Culinary Entertainment

So this guy, Patrick R. Michaud, takes a grape, cuts it in half, and sticks it in the microwave. Can you guess what happens?

In the words of the researcher: "the effect of the microwaves on the sliced grapes produced an extremely satisfying flare and associated sparks. ... The sparks began approximately 5 seconds after the microwave was started. Approximately 3-4 seconds after that, the force of the sparks separated the grape halves by approximately 1.5 cm, ending the theatrical effects. At that point the microwave session was aborted to prevent further damage to the microwave and/or grape."

I don't know why I like this kind of pseudo-scientific silliness so much. Perhaps because it reveals something about the nature of science and scientists. Because in the fun we find in making something "seem" scientific we expose a bit of the seemier side of science - revealing the illusion as much as the art of the scientific method. I also like that I actually learn something from this kind of silliness. Something wonderfully useless. Like, for example, that there's potentially as much fun to be derived from exploding grapes as from fermenting them.