I'm not a scientist. This is not a shock to most of you, but what you probably don't know is that I've worked really hard at not being a scientist. Take, for example, my sophomore year in high school. In biology class, we were supposed to dissect fetal pigs. I can't even tell you how much this task repulsed me. Do you remember doing this? It took a week to fully dissect the animal, and each day you had to put the carcass in a drawer for storage. By the fifth day, the thing was grey and flabby and oozing. Anyway, somehow I managed to convince my lab partner that since she wanted to become a doctor, it would make sense for her to do all the actual work. I, on the other hand, would do all the recording, in practice for my future career as an administrative assistant.
The reason why I'm mentioning this is because Blue and Green are REALLY into science. They particularly like science that causes smells (my guess is that they would love the whole fetal pig thing). So I've checked out tons of books from the library with kiddie experiments in them, but the boys really just want to do their own thing.
So here is the boys' scientific question of the day:
What happens when you mix:
soggy leftover cereal and milk from the morning and
water and
ketchup and
mustard and
onion powder and
garlic powder and
oregano and
wheat germ and
red pepper flakes and
sea salt and
regular salt and
pepper and
chili powder and
blue food coloring and
green food coloring and
olive oil spray and
Pam spray and
peanut butter and
flour and
sugar and
English breakfast tea and
Mexican hot sauce and
chocolate sauce and
dillweed?
The answer:
Because the results to every experiment must be properly documented, Green whips out his science notebook and says, "Mama, how do you write, 'This is more disgusting than farts?'"
2 comments:
Reviewer #55.
Appropriateness for this journal: Borderline
Recommendation: Accept with minor revision
Summary statement: This is a fine proof of concept experiment from an emerging group of investigators who have initiated a research program exploring heterogeneous mixtures of commonplace food materials. Their efforts to expand foodstuff utilization beyond strictly nutritive or digestible applications are of great potential interest for national priorities in biofuel manufacuring, exploitation of renewable resources, and most important, combatting childhood obesity (and associated early emergence of type II diabetes onsets) via aversive techniques. This reviewer suspects this work will be of broad interest to many investigators below kindergarten age, although there may be some karyotype-specific tolerance of fartlike products. Of particular interest to this reviewer is the apparent gas evolution from substances that would not be expected to fizz. As the authors ready their manuscript for publication, they should consider incorporating key experimental details, such as the volume incorporated and temperature of the English breakfast tea, and may care to speculate as to whether a phase change event has been initiated. It would also be useful to append a statement of anticipated hazards to assist other investigators in safely reproducing these important and timely results.
This is just too funny!
I appreciate the suggestion about noting the hazards (well, actually, it's the only part of this that I could understand).
The one hazard that should probably be mentioned is that there is a huge risk that the whole experiment could be knocked over by a wayward elbow, leading not only to a huge, smelly, sticky mess but also substantial screaming and swearing.
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