Lick the Moonmilk

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Moonmilk sprint flyer.png


The Moonmilk

What does Wikipedia [1] say?

Moonmilk (sometimes called mondmilch, also known as montmilch or as cave milk) is a white, creamy substance found inside caves. 
It is a precipitate from limestone comprising aggregates of fine crystals of varying composition 
usually made of carbonates such as calcite, aragonite, hydromagnesite, and/or monohydrocalcite.


And there are several hypotheses.

  • Is moonmilk to be the result of bacterial action rather than from chemical reactions?
  • Is moonmilk created by the bacterium Macromonas bipunctata?
  • Is possible that moonmilk carries dissolved nutrients that can be used by microbes, such as Actinomycetes?
  • Is it created by "moon rays" as Conrad Gessner, Swiss naturalist who coined the term "Lac Lunae" back in 1555, thought?


Moonmilk was dscribed as a remedy by Gesner in 1555. Like many other cave contents like bear bones or dripstones, moonmilk was mined and sold by pharmacies. It was prescibed until the 19th century. As it is simply calcite, it definitely cured acalcinosis and probably cardialgia by neutralicing the acid. [2]

This sounds interesting. Let's explore.

Mondmilchloch Lucerm

"In an initial experiment (Peoc'h, 1986) was established that young chicks aged from 1 to 7 days could attract towards them a robot controlled by a random generator"

Ok, so not the chicks are attracted by the robot but the robot (with a candle mounted on it) is attracted by the chicks (in a cage) :-) And why? Because they are in the dark and want to go to the light. And use their psychokinetic force.

Believe it or not? Science is not about believing it's about testing, observing and understanding.
So let's try.

The Experiment

At the HackteriaLab 2014 we had by chance the perfect condition to carry out this experiment.

Cindy Lin, amateur naturalist, albeit always tempted to remove living things from their natural environments, "found" three young chicken during the retreat in Bumi Pemuda Rahayu Arts Center.