Science and thrills for Roller Coaster Day and Rum Day

Happy National Roller Coaster Day! As I promised yesterday, I'm celebrating today by combining some science with thrills for an educational entertainment post. Watch PBS Terra ask and answer Are Roller Coasters Good For Your Brain?

Roller coasters have the power to heal. Host Joe Hanson explores the world of coasters, exploring the safety protocols ride engineers consider in designing them and the impact they have on the human body. We learn about how the experience of riding coasters can have positive impacts on our lives.

Actually, it's the physiology of fear, not the physics of fear. There are several videos on that subject that I'm thinking of sharing for future celebrations. That won't stop me from showing this video to my biology students next year as a fun way to examine how the nervous system handles fear. I think they'll enjoy it and learn something, too.

Today is also National Rum Day. While I feature rum drinks for National Piña Colada Day, National Mojito Day, and National Daiquiri Day, there are all kinds of rum drinks other than those three. Since I began today's entry by celebrating an amusement park thrill ride, I'm going to continue with the theme park theme with How To Drink's Need your Disney Fix? Make the Dole Whip at Home! Also rum!

I'm a giant Disney's Parks fan, today I'm talking about my favorite attraction, the Enchanted Tiki Room, and making a Dole Whip.

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I'm kind of a giant Walt Disney World Fan and I love me some Dole Whip. The Dole Whip, if you're not familiar, is a soft serve ice cream confection, usually pineapple flavored, that is served just outside of Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. It has a rabid fanbase just desperate to get more of that magic dole whip awesomeness all year long- and now you can! I've got a perfect dole whip recipe you can mix up at home all on your own. I add rum to mine, but that's totally not necessary. In fact, the rum changes the consistency to more of a shake and less of an ice cream. It turns out, this is pretty darn simple to make. The Enchanted Tiki Room is probably my favorite attraction, so I talk about it quite a bit here, and also Walt Disney's history with the attraction and a bit about its strange history in the park too.

Dole Whip
16 oz. -or- 450 g. Frozen Pineapple
2.6 oz. -or- 77 ml. coconut milk
3 tbs -or- 36 g. sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp -or- 5 ml. lemon juice
1 tsp. -or- 5 ml. lime juice
2 oz. -or- 60 ml. rum (OPTIONAL)
Garnish with pineapple
and an umbrella!

That was much more Disney than rum, but it was fun, too, even if it wasn't as educational as the PBS Terra video about roller coasters. I'm not showing this to my students!

Once again, happy National Roller Coaster Day and Rum Day!