A few weeks ago on my 9News segment I featured a Seven-Layer Density column. It’s a colorful way to talk about density in the classroom. Well… we thought we had all of our facts straight, but when we inadvertently put in the experiment write-up that oil and water don’t mix because they have different densities, my email box was flooded with concerned teachers, parents, administrators and more, who wanted to set the record straight. Yes, it’s true, oil and water don’t mix because of their intermolecular polarity, not because of density. I love when people actually get involved with the experiments we are posting and care enough about the information to let me know when it isn’t quite up to par.

So, we had our density problem solved, it would seem the Seven-Layer column had experience its fifteen minutes of fame, but, no… this one just wouldn’t die. The day after my news segment, some of our staff noticed that the vegetable oil and rubbing alcohol layers had switched places! Knowing the great response we received before, we opened it up to our readers for their thoughts on what was happening with our column. Posted below is what you had to say…

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In our continuing quest to find interesting blogs and bloggers, we ran into Leah Simmers Photography Blog, where she was capturing her experience with Mentos and Diet Coke. Thanks to Leah for letting us share some her unique geyser pictures here. Check out Leah’s full blog post here. And yes, that is the Geyser Tube she’s using to launch that screaming geyser.

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Not to be out-done by Europeans, students at Male High School in Louisville, KY, set off 300 more geysers than the previous record-breaking effort just a few months ago in Belgium. School officials thought exploding Diet Coke and MENTOS would be a great way for students to blow off a little steam before finals and celebrate a great school year. The students were recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the new official record holders with 1800 geysers. All proceeds from the event were donated to the Ronald McDonald House. Congrats to Male High School students… now who will be next in the race for a new geyser world record?

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Robert Woodhead is always looking for a new challenge with his Casio EX-F1 camera. I found Robert’s first Mentos Geyser reaction on Gizmodo using just a roll of Mentos and a bottle Diet Coke. Watching the reaction at 1200 fps is truly amazing. Robert found a willing subject (the kid running from the exploding bottle) and sent us this video. Huge thanks!

If you haven’t seen the Mentos Slow Motion Video from the people at Perfetti Van Melle, watch it! At 2,000 frames per second, you can actually see the carbon dioxide bubbles forming on the nucleation sites.

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Weezer has a new video up on YouTube and guess who’s in it? EVERYONE. Well, every YouTube star you can think of seems to have a cameo, including the EepyBird Guys doing their Mentos Experiment #771. The song is called Pork and Beans and the video is great. Congratulations to Stephen and Fritz (the EepyBird Guys) for hitting a home run with Weezer.

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Who wouldn’t love yet another slow motion video of the Mentos Geyser experiment. Robert Woodhead (I guess I need to learn more about this guy) used the flying soda as the test subject for his Casio EX-F1 camera. The result is some amazing slow motion photography (1200 fps).

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According to Guinness World Records, the 973 Mentos-powered soda geysers launched at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau, Missouri is an official new record. Jason Lindsey from KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau shared his goal with us for setting a new world record back in August and needed just a few Geyser Tubes and Mentos® chewy mints to make it happen. "Contributing the materials was the easy part. Our hats are off to the team at KFVS-TV and Jason for setting the record and convincing 1,000 people to show and and get wet," says Carly Reed from Steve Spangler Science.

Whenever a big geyser launch like this one makes the press, there's no end to the number of people who complain that this is a huge waste of candy and soda. Let me respond by saying this… YOU COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT! The goal is to get people of all ages engaged in doing a science activity, thinking about the science behind the reaction, testing a variation on the reaction, and ultimately sharing their excitement about doing a science experiment. Honestly, name another time or event when a thousand people got this excited about doing a simple science experiment!

For the cost of a bottle of soda and a roll of chewy mints, a teacher just might pique a kid's curiosity and get them to show more interest in science. Who knows? Ask any teacher what kind of price tag he or she would put on that kind of motivation.

Your thoughts? 

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Tune into Food Network’s Unwrapped to get a peek inside the Spangler Science labs as Steve shares the science behind the Mentos Geyser all of that exploding soda. Back in December, I mentioned that a crew from Unwrapped on the Food Network wanted to get the real scoop on the popular Mentos and soda reaction. The crew spent an entire day grabbing the reaction from every angle and trying to understand how all of those tiny bubbles produce such a huge fountain of soda. The episode is scheduled to air on September 24, 2007. Consult your local listing for time and channel.

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Dropping a roll of Mentos into a bottle of soda used to be something that kids did for fun. Now adults are getting into the act. I opened my e-mail and received these cool pictures from the organizers of the event that took place on July 10th in Flower Mound, TX. Representatives from the Guinness World Records certified the record-setting effort, which went off at 6:30 pm inside the Circle R Ranch Rodeo Arena where 850 independent sales representatives from Books Are Fun, a Reader’s Digest Company, simultaneously dropped Mentos into 850 two-liter bottles of soda using the Geyser Tube Toy. The previous Mentos geyser record was set on May 24, 2007 in Cincinnati, Ohio when 504 Mentos-and-Coke geysers were set off.

Watch the Video: The Largest Number of Simultaneous Mentos GeysersÂ

Please remember that you’re looking at 850 screaming adults… not kids… running away. Yes, learning is fun for people of all ages.

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If you’ve ever enjoyed wearing a bottle of Diet Coke after dropping in a roll of Mentos, you know that the reaction is immediate. I’ve always thought that it would be cool if you could slow everything down and really look at the reaction. I shared the idea with our friends at Mentos and they shot this slow motion video. There are a few frames where you can see the carbon dioxide gas coming out of solution being attracted to the tiny pits (nucleation sites) on the surface of the mint. For the tech-nerds in the audience, a Phantom 9.0 high-speed digital camera from Vision Research (2,000 frames per second) captured the slow-motion footage.

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