Not so sweet revenge
For pranksters in search of sweet revenge, dumping sugar in a person's gas tank might be the traditional choice but rarely does this prank live up to its reputation, according to the folks at www.snopes.com, a Web site dedicated to urban legends. In theory, the sugar is supposed to dissolve into the gasoline and travel along fuel lines to the engine. The heat from the engine is then supposed to melt the sugar into a dense sludge, which penetrates the engine, causing it to seize. The legend continues that the sludge then hardens into a rigid consistency, making it impossible to remove from the engine cavity. \nHowever, the most fundamental part of this prank, the dissolving of sugar into gasoline, does not actually happen. The worst that could happen would be a clogged fuel filter or fuel injector, similar to the way sand would clog the fuel filter.\nTherefore, instead of seeking sweet revenge, go for the sour kind, such as placing a big hunk of Limburger cheese on the engine block. The aroma, pungent and robust, lingers in the car for days, pending the discovery of the cheese, of course.
The bed of nails
For Gomez Munster, lying down on a bed of nails for a quick snooze is actually quite a bit more comfortable than most of his TV viewers would imagine, due largely in part to simple physics. Anne Starace, a first-year chemistry graduate student, said body pressure is distributed evenly among the nails, which are placed very close to each other, and the force from the nail on the body will be quite low. \n"It basically does not hurt at all," Starace said. \nThe secret to this phenomenon, according to www.physlink.com, is understanding the force per unit area of skin in determining if the nail will pierce the skin. Lying on a bed of 500 nails would not pierce the skin because the force is evenly distributed, but testing this hypothesis by lying on a bed of five nails versus a bed of 500 nails is not recommended. Just take the physicist's word for it.
Fun with mom's cleaners
nother fun explosion prank to pull involves a few simple household items: vinegar, baking soda, saran wrap and an empty water bottle. After baking soda is tightly wrapped in saran wrap, it can be placed in a water bottle half filled with vinegar. After capping and shaking the bottle, a white foamy liquid will begin to form. For an explosion to occur, some sort of trauma, such as throwing the bottle from a balcony a few floors off the ground, must be performed. The result is a pretty sweet and virtually harmless explosion. \nThe reason for this explosion is a simple acid-base reaction. Vinegar contains a large amount of acetic acid, while baking soda is sodium \nbicarbonate, a base. As the baking soda is dissolved in the vinegar, carbonic acid is formed. Carbonic acid quickly breaks down into water and carbon dioxide, which causes fizzing. In the airtight bottle, the carbon dioxide continually builds up and eventually causes an explosion when a large impact or heat is added to the equation. \nIf the explosion from this reaction is not big enough for some tastes, another option is mixing dry ice with water in a 2-liter bottle. The explosion created from this mixture is much more powerful than the one resulting from mixing vinegar and baking soda. Since water is very warm relative to dry ice, which is approximately a negative 78.5 degrees Celsius, the dry ice begins to "melt" when mixed with water. However, when dry ice melts, it doesn't transform into a liquid state. By a process called sublimation, it turns into a gas. As was the case with the vinegar and baking soda reaction, the pressure of the carbon dioxide builds up and causes the bottle to explode. \nNicole O'Neil, a senior majoring in chemistry, said this very same prank was pulled in the parking lot of the Indiana Memorial Union.\n"Some nearby residents called the police because they thought they heard gunshots," she said. \nObviously, the repercussions of this prank can be serious, so make sure the bottle is placed and capped by someone who can run fast.
The art of the fart
On first consideration, common flatulence appears to be nothing more than an odoriferous phantom of a person's last meal. But upon closer examination, the fart becomes an artful yet flammable expression of human biochemistry. \nThe fart is born from the body's breakdown of food undigested by stomach acid -- the first step in food digestion. Microbes, namely acetogens and methanogens, are responsible for breaking down and digesting the remaining molecules. Acetogens turn the molecules's hydrogen and carbon dioxide into acetate, an excellent source of energy. Methanogens, on the other hand, turn the hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane gas, a poor source of energy which must be expelled, according to the Web site, "Facts on Farts." \nAlthough farts are comprised of more than the methane gas produced by this reaction, methane gas and hydrogen are the chemicals necessary to make farting into a science prank, causing an explosion when a fart is lit. A blue or yellow flame can result from lighting a fart. A blue flame is indicative of methane while a yellow flame indicates a more hydrogen-based fart.\nBut finding the right person to carry out this experiment could be the key to its success. About two out of every three humans have more methanogens than acetogens in their stomachs, and only a third of people pass a significant amount of methane gas to result in a successful flame. So elite is this group of individuals that they are part of a selective and elite group, The Royal Order of the Blue Flame. \nLighting a fart, however, can be a very dangerous prank to undertake because the flame can back up into a person's colon or clothing, and other surroundings may be burned. \nAs a side note, the reason your roommate's farts stink so bad is not because of methane gas. Methane is a colorless and odorless gas that just happens to be highly flammable. So, though lighting your roommate's farts won't make the smell go away, it sure does make them more fun.
