Brainiac: Science Abuse
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Template:Infobox British television Brainiac: Science Abuse is a British scientific entertainment TV show. It shows in the UK on Sky One (and repeated on Sky Two and Sky Three), and is made by Granada Productions. It is also shown in the US on the cable network G4 and in the Netherlands on Discovery Channel. The presenters are Jon Tickle (formerly of Big Brother) and Richard Hammond (from Top Gear). In season 2 Charlotte Hudson came in and joined the other two hosts.
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History
First Season
Series 1 of Brainiac hit the British small screen in 2003 on Sky One, a UK subscription-based television channel from the digital satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Second Season
Series 2 started at the end of August 2004 and included an interactive element where you could win a chance to blow something up as well as "I Can Do Science Me!" (presented by Charlotte Hudson), where viewers were encouraged to send in ideas for experiments. The first show in the series examined: what happens when you put soap in a microwave, can you cook an egg with a hundred mobile phones, is it better to be tall or small when walking in London?
The second series also included "Brainiac Snooker", where a pool table had each pocket wired to one of six caravans, each filled with a different gas mix, such as acetylene and oxygen. Quinten Hann was brought in to pot the last six balls, with one shot shown each episode. The third series has continued the tradition with "Brainiac Golf". The European Tour professional Jamie Spence would putt a ball into the hole causing the caravan rigged with a different explosive to explode producing a differently-coloured flame each episode.
It premiered in the US on G4 on August 29, 2005 as part of the late-night Barbed Wire Biscuit programming block.[1], and is also shown on VIVA in Germany, JIM in Belgium, Veronica and Discovery Channel in the Netherlands, Network Ten in Australia and Arts Central in Singapore, Discovery Channel in Scandinavia and Discovery Channel in Romania.
Third Season
The third series premiered on Sky One on August 25, 2005.
It featured Caravan Golf (much like Caravan Snooker, only this time with different salts to colour the explosions), Lad v. Lass, Thermite, Electricity at work (human statue, bar tender, cashier, EOD officer ... okay, not the last one, but one can but hope,) Thermite, Things the rule books don't warn you about, Thermite, 47 Second Science, Thermite, a ten foot drop, Thermite, Fizz Or Bang, and Thermite.
Show Ratings
The programme has been a huge ratings and creative success for Sky and is now one of their flagship programmes and regular recommissions. Due to the success of the original programme, a sister programme, Brainiac: History Abuse, presented by Charlotte Hudson, began on Sky One on 1 June 2005.
Experiments
Image:Brainiac.jpg The presenters perform unusual or interesting experiments "so you don't have to". The destruction of caravans seems to be a recurring theme in many of the episodes. These experiments are often non-scientific and are undertaken in the interests of entertainment (many involving large explosions) rather than pure science. These activities include:
- Safe Cracking. A safe is subjected to many attempts at being destroyed (with the promise of 200 pounds to whoever could do so), such as being dropped from thirty meters, rammed into by a car, burned, hacked at by a sledgehammer, cut at by an electric saw, explosives and the one thing that literally blew it apart: a British Army Tank. Two types of shells were fired, one piercing shell and a high explosive. The high explosive shell was the one that finally blew the safe, and its contents, apart.
- Pranks using Peter Logan's Exploding Paste (NI3)
- Items that shouldn't be put in a microwave oven. (Don't try this at home. No, really, don't.)
- Attempting to destroy a black box, which is in fact yellow. A follow-up to Safe Cracking, a flight data recorder is subjected to various abuses attempting to destroy it, such as having a group of American Civil War reenactors open fire with rifles and cannons, dunking it in a vat of acid, and spraying it with napalm and finally being subject to a garbage dump compacter used to crush cars. Needless to say, the "yellow" black box flight recorder never stood a chance.
- Walking across (and standing in) a swimming-pool full of custard to demonstrate the properties of a non-Newtonian fluid.
- Does being happy enhance your (mental) performance?
- The Lazy Man's Guide to...
- Which fruit floats?
- What's this? A sample from an object has been magnified 450 times under a microscope and you have to guess what the object is.
- Comparing the effects of what would happen to a fat guy and a thin guy (the advantages and disadvantages) in a given life threatening situation.
- Comparing the advantages of being tall or short.
- Situations in which it's better to be either tired or wired.
- Investigating the propulsive possibilities of CO2 Fire extinguishers.
- Office Buoyancy Aids - which items in an office work best as flotation aids in the event of a sudden flood due to global warming?
- Things Jon Tickle's body can't do.
- Things Jon Tickle's body can do.
- "Tickle's Teasers" - questions to which there isn't really a right answer...(although some people have noted that many of the questions do have an answer)
- Things you can't do while being electrocuted.
- Things you can do with Thermite.
- 47 second science: Tackling life's big questions in bite sized chunks
- Mixing alkaline metals with water. WARNING! Contents are extremely explosive.
- Dropping things from a height and seeing if they will break or bounce.
- Testing chemical reactions to see if a given chemical reaction will fizz or bang.
- Pub Science - performing experiments in a pub with ordinary items. Invariably this results in the experimenter (Dr. Bunhead) being theatrically ejected by security staff and banned.
- At Home with Dr. Bunhead - household mayhem usually involving some explosive chemical reaction.
- You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll - a ghettoblaster is subjected to various forms of violence (such as having a caravan dropped on it and being burned with a flamethrower) until it ceases to play a tape of the Twisted Sister song of the same name. The tape never survives.
- Domestic Disasters: Things they don't say in the instruction manual - e.g., they don't tell you not to put dangerous chemicals in an appliance, but Brainiac shows you why they should. E.g.: Plastic explosives in a toaster, Potassium in a washing machine.
- Blowing up pretty much anything - but preferably caravans.
- 101 Uses for a Wee - practical applications for urine. Not for the weak-stomached, It's nasty.
- Tina Turner and her Bunsen Burner - A rather obvious impersonator of pop star Tina Turner "takes a break" from show business to do explosive science with her bunsen burner, and with any type of explosives such as gunpowder that she needs to destroy her choice of a coloured car; she lights it up with her burner and waits until it becomes a metal burning fireball.
- Producing improvised "armour" using ordinary household items (such as pillows, toilet seats and woks) and testing their durability against weapons such as the slingshot, longbow and crossbow in the event that your house is under siege by "nutters".
- Explosive of the Week - Brainiac beauties use different types of explosives on different objects and have three of their friends rate the blast on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Brainiac Snooker - A Brainiac goes head to head against one of England's premier Snooker players. Every time a ball is pocketed, it sets off a fuse, which detonates a caravan filled with a unique gas, such as propane, butane, or pure oxygen.