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Backwash experiment

July 3rd, 2007

My brother-in-law is going to be totally creeped out by this experiment.

They say that if you drink an entire drink down to the bottom, that the bottom of your glass contains mostly spit. Jennifer did this experiment at her house, and I thought we would try it with a bit less torture at our house. You can see the results of her experiment here.

The cast of characters: Koolaid, glass of water, glass of water with a straw, and a water bottle.

First GB swallowed a large spoonful of sweetened koolaid. Jennifer’s crew used unsweetened koolaid, which was more dramatic, but I know GB would have never trusted me to coordinate an experiment if I’d done that. The sweet Koolaid worked pretty well for us, anyway.

He thought it tasted kind of like a pixie stick….. remember those?

Then he took a sip from the glass with the straw and got backwash immediately. Not too much, but a bit.

Then he drank from the glass with no straw and got NO backwash at all. I guess his sips are too small, or too calculated.

The water bottle produced impressive results…. as soon as he chugged that first sip the backwash was sucked into the bottle. You can see that it’s already gone into the bottle in the picture. It was amazing to watch.

These are the results from the glass with a straw. Ewww!

This is the glass without a straw.

Yuck! The waterbottle results.

Our conclusion was that if someone asks to take a sip of your drink, say no if you’ve got a water bottle. If you’ve got a glass with a straw, take out the straw and make them drink from the glass. Or preferably, as with drugs, just say no.

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Entry Filed under: Experiments