Making chicken transparent using Dorito dust
- ID
- 36715
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 17 Oct 2026, 9:55 PM
- Fetched
- 18 Oct 2026, 5:34 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/making-chicken-transparent-using
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 18 Oct 2026, 5:35 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
A writer replicating the tartrazine tissue-clearing paper ('Achieving optical transparency in live animals with absorbing molecules') soaked a 2mm slice of raw chicken breast in ~0.19 M tartrazine — the yellow-orange dye in Doritos — for 6 hours at room temperature and got only partial transparency, with a 5x5mm grid visible through the sample. The original protocol used 0.62 M, 40 °C and a machine shaker, which the author says they couldn't safely match; a water-soaked control slice stayed opaque. The write-up gives full solution prep (2 g dye in 18 g tap water for the ~0.19 M batch) and flags that the APC Pure dye was only >80% pure, so the real molarity is uncertain.
Why it matters
There is no Malaysian angle here and no impact on anyone's AI, dev or startup stack — the honest takeaway is a reproducibility one. The author could not hit the paper's result with a 0.19 M room-temperature soak versus the paper's 0.62 M at 40 °C with agitation, and the dye purity was only >80%, so the stated concentration is approximate. If you cite that paper's transparency claims, cite the protocol conditions too; the effect is concentration- and temperature-dependent, not something a weaker kitchen substitution reproduces.
Discussion angle
How far can you weaken a published protocol before you're no longer testing the same claim? The gap here is 0.19 M vs 0.62 M, room temp vs 40 °C, no shaker, and a dye of unknown true concentration — which of those substitutions is most likely responsible for the partial result, and how would you design the cheapest follow-up experiment to find out?