quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: I was in a university honors-level biology class. We had a lab one day which revolved around exhaling through straws into beakers of phenol; the carbon dioxide turned it from red to yellow. I believe we also held up a bottle of plant extract to see how it was green when you saw the light reflecting off of it, but red when you saw the light *through* it. I couldn't believe I didn't choose that week to skip...
So how many idiots managed to inhale the phenol?
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Is that like asking how many people are dead in the cemetery?
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Daniel Butler
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The idiot I was paired with got some in his mouth, I think. He told me after 3 labs that he hated science with a passion.
I asked him what his major was.
He replied, biology.
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I remember I had bio lab where my group worked with bacteria and this one chick in my group spilled a tube of salmonella all over her notebook. I almost went bonkers but she told me not to say anything as she cleaned the spill. Then we all sat in silence for the rest of the lab.
Registered: Feb 2005
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I took bio in 8th grade, so the most dangerous thing we worked with were litimus strips and ph paper. And maybe some HCL, but i think only the teacher handled that. i remember we did a lab about how easily a disease can spread. We were given cups of water, and one person had special chemicals in their water, but i dont remember what. The point was to go around and pour half of our liquid into others cups, and have them pour half of what was in theirs in theirs back into ours. Depending on who each person had come into contact with, the "disease" would be spread about. I think i was the original carrier, and about 2/3 of the class was infected. Anyways, some idiot decided to drink his liquid, and got violently ill, upchucking on the classroom floor. This lead the teacher ( a complete neat freak, who used oxy clean on everything, and even liked the smell of it) to freak out. it was quite funny.
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
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Wow, what a treasure trove of nostalgia this thread turned out to be...When I was in 8th grade, we had a mineral identification unit in science class, and if we suspected it was calcite we had a 10% solution of HCl to test it with...class clown spilled it all over his arm because he was disregarding the safety rules we'd had to learn. Wasn't too bad, I don't think, just got a bit red and irritated, but he freaked out in terror and yelled that it was burning his arm off. I'd *never* seen Mrs. Wormwood that angry at anyone before...
Your cups...did they change color when they were infected?
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-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
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Probably the 'disease' was phenolphthalein, then. I'd imagine the 'clean' cup solution to be some fairly safe and common alkaline solution... If the pink turned colorless again after awhile, then it would be something strongly basic like sodium hydroxide, but I don't think the kid would've merely thrown up if he'd drunk that.
Actually, I don't think phenolphthalein would make you throw up at that dosage - it's been used as a laxative for ages. Maybe whatever was in the clear solution...
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I believe that all of the liquid was clear, but only turned pink when the teacher put some other solution in it. She told us not to drink it from the start, which is why the kid drank it. This year, he "accidently" splashed HCL into a girl's eye. Talk about ouch...
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
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The only experiments I remember from school were the one where the teacher dropped a chunk of potassium in a bowl of water and watched us jump out of our skins and the one where you simulate a chip pan fire and demonstrate what happens when you try and put it out with water.
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I got to play with viruses, plasmids and prions and infect things with them for my final year project.
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I find it funny when people think i can give them exzema. It does help fend off some of the jocks though....
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
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Yeah, phenolphthalein is clear in the presence of acids, and pink the presence of bases, and it's pretty safe to work with, so that's what I'd figure it was. Maybe the guy threw up just from the taste of the 'thalein and whatever else it was...
Ritten: Don't you mean a chunk of sodium?
Ginger: We did a lab sort of like that. But it was really, really boring...the lame TA didn't explain anything or how it worked, it was basically just following instructions on pipetting, cooling, and incubating tubes of fluids and then culturing them. It was a demonstration using E. coli, I think, and plasmids for resisting a certain type of antibiotic. Spent 40 minutes sitting around and doing *nothing* at one point as the TA had no other experiment for us to do in the meanwhile...
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