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Eight People Suffer Burns After Attempting Viral 'Boiling Water Challenge' (abc13.com)

A burn surgeon at Loyola University Medical has treated eight different people for second and third-degree burns after they attempted to replicate the viral "boiling water challenge," according to one local news station. These people (like many others as seen across social media) heated water and threw it into the sub-zero air, expecting it to transform into a powder-like state and blow away in the wind. But that apparently didn't work out for everyone; sometimes the water stayed liquid and hit people. The youngest patient seen at Loyola is 3 years old. Sanford said that individual (like some of the other patients) was just standing next to someone else throwing the water.... Sanford said there are likely several others out there with first degree burns that didn't seek medical attention.
CNN Wire Services also reports at least three more "boiling water challenge" burn victims in Minneapolis and Iowa.

25 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Darwin Challenge: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Burn your bits and pieces off for an internet meme.

    1. Re: Darwin Challenge: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mum: Ifeveryone else was jumping off a cliff...
      Today's kids: Yes, Mum. Yes I would.

    2. Re: Darwin Challenge: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Mum: Ifeveryone else was jumping off a cliff...
      Today's kids: Yes, Mum. Yes I would.

      Obligatory xkcd.

    3. Re:Darwin Challenge: by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 2

      Anyone want to start the Holding a Lit Stick of Dynamite Challenge? I'm sure I saw some coyote do it once, let's see if you can do it too!

  2. Hydrochloric acid challenge next? by Ecuador · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In general we have removed the positive effects of natural selection from our society, which is leading us to a rather bleak future (just watch the semi-fictional film "idiocracy" for a good extrapolation). These stunts are one of the few natural selection sources left - whoever does a hydrochloric acid test for example should be removed from the human genome anyway. The problem is when bystanders get the effect instead of the idiot performing the actually stupidity...
    It is definitely not news for nerds though, I don't see how it even remotely warrants inclusion on slashdot... Then again, I am not new here... :D

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    1. Re:Hydrochloric acid challenge next? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Funny

      So by this logic, you're going to stop going to the doctor and taking medicine when you are sick? If you break a leg or get blinded in an accident someone should just dump you in a remote area to go and die?

      Nonsense, nobody is saying that we should kill or mistreat stupid people. We are just saying that they should be sterilized.

    2. Re:Hydrochloric acid challenge next? by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      Nonsense, nobody is saying that we should kill or mistreat stupid people. We are just saying that they should be sterilized.

      I know, right? Some people on the internet get so upset from such simple misunderstandings.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:Hydrochloric acid challenge next? by infolation · · Score: 2

      It's important to differentiate between intelligence and common sense.

      I know plenty of very intelligent people who seem to do boiling water challenge grade stupid on a fairly regular basis.

      But we live in a society that rewards 'brains on legs' type people. Provided your brain can make someone money, and you can hold your life together just enough to stay alive, society seems to consider you valuable.

      The concept of the village idiot is morphing into the village savant.

    4. Re:Hydrochloric acid challenge next? by Type44Q · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In general we have removed the positive effects of natural selection from our society, which is leading us to a rather bleak future (just watch the semi-fictional film "idiocracy" for a good extrapolation).

      No. The reason we have an "idiot problem" is certainly not because society restrains itself from euthanizing them; it's because society makes a special effort to produce them.

  3. "Call it evolution in action" by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Never underestimate our species' immense capacity for stupidity.

    1. Re:"Call it evolution in action" by Aighearach · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The child survived.

      There was no selection event.

      No evolution happened.

      My goodness, educational standards have sure fallen.

    2. Re:"Call it evolution in action" by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It wasn't the child, it was someone next to it. The idiot who threw the boiling water should be prosecuted for assault -- at this point, this can't be argued to be an accident, it's more like shooting into the air on a crowded street,

      Killing an innocent bystander is no selection, at least unless the trait we're selecting against isn't "don't stand near dangerous morons".

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  4. Next up, laser pointer demodex challenge by mnemotronic · · Score: 2

    Let's see if people can get rid of demodex mites in their eyelashes using a high-powered laser pointer. Just be careful not to point the beam directly into the iris.

    Stay tuned for tips on how to be more relaxed while driving! Hint: Don't use that seatbelt / shoulder harness!

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  5. Headline by Kohath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Global Warming Causes Severe Burns

    Subhead: Winter Temperatures Too Warm for Viral Boiling Water Challenge

  6. Re:Should be Illegal by HarrySquatter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why are you right-wingers so obsessed with her? She's a junior representative with no actual power yet you all can't stop talking about her.

  7. Re:Stupid people are stupid by burtosis · · Score: 3

    I did this when the temps reached -30F without windchill. It's not a dumb experiment, but cold temperatures don't magically negate the fact you are using boiling water which is a scald hazard. There is more energy and more destructive power in a car, and if you back over people because it's crowded and you didn't clear off the snow on your windows or can't stop because of ice you are guilty of being an idiot. It is perfectly ok to use a car if you clean the windows and drive safely.

    That said you are correct. Droplets from being thrown will take too long to freeze even at -30. The reason you boil the water is the steam, at -30 boilling water makes a very audible fwooossshhh sound and the steam droplets are cold enough to freeze because of the extremely small size. Cold water won't fwooooshhh and makes much less vapor. I have a mini snow making rig that is comprised of a pressure washer and air compressor, unless it's about -20 or less even the tiny droplets from just a fine spray pressure washer nozzle won't freeze (even then it stinks) you need compressed air to atomize it further and expand to provide nucleation.

