Mythbusters

Today I learned a few things (from Mythbusters, my source of endless, useless factoids--as well as endless entertainment):

1. You cannot ricochet a bullet off three objects and have it come back to the shooter with lethal force. It is possible to angle materials (steel, lead, concrete) so that the bullet returns to the shooter, but by the time it comes back it will have lost most of its energy and would not be lethal. You can, however, bend a steel pipe almost into a full circle and shoot a gun into it and have the bullet return to the shooter with lethal force.

2. You cannot use a tree to catapult a dead body over 40-foot walls of a castle that's 100-feet away. Conifers are the ideal tree to use, but even using the most elastic tree (I think it was a kind of spruce), chopping off the done and all the branches, and pulling it back to its near-breaking point, Buster (the Mythbuster crash-test dummy) could not fly over the castle walls.

3. Milk is the best way to cool a mouth and ease the pain of eating too many hot peppers. Some other remedies tested were water, beer, tequila, toothpaste, wasabi, and petroleum jelly. Milk wins!

I really do enjoy Mythbusters. It is the only show that I still look forward to watching occasionally since I have given up my TV addiction. Plus it makes me feel smart :-)

Learning lots,
Monica