"explosion" news and stories

Police in Murfreesboro, Tenn. are calling the recent explosion of a ketchup bottle at a local waffle joint the latest manifestation of a worrisome national trend.

Spokesman Kyle Evans says there's been a proliferation of "video Web sites describing the prank," which entails adding baking soda to a half-emptied bottle of ketchup.

"This could be a class C felony," Evans adds, citing a statute that forbids tampering with food.

According to the police report, the victim's wife called 911 after ketchup ended up "all in his face and hands, even his clothing."

"We were having breakfast, and my husband opened up a ketchup bottle and it exploded everywhere," Bonnie Brewer told the dispatcher. "(The staff) said, 'Don't tell me the ketchup bottle exploded.' It was almost like it had happened before."

Combining Mentos and Coca-Cola can lead to a fountain effect of soda pop, but do you know why it happens?

Last year, New Scientist published this video on the whys behind Mentos and Coke explosions. Turns out that mint Mentos just have the right surface area to do the carbonated experiment.

The party trick of sorts is so popular, companies like EepyBird.com sell Mentos and Coke kits to make your own eruptions. Diet Coke works best.

Like the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, the story of a Swiss freighter that almost exploded with cooked tapioca is safely behind us but still bears mentioning. In August 1972, the cargo of the Cassarate included timber and tapioca. The former caught fire and the hot water and steam created while dousing the blaze caused the 1,500 tons of Thai tapioca below deck to swell in the oven-like conditions. The Cassarate made an emergency stop in Wales, where the fires were finally extinguished. The hundreds of thousands of portions of tapioca, bound for Holland, never did wind up bursting the ship's hull. A recently updated Snopes page has excerpts from local newspapers that covered the incident.

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.

In much the same vein as the glowing microwaved grapes I posted about a few weeks ago, I recently found several pages dedicated to showing what happens when you combine Mentos with Coca Cola. I first saw this amazing photo on Flickr, uploaded by someone named Undrin. Intrigued, I went to Google and found this video (here's another, just for good measure). According to Undrin's comment, the Mentos cause the surface tension of the liquid to decrease, allowing all of the carbonation to be released at once. More specifically, I learned, it's the arabic gum that causes the surface tension to decrease. It's also what makes Mentos chewy. You can find an explanation here, and more discussion on Snopes.