Big Mental Disease

Pic: Instructables

The other day, I was watching the Discovery Channel, when I had an idea. You’ve probably seen Mythbusters, you know, the programme that’s presented by a man and his French walrus:

…..special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who use basic elements of the scientific method to test the validity of various rumors, urban legends, myths, movie scenes, internet videos and news stories in popular culture.

Wiki

I’m not really sure how often the Discovery Channel show the programme these days, but you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it. It’ll be buried in there every day somewhere between the macho science and dumbed-down American documentaries.

Anyway, there were a few things I have always wondered about, and I thought that it would be interesting to do some of my own research. I could have just googled, but for once I wanted to engage my brain rather than just plugging into the laziness of internet searching.

I hope you enjoy.

Experiment One:

Can Chocolate Kill Dogs?

I heard this a lot growing up. The information vacillated wildly between “all dogs drop dead at the smell of chocolate” to “it’s just an allergy type thing, most dogs can eat it” to even “every time a dog eats chocolate the Virgin Mary Lord bless her soul sheds a tear for all the dogs all over the world”

It’s widely believed that sufficient amounts of a chemical in the chocolate can kill certain animals but I am still not convinced. I need to see it for myself. After all, my neighbour once had a dog that ate his own shit and it never did him any harm. There’s a dog that hangs around here a good bit, I don’t know who owns him but he looks like a reasonably healthy dog and I will use him as the test subject.

Experiment:

I begin by feeding ‘Rover’ a square of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate.

Result: He looks a small bit disappointed with the flavour, but he seems to be okay. Let’s step it up a notch.

I feed him two squares of Lindt Dark Chocolate and half a Wispa.

Result: The dog is visibly bored and won’t stop jumping up and trying to lick my face. I now move on to the final test.

I melt four packets of the Lindt Dark Chocolate down and mix in about half a packet of sugar, for flavour. I then feed this to Rover, who requires gentle persuasion with a sweeping brush.

Result:

I am now satisfied that consumption by animals of sufficient levels of theobromine (thanks Wikipedia) can lead to fatalities.

Experiment Two:

Can Microwaved Deodorant Cans Provide Explosions Worthy of Michael Bay Films?

I saw some film years ago in which one of the characters blew up a house by placing deodorant in a microwave and turning on the power.

From what I remember, the explosion was like a huge Michael Bay type explosion, which I noted as a bit far-fetched at the time. I want to try this for myself. Will I get a burst paper bag kind of noise, or a Twin Towers falling down type? Only one way to find out.

A friend kindly allows me the use of his parents’ house for an hour or two, so I get down to work. (I told him I needed a quiet place to study.)

I place a can of Lynx Africa in the microwave, which is a Cookworks model,  and close the door.

I switch the power on and stand back. After about ten seconds I realise that the microwave is set to the ‘defrost’ setting, so I quickly switch to 700W and stand back again.

Result:

There you have it, a deodorant can explosion can throw out quite a lot of force. I wouldn’t really say it was a Michael Bay explosion, more of a Spike Lee one, in that it was powerful and relevant, but didn’t get the adrenalin pumping too much. I tried to explain to my friend the full story of my experiment but he would not allow me. In fact, he became quite insulting.

Experiment Three:

Do cats always land on their feet?

Well, we all know the banker FAT CATS always land on their feet, har har har TOPICAL JOKE. But what about a plain old domestic cat?

Everyone’s heard about how cats supposedly always manage to land safely on their tippy-tappies, no matter what way they fall. I believe my friend Jimmy Endless was the very first person to come up with the idea of attaching buttered toast to a cat’s back thus enabling the law of cats landing on their feet to be defeated. He outlined the physics involved to me several years ago, but now the whole thing is all over the internet and I fear that he has missed out on quite a lot of money. He is now homeless.

I don’t want to test the buttered-toast theory, I want to test my own. I want to see if a cat with NO legs can land on its stomach.

There used to be a cat around here with no legs but I think she got sucked into a lawnmower shortly before the last World Cup. For the purposes of this experiment I will make do with a healthy cat, with her legs tied back and a copy of John Grisham’s The Client taped to her back to make it more difficult for her to turn in the air.

I walked to the third floor of my local library with the cat, who at this stage was becoming quite restless. When the coast was clear I shoved her out the window and then leaned out to see what happened.

Result: Amazingly, she managed to turn completely around in mid air, landing on her stomach with the book facing up. It was remarkable.

Unfortunately for her, someone was entering the library car park at the time.

Experiment Four:

Does drinking lemon juice and baking soda make one spew out their insides?

This is the final test: to test the effects of ingestion of large amounts of Bicarbonate of Soda and Lemon Juice.

This was an interesting one. From talking to my friends, excluding the one I spoke of earlier who for some reason is ignoring me, the common belief is that consuming a large amount of baking soda and then washing it down with lemon juice would produce a severely upset stomach or even projectile vomiting. I wasn’t convinced of this though, as I remember doing this when I was young and I don’t think anything really bad happened. And I seem to have turned out okay JESUS I DO YOUR BIDDING PLEASE ASK ME TO CLEANSE THE FILTHY WHORES.

My grandfather had a keen interest in science when he was younger;  apparently he was the first person in ireland to own a radio.  He seemed a good person to ask for advice. I discussed the experiment with him but he didn’t really offer an opinion, instead muttering something about Murder She Wrote and the price of Fig Rolls. I waited till he fell asleep and then got to work.

I poured two packets of baking soda into a bag and moistened slightly with water, enabling me to form small cakes of baking soda, which I placed down Grandad’s throat.

When he had finally stopped spluttering, I offered him some water, but instead poured a litre of Jif Lemon Juice down him.

Result:

I’ve no idea how he managed to burst into flames, it doesn’t make scientific sense… My grandad was always like that though, he did his own thing and to hell with what people thought of him.

So as a final word, I’d like to take the chance to encourage all of you to take more of a hands-on approach when it comes to knowledge. You’re never too old to learn. Speaking of being too old, sadly grandad was too old for the excitement inflicted upon him in the name of science and passed away peacefully in horrible agony.

May he rest in peace.

Grandad in happier times

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