Episode 82: Snow Special (Avalanche, Driving in Reverse, Frozen Tongue)
- You can start an avalanche by yodeling: busted
- Your tongue can get stuck to a cold metal pole: confirmed
- It's better to drive in reverse on ice: busted. You do have better traction with a front-wheel drive car, but you're driving in reverse, which makes the car harder to control.
The avalanche myth was a chance for Adam and Jamie to showcase the artillery of the Colorado ski patrol. After testing with a yodeler, megaphone, bull-whip, and machine gun, they were able to get to the real stuff. They started with an air cannon and gradually worked up to tossing dynamite out the window of a helicopter. There was really no myth being tested at this point, but that's not the point, is it?
The tongue-sticking myth was fun for its grossness -- it featured Grant "re-animating" a pig tongue -- but the myth itself was an obvious non-myth.
The reverse-driving myth, even if busted, offers some useful snow advise: they got 40% more traction driving in reverse with a front-wheel drive car. You probably won't be able to use this driving around South Lake Tahoe, but you can probably put it to good use getting out of the driveway.
Triggering Avalanche (yodeling and more)
Myth: You can start an avalanche by yodeling
see also: * Breaking Glass * Voice Flame Extinguisher
Slab avalances are the most destructive type of avalanche. A strong cohesive layer of snow forms on top of weak snow and the slab breaks loose with a trigger (e.g. sound).
Small-scale test
Before heading to the mountains, they built a mock mountain slope, which was a piece of tilted fiberboard. They also built a giant "snow" sifter using a fly screen mounted to a wooden frame and attached to a scissor lift. Flour was spread out over the fly screen and pancake motors mounted to the corners of the frame agitated it into sprinkling.
They first had the snow sifter sprinkle flour onto the slope until an avalanche triggered -- it took 3'20". They cleaned off the slope and let the sifter run for 3'20" again so that the flour would be on the verge of triggering.
Adam yodeled at louder and louder volume while Jamie measured with a decibel meter. He wasn't able to get it to trigger with his own voice, so he went and grabbed a megaphone. The megaphone put out 120dB, maxing out the meter, but still no flour avalanche. Adam was able to get it to trigger by moving the megaphone to a lower part of the board.
Adam: "120? That's as loud as a jet engine, right?"
Jamie: "Not quite"
Colorado test
Adam and Jamie team up with the Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado to get to a real-life avalanche-risk area. Craig Sterbenz, Snow Safety Director for the ski patrol, helped them select a good test location.
Lez Masteron, professional yodeler,"The Songbird of the Sage", brought her skills to bear on the ski mountain:
- Pure yodeling: no avalanche.
- yodeling with police bullhorn, "set to 11": no avalanche
- Bull-whip, wielded by Adam: the tip of a whip can move faster than the speed of sound, but this wasn't enough to trigger the snow
- Machine guns: during WWII, avalanches were used as weapons (triggered by artillery). Tens of thousand of troops were killed by avalanches in Italian Alps, some triggered by artillery. Adam and Jamie fired simultaneously but weren't able to trigger and avalanche.
- Air cannon shot at 150psi: they got about ~4-5 shots to hit on the slope with a decent impact explosion of snow, but no avalanche.
- Single-shot mortar, 4kg charge: a small avalanche of snow came down the slope
Video of aircannon and single-shot mortar
Big avalanches
Will all their smaller attempts to set off the avalanche, they went upgraded to explosives to set a big avalanche in motion. To demonstrate the danger of an avalanche, they positioned Rescue Randy as a "Buster stand-in", i.e. human stand-in, below the explosion.
The explosion set a large wave of snow cascading down the mountain. Rescue Randy rode the front of it for awhile before being swallowed up.
Jamie: "Looks like he went down ass first. I think he's got, like, avalanche up his butt"
For even more fun, Adam went up in a helicopter with the ski patrol to assist in throwing live dynamite out the window of the copter. Adam cut fuses and attached igniters while the ski patrol member tossed them out the window onto the slopes. They dropped large quantities of dynamite and got three major avalanches.
busted: Jamie did attach some caveats that there are many types of snow fields out there and they didn't do a wide survey -- skiers have been known to cause avalanches without the aid of explosives, so it would seem that it is in the realm of possibility that yodeling could cause it.
Frozen Tongue
Myth: Your tongue can get stuck to a cold metal pole
Setup/Preparation
Ingredients: * Spit * Warmed pig tongue * Metal pole @ 32 degrees Fahrenheit
The build team collected a tube full of spit, the "MythBusters spittube". Kari established the rules for spittude collection:
- Do spit as often as possible
- Don't add your phlegm known as the "loogie"
- Do keep your self hydrated
- Don't spit righter after eating, because food particles are really gross (More rules to follow as needed)
Grant "re-animated" a dead pig tongue to body temperature. Grant used an electric motor to pump warm water through a plastic tube. The tube was routed in a U-shape through the middle of the pig tongue. Grant's tongue was 90 degrees and he was able to get the pig tongue to 88.5 degrees.
Grant: "I think the tongue is ready for some pole-licking action"
Test
They warmed the pig tongue up to 85 degrees and slathered it with the collected saliva. It immediately stuck the pole and, as they tried to test how strongly it was attached, they ripped a bit of flesh off the surface.
Next up, a member of the build team had to sacrifice their tongue. Tory lost the rock-paper-scissors game, so it was up to him to lick a flag pole. They went up to Sierra at Tahoe and found a nice flag pole that was 14.5 degrees. Tory stuck his tongue the the flagpole and got stuck, though with a little bit of effort he was able to pull free without assistance.
Grant: "You got stiction"
Tory: "Stiction?"
Grant: "That's a word."
Tory: "I know, it just sounds weird."
confirmed
Driving on Ice
Myth: It's better to drive in reverse on ice
Small-scale test
The theory is that driving in reverse gives you more traction, so they constructed a small-scale test in the M7 lab to test it out. Their small-scale test consisted of a front-wheel drive Neon car, a small ice surface, and a force gauge.
Tory welded two steel troughs and filled them with crushed ice. They compacted the ice and then got it extra smooth by spraying it lightly with water and laying dry ice on top. They drove the Neon on top of the troughs and hooked up the bumper to a dynamometer force gauge. They wanted to measure how much force the car was able to pull with before spinning out:
- Driving forward: 2300 lbs
- Driving in reverse: 3200 lbs
Their small-scale test showed that driving in reverse was 40% more effective.
California Highway Patrol driving range test
They went up to Tahoe to do some test driving at the California Highway Patrol driving range. They brought a front-wheel, rear-wheel, and four-wheel drive car up to the range. Each car was driven 15mph around the course in both forward and reverse. The course was lined with cones so they could keep track of how many were hit.
Kari: "This is actually the first time I've ever driven on snow"
- Front-wheel drive (Kari): Kari took out plenty of cones going around the course moving forward. Going in reverse was a bit of disaster: Kari had trouble steering in the corners and managed to get several cones caught underneath the car and she continued to plow around, occasionally spinning out. 14 cones were lost to her driving.
- Rear-wheel drive (Tory): Tory was able to take the Mustang convertible around the course in forward with no cones hit. Tory didn't get any cones stuck under the car going in reverse, but he took out 12 cones and spun out at least once.
- Four-wheel drive (Grant): Grant had no trouble driving the for SUV around the course in forward. Grant lost control in reverse and took out a whopping 20 cones.
busted
