Latest MythBusters Results

It is possible to set up a holiday meal inside a car’s engine compartment and drive long enough to fully cook all of the food.

confirmed

Adam, Jamie, and Alton found a large, older car that had plenty of space under the hood. They placed thermocouples throughout the engine compartment and around the exhaust to find the best sources of heat. After a 90 minute drive they measured temperatures of between 200 °F (93 °C) and 500 °F (260 °C).

Adam and Jamie worked on building food containers and insulating areas under the hood while Alton prepared a meal consisting of turkey, sides, and miniature pies for desert. They loaded all of the food items into carefully chosen spots and drove for 4 hours, stopping occasionally to check the progress and prevent over-cooking. At their destination, the trio found all of their food to be well-cooked and enjoyable.

Eating turkey makes you sleepy because it contains tryptophan.

busted

Kari used a Whack-a-Mole game to test the response times of Tory and Grant. In their initial control test while fully alert, Tory scored 61 points and Grant scored 66 points. After taking tryptophan in capsule form, Troy scored 49 and Grant scored 60, indicating that tryptophan can make you tired.

To find out if eating turkey makes you tired, a professor of nutrition helped Kari create 3 meals for Grant and Tory to eat on 3 consecutive days. The first meal was a very large holiday meal with turkey and trimmings. Tory’s meal was 2,420 calories and Grant’s was 2,200 calories. After this meal Tory scored 47 points on the response test and Grant scored 52 points. On the second day, after a meal with the same number of calories but with protein powder in place of the turkey, Tory scored 48 points and Grant scored 42 points. On the third day, the two men ate a normally-sized meal that included turkey. Tory scored 63 points and Grant scored 67 points, both beating their control test. These results indicated that eating an excessive amount of calories in a holiday meal is what makes you tired, not the turkey.

Many unusual meats taste like chicken.

busted

Kari bought many exotic meats from a butcher, including: peacock, snake, frog, ostrich, alligator, squab, turtle, goat, and boar. A professional chef prepared all of the meats in the same fashion as fried chicken and Kari administered a blind taste test to Grant and Tory. When attempting to identifying each meat as either chicken or not, Tory got 17 out of 20 samples correct and Grant got 11 out of 20 correct.

After Tory noted that the texture of the meat was a major clue to its identity, Kari eliminated this variable by grinding up new samples of meat and grilling patties with no additional flavoring. In this test it was even easier to tell chicken from other meats: Tory identified 18 of 20 correct and Grant got 19 of 20 correct, busting this myth.

A particular Chinese pressure vessel can be used to cook popcorn faster than any other method.

busted

Using his own fastest technique of a foil-covered bowl over a gas burner, Alton was able to pop a batch of corn in 1 minute and 45 seconds. After setting up the Chinese pressure vessel, Adam dawned a bomb suit for protection while Jamie and Alton stood behind a ballistic shield. Adam heated the vessel until it reached a pressure of 1 megapascal and he then triggered the pressure release. The sudden release blew kernels all over the workshop, but the overall process took over 9 minutes.

A three-story fall into shallow water can be made more survivable by cushioning the fall with a mattress floating on top of the water.

busted

This myth came from a scene in the TV series Burn Notice, in which the hero throws a hotel mattress from a balcony into a 4.5 ft (1.4 m) deep swimming pool and safely jumps onto it from 35 ft (10.7 m). Adam and Jamie began testing this scenario using a dummy with an accelerometer placed in its chest. When Buster, the dummy, was dropped butt-first into the plain water, he experienced 50g on impact with the water and another 29g impact with the bottom of the pool. When he was dropped onto an innerspring mattress, he experienced a deceleration of 86g. With 50g as their benchmark for lethality, neither drop appeared to be survivable.

To get even better results from their tests, Adam and Jamie repeated the drops using a sophisticated simulated cadaver. An orthopedic surgeon was also brought in to evaluate the damage using a portable X-ray machine. In the plain water fall, the simulated cadaver suffered a shattered pelvis and a paralyzing spine injury. When falling onto the mattress, it had far more damage all over, and as Jamie described, was “even more dead”.

At this point the myth was busted, but the duo wanted to see if skilled human jumper could possibly survive the jump. They brought in a stuntman who demonstrated that a normal, feet-first jump from 35 ft carried him to a depth of about 12.5 ft (3.8 m). The stuntman began training Jamie with techniques to reduce the depth of his entry. After a day of practicing jumps from increasing heights, Jamie deferred the full-height jumps to the stuntman due to soreness and concern for further injury. Ultimately the stuntman was able to jump from the full height while only dipping a few inches below the 4.5 ft mark, which Adam and Jamie reasoned would be a survivable impact had the pool only been that deep.

