"experiment" news and stories

Normally, I'd say that another post about Mentos and Diet Coke soda geyser phenomenon wouldn't be necessary. However, the folks at EepyBird.com have taken the plume of soda to new artistic levels. In a display that they liken to the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz let loose 200 liters of Diet Coke with the help of over 500 Mentos. During the roughly three minute display, the lab-coat-clad duo fire off soda from spinning pedestals, swings and arrays that seem better suited to fireworks rigs. EepyBird also has a decent explanation of the forces at work behind the magic. It's not just the gum arabic in Mentos that causes the fierce fizz, it's the texture of the candy that draws out the billions of bubbles.

Ah, the things you can do to food under the guise of science. Combine that with the free time afforded to you at college, and the possibilities are endless. T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S., the brainchild of a couple of computer science and engineering students at Rice University, stands for Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations. These two put the infamous creme-filled spongecakes through all sorts of hell. At the right is the "rapid oxidation test." Other experiments included the "gravitational response test," the "radiation test," and the "maximum density test," which actually yielded the interesting finding that Twinkies are 68 percent air. The site doesn't appear to have been updated in quite a while. Nevertheless, their rebuttals section is still pretty funny.