So are pores going throughout the entire bone, is that how the air is escaping? Like, do pores have two exits?

[doushantuo]

the lick test contaminates a sample,and is .....

let's say: not the soundest of methodologies.

Saliva contains ,among other things,lactoferrin,peroxidase,miscellanous histidins,cysteine-containing phosphoproteins,and bacteria,LOTS of them

in short :saliva is not boiled tapwater

 

[RyanDye]

4 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

the lick test contaminates a sample,and is .....

let's say: not the soundest of methodologies.

Saliva contains ,among other things,lactoferrin,peroxidase,miscellanous histidins,cysteine-containing phosphoproteins,and bacteria,LOTS of them

in short :saliva is not boiled tapwater

 

I understand that, but I'm not questioning the usefulness of the method, I'm questioning how the method functions. 

[Miocene_Mason]

21 minutes ago, RyanDye said:

So are pores going throughout the entire bone, is that how the air is escaping? Like, do pores have two exits?

The spongy bone does, though as has been said before it’s quite shakey. In Maryland we find cetacean bone which is very dense in some place but in others the pores are to big. Lick don’t work. Pores can have multiple exits, and often do.

[RyanDye]

14 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

The spongy bone does, though as has been said before it’s quite shakey. In Maryland we find cetacean bone which is very dense in some place but in others the pores are to big. Lick don’t work. Pores can have multiple exits, and often do.

That's really interesting, bone is basically a very hard sponge in a sense. 

[ynot]

A porous rock or bone (or anything else) is like a sponge. There are the pores that You can see and there are microscopic pores that You can not see. These pores will allow the free movement of air and water molecules

When You touch the edge of a piece of paper You can see the capillary actions occur. Water soaks in and pushes the air out. The more porous the paper the quicker this action will occur (paper towel  compared to writing paper). Because of the porous nature of most paper, it will also stick with a "lick test". (You can really see the capillary action with colored crepe paper and  "construction" paper where the water will displace the color dye.) 

You can demonstrate surface tension by floating pepper on water in a bowl. Then put a drop of liquid soap in the middle.

 

So when a wet surface (finger/tongue) is touched to a dry porous structure the capillary action will pull the water into the pores and the surface tension creates a bubble with a vacuum inside, making the two pieces stick together (results will vary dependent on the porousness of the materials.)

 

The drawings above should have a layer of blue along the inside of the arrowed area, forming a complete bubble.