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Student Killed By Exploding Gum

Posted by samzenpus on from the last-chew dept.

A 25-year-old Ukrainian student, who had a habit of dipping his chewing gum in citric acid, died when the gum he was chewing exploded. An examination of the gum showed that it was covered in an explosive substance. Officers found citric acid packets and a substance which looked similar, believed to be some kind of explosive material, on a table near the young man. It is suspected that the student forgot which packet was which.

10 comments

  1. me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    first

    1. Re:me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares? It's on Idle.

  2. Darwin award by bradley13 · · Score: 1

    Darwin award!!!

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Darwin award by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Darwin award!!!

      If and only if ... he'd not already polluted the gene pool with his mess.

      Allegedly one of the former analysts at my father's employer had been in the habit of keeping a beaker of water on the bench for a drink while he was doing an analysis. (This was back in the days of real wet chemical analysis, not automated analytical machines.) One day, doing analysis that involved potassium cyanide solution ... he took a drink from the wrong beaker. Dead in minutes, despite prompt first aid, properly prepared iron hydroxide, etc.
      I don't know if it's a true story - literally "before I was born" - but I learned the lesson.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    2. Re:Darwin award by jayme0227 · · Score: 1

      I would say it is a Darwin award even if he already has kids. This prevents him from further polluting the gene pool.

      --
      But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
    3. Re:Darwin award by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      I would say it is a Darwin award even if he already has kids. This prevents him from further polluting the gene pool.

      Once the gene pool is polluted, the only way it is going to be cleansed is by killing (without issue) all descendants of the offending genome. This is eminently do-able - war is a popular way of achieving this - but it would fall foul of most populist systems of ethics. It would be morally equivalent to punishing the children for the sins of the parents, something rightly disavowed by all civilised societies.
      Fancy organising a book-burning? There's a heretical, disgusting religion that avows this exact policy ; obviously it's books should be burned (to provide kindling for burning the proselytes of the religion, before you put the run-of-the-mill followers on the pyre).

      Oh, sorry, were you joking? I wasn't.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  3. Seriously? by Swordopolis · · Score: 1

    WHY would someone soak their gum in citric acid?

    --
    Alchemist: Be Thou For the People
    1. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not? You do know what citric acid is, right?

    2. Re:Seriously? by farkus888 · · Score: 1

      because it tastes sour. It is a common additive in many foods and occurs naturally in some fruits.

      Considering citric acid is used to make one particular explosive I would bet that was the one on his gum.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamethylene_triperoxide_diamine

      --
      thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
  4. I use exploding chewing gum to kill squirrels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use exploding chewing gum to kill squirrels. When they eat it they can't poop it out or puke it back up. It binds up their intestines and they die. When they die they fall out of the tree and explode on contact with the ground thus reducing my daily amount of corpse pickups. Easy peasy.