  8. Teh Peoples Beez Dum by divide+overflow · · Score: 2

    Sure, in a macabre way they're entertaining, but then I remember that if they can make it to 18 they will be eligible to vote.

  9. Re:Should be Illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    She's 1, female and 2, ethnic latina, and 3, up and coming Democrat, and 4, they can't get laid in a whorehouse, being nazi INCEL Republicans. 5, pity their wasted lives, they 6, back a traitor who 7, will either hang for treason or rot in 8, prison.

  10. Re:Should be Illegal by sysrammer · · Score: 2

    To instill the proper amount of deep-seated hatred, not only for this generation but the next, one must begin the bullying behaviors early.

    --
    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  11. Yep, it takes decades to build up blind hatred by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    they did the same with Hilary. Not that she didn't have plenty of good reasons to hate her, but the good reasons were things like "she'll sell us out to mega corporations" and "She supports TPP and outsourcing".

    You're not allowed to talk about those kind of things; they're profitable business. So you're stuck with trying to instill a general sense of dread.

    With AOC it's harder because she doesn't really have any dirt. She's a pretty girl, meaning they probably can find anyone she sexually harassed. She's from a basic, middle class family so they won't find corruption. And so far she knows better than to apologize for anything (Liz Warren shoulda told everybody, including the Cherokees, to go fuck themselves on the Indian thing. Apologizing is never good in politics, Trump taught us that).

    Speaking of Trump, AOC has the potential to be the left wing Trump: Somebody who nothing sticks to and who can bypass traditional media and go directly to the voters. With the main difference being that when she says Drain the Swamp see seems to mean it. If you're a billionaire who doesn't like paying taxes you'll spend some time trying to bury her before that happens.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  12. Re:Stupid people are stupid by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just had someone argue that a candle could heat an entire room in case of emergency, you just had to put it on fire bricks and a flower pot, the bricks would heat up (somehow) and give off heat.

    A single candle won't. But a candle gives off about 50-100 Watts of thermal energy. It's actually close to the thermal output of a human body at rest (about 80-100 Watts). So if the overriding survival concern was temperature (instead of, say, pollutants in the air), then yes, one or two candles will put out as much heat as having another person in the room. And two or three dozen candles will put out as much heat as a 1500W space heater.

    People just think candles are weak because they are spectacularly inefficient as a light source. IIRC only 0.04% of the energy goes into light; the rest is given off as heat. So that Earth Day tradition where businesses turn off their 12% efficient T8 fluorescent ceiling lights and use candles instead actually wastes a phenomenal amount of energy. A single T8 bulb consumes 32 Watts, or about as much as those small tea candles. But puts out a helluva lot more light.

  13. Re:Stupid people are stupid by ledow · · Score: 2

    Hot water can cool quicker than cold water.

    It's seems insane, but it's actually true. It's called the Mpemba effect.

    In this particular experiment, it's a combination of VERY cold air temperatures, using boiling (steaming) water that's already trying to evaporate, injecting it quickly into a fast-moving air-stream (the windchill is the extreme part, not the basic air temperature), over as large a volume as possible (so it spreads more).

    If you wanted to flash-freeze something as quickly as possible, that's what you'd do - put it in a cold, fast-flowing fluid stream, and spreading it as much as possible to make the droplets small.

  14. That's painfully obvious by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and you're missing my point. She's using the same playbook but for different ends. She's using New Media (Twitter, Youtube, etc) to by pass the media filter and get her message out. It works for her because she's cute and charismatic. Trump pulled it off with Celebrity, but same thing. And she doesn't back down or apologize for gaffs. That's key. Voters are like sharks in a pool, they smell blood they're on you in a second.

    Politics has changed and she changed with it. That's why they're scared shitless of her.

    And Trump is not a centrists, he's an opportunist. He has no actually political beliefs whatsoever. He's taken virtually every position possible but when it came time to put policy in action everything he did was to benefit him and his. He's a Kleptocrat.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  15. Re:sigh by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    Sometimes I turn pessimistic and think that we need a good war (or maybe measles) to clear out the country of morons

    Measles might work, but a war doesn't. The bravest volunteer, and the brightest can be hit with a mortar along with the dimmest.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  16. Hell on a sled by swm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was up in the White Mountains, in a hiking lodge, state park, national park, I don't recall.
    They have a roll--a memorial--of people who have died hiking in the area, going back to around 1900.
    The plaque explains that hiking isn't extremely dangerous, but you are in the wilderness, you are on a mountain, and things can happen, and we should all be mindful of this.

    Some of the deaths are mishaps; some are bad weather, some are just people who happened to have a heart attack while they were on the mountain. But about once every 10 years, someone dies sledding down Mt. Washington on a cafeteria tray. (I am not making this up.)

    My guess is that when someone dies this way, word gets around, and then no one tries it for a while. But after a decade has passed, there is a new generation who came along too late to get the memo, and one of them does try it, and then there is a new name on the memorial.

    ...and this end is called the Thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons.
    -- Gary Lawson, The Far Side