Mad Science Sunday: Ew, Gross! Why Is the Water All Cloudy Like That?

My dear fellow budding mad scientists, a word of advice:  Do not cook in the laboratory.  When you do, odd things may happen to your experiments.

Note the cloudiness of the water.  I believe this happened at some point when I was beating egg white with which to glaze my latest batch of scones.  I believe a globule of goo may have flown from the Pyrex measuring cup I was using for a mixing vessel into the waters of expansion.

If you'll pardon the pun, it is unclear to me whether this happenstance has affected the results.

One thing is clear.  (Sorry; I will get off that now.)  The limb has clearly grown since last Sunday!

Last week, before going into the blue bowl:

This week, after being removed from the blue bowl:

It does appear that the rate of growth has slowed.  Sadly, I am not a very experienced mad scientist, and so I have not been recording measurements such as length, thickness, or weight as the experiment has progressed.  These would surely give us some clue.

I speculate that one or more of the following is true, but will need more time and varied conditions to be sure:

• The leg has reached its final growth capacity.

• Egg white in the water impeded the leg's growth.

• The blue bowl provides a darker environment than the white plastic, and somehow the leg requires light to grow further and/or faster.

While at the West Concord 5 & 10 yesterday interviewing the replacement Mr. Coffee which we ultimately hired, I noticed something on a shelf high above the register, something that looked like a clear plastic soda bottle filled with water -- and a severed hand!  The hand completely filled up all available hand-shaped space in the container.  I speculate that that hand is made of the same stuff as this leg which has served as the subject of my research, and that someone dropped the hand into the water-filled bottle while the hand was still small.  I have no idea how long it has soaked in that bottle.

With that limited observation and the afore-listed hypotheses in mind, I propose one, and only one, of the following courses of action at this time:

1.  Replace the swollen leg in the blue bowl with clean water and see what happens, or

2.  Place the swollen leg in a water-filled clear glass pie dish and see if it grows more or faster, or

3.  Remove the swollen leg from water at this time, shrink it back to its original size, obtain a clear plastic soda bottle, fill the bottle with water, plop the shrunken leg into the bottle with the water, and see what happens.

You, my fellow budding mad scientists, have nearly as much invested in all this as I, and so I put it to you:  What course of action would you like me to take next?

I tremble in anticipation of your decision.

Comments

[Bipolarlawyercook]

Leg in a bottle! Sort of like a ship in a bottle, only grosser.

[alphabitch]

"Sort of like a ship in a bottle, only grosser." Ha!

Also, easier to assemble.

If you really wanted to do science, Sara, I suggest that you use this particular round as a pilot project. Or even a pre-pilot project. So far all you've got some evidence of growth, multiple factors to consider: bowl color, water temperature, and possible contamination. It's reasonable to hypothesize that some factors might enhance novelty-store limb growth while others inhibit it. So here's what I suggest:

1) Declare that your findings, meager though they are, indicate an urgent need for further research. I don't mean to be crass, but all these veterans returning home with missing limbs? Their hideous plight can be exploited to support your claim of urgency, especially when it comes to seeking funding (see #3 below). DoD has a big-ass research budget nowadays.

2) Invite other researchers to try to replicate or expand on your findings. Preferably someone with access to actual laboratory equipment. Eventually you'll need to recruit a team of researchers; you hardly ever anymore see really important studies with only one author.

3) Seek funding. This is probably where the other, more experienced, scientists on your research team will come in handy. You'll need to develop a hypothesis, define some procedures and a study protocol that can be replicated across multiple sites, and put together a budget. And also make some statement about what kind of results you expect, if your hypothesis is correct. Don't forget to include the credentials of all members of your research team. And of course something to establish (again) how valuable these findings would be to amputees everywhere.

4) When your grant is funded, and you actually do the study, you'll wanna keep a really meticulous lab notebook.

[alphabitch]

Oops, I guess that wasn't one of my answer choices:)

But I do have a severed hand here; I could try and replicate your results.

[Sara]

Ladies, you are cracking me up -- and today is not a fabulous day, so I need giggles, so thanks. :)

Alphabitch, if you want to run a sister study, please do so with my blessing.

I wonder how far we could really get with the DoD? If I had time, it would be amusing to submit both a grant proposal to it and one to the National Endowment for the Arts (if it still exists) and see which one bore fruit.

Oh, for a fifty-hour day I could live on the same amount of sleep I already get each night.

So far the bottle option is tied with the pie plate. I will wait to see if we can collect more collegial input before proceeding.

[Kay]

Am I the only one who thinks it might be fun to go get that hand and use it and the leg to start building a creature? You know, to fetch coffee the next time Mr. goes on holiday.

[elizabeth]

I'm starting to wonder if the water makes any type of difference or how much oxygen is left in the water and then I shake my head and say, Beth, get a grip, it's a halloween Grow-a-limb. Although, I have to admit, isn't there some temptation to do straight faced comedy with it - I would (that shows how sick I am). Get out the cruches plan a trip to like somewhere everyone knows me and tape the thing on my leg (I know it is obviously too small so you would have to wear shorts), and say things like, "My prostethic's being serviced, they gave me this loaner....I'm not sure it's working out, what do you think?" (oh God, just writing this down I know I am going to hell for this aren't I - please don't ban me, I can't help having this sense of humor - I had a meeting with my parents today and made an incest joke: "So, do you want me to list ALL the relatives who had sex with me, or should we just stick with my brother?" - my mother was looking at me with this really insense expression while Linda was trying not to laugh out loud - I said, "It's a joke, mom!" and then she looked like she wanted to strangle me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I know I'm sick but....that's what I'd do - duct tape it to the leg and go around with crutches (or better yet, buy the hand, then attach THAT to the leg): pointing to friends "I really don't think this one is going to work out...."

[Sara]

Oh, Kay, what a good idea! I was eying the post-Hallowe'en sale merchandise at a different hardware store yesterday, and they had spiders, though they were only guaranteed to grow to four times their starting size. So after your comment, I started having visions of the most peculiar collages, sort of like that baby head stuck on erector set tentacles from, what was it, Toy Story? heh heh heh

Now where can I get an erector set, anyway? ;)

Elizabeth, you must NOT worry about offending me with ideas like this. I will tell you a little story that I may have told here before but can't remember, and anyway it would have been before you started dropping by.

When my leg went bad and had to be lopped off, I happened to be employed at Whole Foods as a cashier. It also happened to be the week before Hallowe'en four years ago. I was feeling pretty good afterward (it's truly amazing how well one can feel after having a giant, infected, life-sucking tumor surgically removed), so I tried to convince the HR person to discuss with C. the Sample Lady the possibility of doing a Hallowe'en demonstration. I proposed having C. sample organic, free-range ground beef, which she would cook up in some entertaining way, while I sat there in my wheelchair and Whole Foods apron with obvious, "bloody" bandages on my stump, determinedly smacking the back of a "bloody" axe into my hand. I thought we could tell people they were tasting organic, free-range cashier.

For some reason, the HR person thought I was kidding and never followed up on my idea. Go figure.

[TheAmpuT]

Yes. The bottle. And then yes. Try to get the other body parts and make yourself a "Person: Deconstructed".

[Sara]

Okay, two votes for the bottle. Heh -- that sounds wrong.

I like the idea of the deconstructed person. I especially like the idea of finding out if all the body parts grow to the same proportional size, at the same rate, etc.

Next year I'm definitely picking up one of the hearts.

[Krishanna]

Shove it in the bottle, I say. =)

[Sara]

Okay, that seals it. I've got it draining/drying in the white bowl as we speak.

Now I just have to buy a bottle of club soda.