Cannonballs made of stone could be as effective as metal ones while also disintegrating on impact and not leaving the enemy anything to fire back.

plausible

The Build Team began by firing an iron cannon ball from Civil War-era cannon loaded with 1 lb (0.45 kg) of black powder. They measured its velocity at 1,200 ft/s (366 m/s) and used that for a benchmark when calibrating their other shots. When the team began tests with a self-made cannon that they had previously used for other myths, a misfire sent a cannonball into a residential neighborhood in California, an event that made national news and postponed their filming.

The team resumed their testing several months later. They made cannonballs out of three different types of stone: sandstone, limestone, and granite. They changed their testing location to a remote rock quarry and decided to use the Civil War cannon for all of their shots. They calculated how much black powder each type of ball needed to match the velocity of the iron ball and fired one test shot for each. To simulate castle ramparts, they used pallets of large concrete bricks. The iron ball penetrated 2 layers or bricks and damaged 4 layers. The sandstone ball penetrated 1 layer, damaged 2 layers, and disintegrated. The limestone ball penetrated 1 layer, damaged 3 layers, and disintegrated. The granite ball caused the same amount of damage as the iron ball and also mostly disintegrated, making this myth plausible.

People can easily recognize the back of their own hands.

confirmed

Adam and Jamie brought in 50 male and 50 female volunteers and took photos of the back of their right hands. 12 additional volunteers were blindfolded while their hands were photographed, then (while wearing gloves to prevent cheating) they were asked to identify their hand among a set of 9 other similar-looking hands. 11 out of 12 people identified their hand correctly, many of them very quickly.

Adam and Jamie also decided to see how well people could identify their palms and their teeth. Using the same methodology as above, 7 out of 12 people correctly identified their palms and 10 out of 12 people correctly identified their teeth.

It is possible to pierce, without shattering, a pane of glass by throwing a needle at it.

busted

This myth was based on a video of a Shaolin monk performing this feat. The Build Team started by throwing large needles at a 1/8 inch (3.1 mm) thick window pane. Kari, Grant, and Tory – with throwing speeds of 28 mph (45 km/h), 38 mph (61 km/h), and 47 mph (76 km/h), respectively – could not pierce or break the glass. Next they brought in a professional baseball pitcher, Matt Cain, to help them. Matt Cain was able to throw the needles up to 113 mph (182 km/h), and despite bending the steel needles, he was only able to chip the 1/8 inch pane. To make the task easier, they switched to 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick glass. Again, despite shattering a steel needle, Matt Cain was not able to pierce the glass. Finally, they moved on to 1/32 inch (0.8 mm) thick glass and Matt Cain shattered it several times, but could not pierce it cleanly. At this point this myth was declared busted for humans.

To see if the feat was possible at all, Tori began used an air rifle to shoot the needles at 1/8 thick glass. His first two shots at roughly 140 mph (225 km/h) and 160 mph (257 km/h) were not effective, but a third shot at 180 mph (290 km/h) finally pierced the glass without shattering it.

It is impossible to ride a bicycle under water.

busted

At a pool, Adam and Jamie both struggled to ride an unmodified bicycle under water because of the density of water and the lack of traction. Adding 50 lbs of weights helped slightly when riding downhill but they still could not ride uphill. They decided to modify their bikes further and have a race to see whose ideas worked the best. Adam filled his tires with corn syrup in an attempt to improve traction and he added 50 lbs of weight to the bike’s frame. Jamie, meanwhile, added lead training wheels weighing 140 lbs total to the front and back of his bike. Both Adam and Jamie still struggled greatly to ride their bikes uphill in order to complete the race. Despite their troubles, this myth was busted because they did find it possible to ride under water on flat ground.

Doing the “potty dance” helps alleviate the urge to urinate.

plausible

For a control test, Grant, Tori, and Kari began with empty bladders and each person drank 2 liters of water. They continued their normal daily activity and measured how long they could wait before urinating. Tory was able to last 1 hr 57 min; Grant, 1 hr 58 min; and Kari, 2 hr 40 min.

They repeated the procedure the next day, but this time attempted to dance and move around to help them combat the urge to pee. In this test, Tory lasted 1:31, Grant 1:51, and Kari 2:47.

On the third day, the procedure was again repeated and this time each person attempted to relax as much as possible both physically and mentally. Tory lasted 2:05, Grant 2:46, and Kari 2:43.

After noting that the results of each method can vary widely from person to person, the team called this myth plausible.