Description

Tube, Laboratory: Sealed glass laboratory tube (the shorter of two in the A.P. Anderson display case) containing puffed and unpuffed rice grains. This tube is representative of the kind used by A.P. Anderson when he puffed grain for the first time by sealing glass laboratory tubes, heating them in an oven, and breaking the glass while it was hot. This explosion shattered the starch molecule, causing the grain to expand many times its normal size while maintaining its original shape.