Annotated Mythbusters

Ninja Bullet Slap

Myth: Can a ninja swat a speeding bullet out of the way (9mm bullet at 20 yards)

See also: * Ninja Special * Catching a Bullet With Your Teeth

Shooting paintballs at Tory

They used Tory as their ninja to swat away paintballs. Tory is no ninja, but a paintball is less than 1/5th the speed of a 9mm bullet. Grant measured their paintballs at 192 ft/s, much slower than the 1250 ft/s of the slowest 9mm lug they could find.

Kari got some revenge on Tory, who had fired paintballs at her for Catching a Bullet With Your Teeth. Kari repeatedly shot paintballs at Tory, who finally managed to slap one away with the heel of his hand after receiving many welts.

Robot test

Grant retooled the sword-catching rig to deflect bullets while Kari poured some more flat ballistic hands. Their first test run didn't go well as they couldn't get the gun to fire in the same place consistently.

They finally got the gun calibrated, but the hand was still too slow. They upped the psi on the arm actuator to 55 psi, twice the ability of a human.

With the upped psi, the bullet went straight through the hand but still hit the target. Grant adjusted the timing for an even better result: the bullet cut straight across the palm of the hand but still did not deflect.

busted

Underwater Car II

Myth: You can breath from the tire of a car while underwater

This myth is based on the movie scene where the hero drives a car into the water and breaths from the tire to avoid the bad guys who are searching for him above.

See also: Underwater Escape

In a repeat of Underwater Escape, Adam went down with the car while Jamie stood buy to rescue Adam.

Adam shot for 2 minutes underwater. The car was lowered into a pool and sunk to the bottom. Adam waited for the pressure to equalize and then opened the door to exit the car. He tried breathing from the tire twice but quickly gave up. He was getting too much water mixed in with the air to breath.

For the second test, Adam decided to stab the tire with a pocket knife. He made three attempts at breathing, but again he had to give up.

Mythbusted

Airbags

Myth: An airbag can rip off your thumbs if your hands are in the classic 10 and 2 o'clock steering position.

See also: Lockpick of Death

Buster was given flexible arms and ballistics gel hands. Urethane bones were set in the hands for additional realism.

For the first test, they used hands where the thumbs gripped around the steering wheel. The airbag hit Buster's arms, which pushed the hands off the wheel -- the thumbs remained attached.

For the second test, they used hands where the thumbs stuck out. Again, the airbag hit Buster's arms without any thumb loss.

For the third test, they tested a Vulcan-style grip: the wheel was gripped with the V of the hands, and the thumb was left sticking out over the airbag compartment. They had dug up a report where a woman had been injured with such a grip. The urethane bones in the thumbs were broken and there was some tearing in the hands.

busted: if you stick your thumb directly over the airbag, they can be injured, but there were no injuries in the 10-and-2 position

Speed Camera

Myth: You can defeat a speed camera

See also: Beating the Speed Camera

Beating the Camera With Plate Blockers

1. Speed cameras not mounted on tripods:
2. Used the wrong camera
3. Speed camera at wrong height (too low) for plate blockers

The third complaint was the only one that was relevant and tested. The Axsis SC-300 speed cameras that they used have tripod-, vehicle- and pole-mounted variations, and the quality of the camera they used was identical to the one used in the field.

They took the camera up to ten feet to replicate a pole-mounted camera. Immediately they noticed that the plate blocker looked more effective from above.

• Lenticular plastic cover: It blocked half of the last letter on the license plate (NODOUB-). Still legible for a ticket
• Glitter plate: not the least bit effective.
• Commercial spray: ineffective

busted

Beating the Camera With Speed

Top Gear in the UK beat a speed camera at 180mph, but the MythBusters pointed out two differences: the UK requires two images to issue a ticket, and the camera was not as good as theirs.

The camera the MythBusters were using is rated up to 200mph, so they got Jeff Atamian's "The Beast" drag car to try and beat the speed camera once more. The Beast can reach up to 300mph.

Adam: "This thing is beautiful. I think I'm gonna cry."

Jamie: "It's an engine with a chair on it"

The Beast flew down the road like a jet plane and hit 240mph. No Picture!

Their expert tweaked the camea for another try: again, no picture.

busted due to the sheer speeds and type of car required

Exploding RFID

Myth: A medically implanted RFID chip can explode in an MRI

Previously: Exploding Tattoo

They brought in Ron Gdovic, Faculty Member, University of Pheonix, to explain the ins and outs of RFID chips.

Grant and Tory implanted a Verichip RFID tag into a side of pig. Verichip is the first FDA-approved RFID chip for implanting into humans.

They brought their side of pig to 3T MRI in Menlo Park and scanned it with the MRI machine. The chip showed up as a black block in the scans, but nothing happened to the chip or the pig.

Kari then stood up to the plate to take the RFID chip in her arm and get scanned -- she couldn't detect any movement or sensations from the chip while being scanned.

busted

Can a dog find an avalanche victim? (online special)

Online video

Adam was buried alive in a snow cave with 15 minutes of air. The ski patrol's dog was able to cover 3 football field's worth of snowfield in a matter of minutes to find Adam with no problems.