Month: April 2020

Enlarge / A well-coordinated Mentos-and-Diet-Coke explosion filmed in slow motion for The Slow Down Show in 2013. (credit: YouTube/The Slow Down Show)

Back in 2006, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz—the self described mad scientists behind Eepybird—ignited an Internet sensation with their viral video of an elaborate version of the Diet Coke and Mentos fountain experiment, recreating the choreography of the Bellagio's world-famous fountain display in Las Vegas. The underlying physics and chemistry of the fountain effect is well-known.

But an intrepid pair of scientists at Spring Arbor University in Michigan wondered whether altitude, and associated changes in atmospheric pressure, would have any measurable impact on the intensity of the foaming fountain, and performed a series of experiments to find out. They reported their results in a recent paper in the Journal of Chemical Education. The upshot: If you really want to get the most foaming action for your buck, conduct the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment at high altitudes.

Grobe and Voltz didn't invent the basic demo. That's been around since at least the 1980s, although originally creative science teachers used Wint-O-Green Lifesavers threaded onto a pipe cleaner to induce the fountains of foam in soda bottles. In 1990, the size of the Lifesavers changed, and were too big to fit into the bottle mouths. So science teachers switched to Mint Mentos candy to achieve the same effect.

Enlarge / China has seen pollution levels plunge. (credit: NASA)

COVID-19 is bad for human activity and enterprise. Human activity and enterprise is bad for the environment. So since our present situation reduces human activity and enterprise, is COVID-19 good for the environment?

The cessation of manufacturing and transportation in Hubei province has caused a drop in air pollution levels all over China so dramatic—emissions were estimated to be down 25 percent—that the relative dearth of both nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide in the air can be observed from space. Most of the effect came from a sharp drop in coal burning, which still provides the bulk of energy in China. Coal is used to heat homes in rural areas there, but also to fuel power plants and industry.

However, pollution—much like the virus itself—may come roaring back after the lockdowns are lifted. This “revenge pollution” can easily negate the temporary drop in emissions we are now seeing. That’s exactly what happened in China in 2009, when the Chinese government responded to the global financial crisis with an enormous stimulus package that funded large-scale infrastructure type projects.

You don't have to be so socially distant when playing Final Fantasy XIV online.

My friends and I were taking a pit stop after an aimless drive when we heard a stranger loudly invite anyone within earshot to her friends’ party. Our plans had ended at “go for a drive;” before that, we were loitering between some collapsed columns in a crystalline wasteland.

We debated whether to attend from inside our car. The party seemed a little raunchy—its promoter, Nina, a minuscule woman with pink blush marks painted on either side of her button nose, advertised “drinks and good company” but also “ERP,” which stands for “erotic role-play.” That’s not generally our thing. We’re more stand-outside types than the types to cast a flashy glamour spell and chat up the nearest cat girl. But, hey, it’s Final Fantasy XIV online, and where my body sat in New York, the epicenter of America’s Covid-19 outbreak, there certainly weren’t any parties.

On Fridays, Saturdays, and basically any given weeknight, my Brooklyn neighborhood is alive with throbbing house music, over-earnest open mics, DJ sets, roiling apartment bashes, and cars blasting reggaeton. In this new-normal world, events as we know them no longer exist, unless you count texting your 20 closest acquaintances a DRINKS ON ZOOM!!!! invite, give or take a couple of cloying emojis. With all of this newfound time to overthink the mundane, I recognize now that social outings are dedicated units of time for self-expression, coloring-book pages onto which we and our friends draw outlines that we pour ourselves into. Social distancing has separated us from our social contexts; without them, all the color drains out.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

What a turd of a year, eh? 2020 didn’t start with a bang. It started with a plop. It’s only April and already we’re all frantically fumbling for a lever, hoping to flush this deuce as quickly as possible, praying our toilet-paper stash holds out and the stench doesn’t linger.

Maybe we should have seen it all coming. After all, the year began with Gwyneth Paltrow’s ridiculous lifestyle brand, Goop, releasing a six-episode Netflix series. Yep, Gwyneth Paltrow. The college-drop-out-turned-actor who couldn’t identify a vagina on a diagram while claiming to empower women with a smorgasbord of pseudoscience. The same self-proclaimed wellness guru who endorsed squirting coffee up your keister, shoving a rock into your hooha, and letting bees sting you.

In her Netflix series, the madness continued. Among other things, she praised a wizard chiropractor who manipulates people’s energy fields by pretending to do Taiichi near them—like a weird guy in your neighborhood park who wears parachute pants and always smells like sandalwood. (At least it’s a social-distancing-compliant method, I guess.)