Mad Science Sunday: It Can't Be All Lightning and Spooky Castles All the Time, You Know

Or red lipstick and streaky hair.  No.  In fact, sometimes it's downright dull.

Case in point:  By popular demand (er, as far as I could tell), I have gone ahead and begun reshrinking my test subject water-expandable replacement limb.  This is how that's going:

The plan, as you may recall, is now to get the limb back down to its original pre-expanded size, then pop it into a clear plastic soda bottle filled with water and see if the limb will grow faster and larger in that environment than in a blue glass bowl filled with water.

I think last week I said I would use a litre bottle.  However, this evening when I went shopping for a likely vessel in the soda pop aisle of the local CVS (the only store open after 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday night in Concord, Massachusetts), I discovered that the size I meant is in fact the two-litre size.

I removed water from the limb's environment on Thursday, and shrinkage has already been significant.  However, to give you an idea exactly how far we still have to go before the next stage of the experiment can commence, I invite your attention to the following image, where you may gain a slightly more meaningful perspective:

Yes, sometimes science takes takes a long time, even mad science!  Ah, well, the better to develop crackpot theories, eh my dears?

Meanwhile, the local CVS did not have club soda in a colorless plastic bottle this size, only terrifying concoctions of sugar and/or phenylalanine.   I toyed with the idea of a green bottle, but the contents of those were no less terrifying.  Finally I settled on what is probably a great deal more artificially flavored and colored "root beer" than anyone's pancreas should ever be exposed to.

Don't suppose you'd care for a glass, hmm?  While we're waiting?

No?  Well, it'll be here if you change your mind.  Don't wait too long, though.  The drains are in need of a good flushing, and this stuff seems to have some quite impressive surfactant properties.

Really quite impressive indeed.

Hmm.  I may have just thought of a way to make this all more exciting.

_____

Don't forget!  You only have two more days to enter my Second Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest!

Comments

[elizabeth]

I prefer all my science to be "mad" science or science that is really really needed but no one else is brave enough to do (like the kind you do!). Sorry I didn't come by earlier, I was...er...occupied in doing a science experiment today too!

[Sara]

"science that is really really needed but no one else is brave enough to do (like the kind you do!)"

Ah, Elizabeth, if only everyone had your vision! ;)

[laurie]

Ha! I can picture the potential explosion...
And can I say that I have just been riveted by all this science. Who says the internet is a waste of time?

[alphabitch]

Root Beer Floats!!!

I love root beer floats. I only like to buy sodas in cans or glass bottles though. And yeah, I know that cans are lined nowadays with plastic, but leave me with my delusions.

I can't find that severed hand my sister sent me; I know it's around somewhere, because it keeps getting in my way when I dust. Maybe if I dust, it'll turn up.

I'm wondering whether your severed limb will return to its pre-expanded size without application of pressure. I guess we'll see.

[Sara]

Thank you, Laurie. Thank you for your vision, also. I mean, isn't this whole thing all about furthering human understanding? How could anyone call that a waste of time?

Someday, amputees and Hallowe'en celebrants everywhere will thank me. You just wait and see. ;)

Alphabitch, I absolutely love root beer floats, too, and it's been approximately 5,000 years since I've had one. I am now kicking myself for not buying ice cream last night while I was out. Yum.

I have visions of your severed hand making its way through the walls of your house, Thing-like, only in micro version. I hope it doesn't hit water in a tight place. That could get, uh, ugly.

[alphabitch]

Oh no! I never even thought of that! I hope Ruby doesn't find it and eat it. That would be even more worrisome than the time she ate my glasses. Well, maybe not more worrisome, but it could be really gross.

[Sara]

Yes, especially as swallowing these items is expressly warned against on the packaging, and as we have surmised previously, probably not just because they're hard to digest and possibly toxic.

The x-rays, however, would be hilarious -- you know, once you separated them out from the poor doggie's discomfort and assuming she wasn't poisoned or didn't just immediately barf it up in chunks, some of them distinctly finger-shaped. "Uh, I don't know how to tell you this, Ms. Bitch, but your Ruby seems to have swallowed a, uh, human hand."

Heh.