After the unbridled success of the "does a grape really turn into a raisin?" experiment it is clear some more hardcore bad science is needed.
But what do to? Thanks to the hoards of Poorhouse fans (well, readers) here and elsewhere, a few options have arisen. The plans are at the highly formative stage as yet, so any comments, discussion and new, exciting but feasible ideas are most welcome.
In no particular order...
- Is a prune really a dried plum?
- Does drying a herb produce the same dried-herb produce you'd buy in a shop?
- Does beetroot really make your urine go purple?
- Does Yakult (expensive yoghurt promoted as having so many good bacteria in you'll want to rollerskate your way to work) really make you more lively (if that's the right word)?
- Does [randomly advertised] shampoo genuinely make hair 40% stronger?
- Does Red Bull give you wings? (or at least make you a bit quicker)
- Do you go orange after drinking too much SunnyD/Capri Sun/eating too many carrots?
- Does eating carrots really make you see better in the dark?
- Do plants grow better if talked to / played Mozart at?
Some would be quick to do, some slow. Some may need volunteers, some may require small investments, some might be hard to determine the outcome. All might reveal something about the universe.
Thoughts?
Comments
not sure about beetroot
I hate the stuff, apparently asparagus makes your wee green, yeah, maybe a what vegetables do what to wee experiment. No pics please.
You mean to say there are
You mean to say there are many vegetables that might have such an effect? Amazing. So many possibilities.
I'll be going to the veg shop asap then. I think pictures will have to be taken though sorry, otherwise I could be making it up, no? I'll be tasteful. Well, as tasteful as one can be, which is probably not all that tasteful really.
What I really would like to see done is is it really true flamingoes only go pink because they eat shrimp? Unfortunately I don't have the resources for that one yet - but maybe someone can help out there...?
why don't you...
drink loads of Sunny D and see if you go orange? Might work with Capri Sun if not? :)
Going orange
Good call, post edited. I can't remember if they claimed to take mystic chemical X out of Sunny D that made you go orange already, but there's only one way to find out. Perhaps they just said they did and what really happened was parents realised that the chemical spew was actually not great for children and limited their intake and in reality you still go strange after too much. It may well be worth a try. What parameters to use?
Co-incidentally I was also discussing the "do carrots make you go orange?" theory because claims were made that this actually happened to them. Apparently this could be rather a long term thing though, a month of eating carrots was mooted. Not impossible mind though.
Maybe SunnyD + carrots = ????
Carrots!
Maybe a power/environmental saving extension to the carrot colour experiment - does eating carrots really make you see better in the dark?
Beetroot et al
Just thought you might like a bit of unwitting "background research": don't know about wee going purple - so it probably doesn't to any extent- but it's definitely true that beetroot dramatically changes the colour of poo. Surprisingly, maybe, the effect is much more noticeable with fresh beetroot than with either home-grown, pickled beetroot or the bought, pickled variety - presumably the dye seeps into the juice which isn't consumed.
On to more suggestions! Does talking to plants make any difference to their growth and development? Does it matter whether you talk directly, with your full concentration fixed on the plant/plants concerned or merely have plants in the room so that they can listen in to the general conversation? Are best results achieved when you conform to etiquette and choose a subject that you feel the plant will be interested in? Can you assume that plants sold or grown in England are, whatever their background and true ethnicity, sympathetic to current political views and understand English? Might they repond better to another language? And what about the effect of background music? Do the suppose therapeutic effects of Mozart benefit plant growth?
limits
Love the carrots idea, that sounds feasible enough to me. A scale needs to be devised but it isn't beyond the realms of the human mind to do so.
Thanks for the beetroot research. Unfortunately as yet I am only an amateur experimenter and I have to say I slightly balk at the idea of experiments involving solid excrement. I realise this is just societal prejudice bred into me over time but I think I will start off with something less messy and more photogenic. Maybe one day...
An update on the urinary investigation: all looks good to proceed. Haven't started yet but developments over the weekend mean that I will hopefully be receiving proper sample tubes. This might be TMI ("too much information" for abbreviation amateurs) but it seems by far the best solution because I can't really stop doing everything to do this experiment, and I don't really for instance want to be caught at work doing flash photography in the toilets or wandering around with drinks bottles full of strangely coloured "apple juice" which invariably go on to leak over places they shouldn't. Credit and thanks to Gemma whose writing you may have seen here for sorting this out. As soon as they arrive I'll hopefully be onto it.
Plant idea added too thanks. With my skill at plants it may be which one dies the last rather than which grows the best, but that is also a worthwhile experiment. We'll see if Prince Charles is as mad as he sometimes seems.
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