Michael Our TV box assistant Tivo (Rundbrief 05/2001) once again secretly scouted through obscure TV channels and discovered a show that I like: "Mythbusters" on the Discovery Channel.

You know, there are these urban legends: sensational rumors, mostly completely made up, that stubbornly stick in people's minds and that everyone eventually believes blindly. For example, that a penny (1-cent coin), when dropped from the Empire State Building can seriously injure someone standing on the street below. Or that a cell phone ringing while refueling your car can cause a gas station explosion. Or that a microwave oven will explode if you put something metallic inside. Or that a piece of meat soaked in Coca Cola overnight will dissolve. Or that a drug test will come out positive if you have eaten poppy seed cake.

The declared goal of the two "Mythbusters" hosts, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, is to get to the bottom of such rumors through hard-hitting laboratory experiments, while blowing up as many items as possible in a media-effective way. The format of the show is always the same: the two hosts track down an "urban legend" and then retreat to their workshop, equipped with all sorts of machines, to simulate the problem. In the case of the penny supposedly flying off the Empire State Building, they simply determined the terminal velocity of a falling penny experimentally and then crafted a special cannon from an industrial stapler machine that shoots pennies at the same speed onto a gel-encased skull. The result: all bogus. At most, you might get a slight scratch.

Or a spoon in the microwave: It will at most get hot. However, aluminum foil crumpled into a ball will be emitting nasty sparks.

Or the case with the gas station: Even if a cell phone rings in a glass box filled with gasoline vapor, nothing explodes. Even when adding a robotic arm in there, which generates static electricity with a synthetic material, nothing dangerous will happen. Only an artificially generated electrical spark, created using high voltage, was able to initiate the desired explosion and blow up the experimental setup, to the delight of the two hosts.

And since the show is made in San Francisco, one thing cannot be missing: the escape from the prison island of Alcatraz in the middle of the Bay to the mainland. In a Mythbusters episode, the two researchers glued together a triangular raft made of rubber raincoats with prison glue--just like the three infamous convicts who escaped in 1962 but were never found, around whom countless legends have since arisen. I would never have believed it, given how stormy and cold the Bay water is: But the two hosts and a volunteer actually managed to maneuver their raft in the middle of the night with oars nailed together from planks to the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and reach the shore. Myth busted!

I would, however, like to have another myth clarified: On long, exposed country roads where the police couldn't possibly park a radar vehicle without it being visible from five kilometers away, you sometimes find signs warning of "Radar Patrol by Aircraft." Airplanes measuring the speed of cars? That's just an old wives' tale! How is that supposed to work? Besides, it would be far too expensive. Hopefully, the Mythbusters will debunk this nonsense soon!

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Same-Sex Marriage
  	Costco Nation
  	Pfanni, Panni and the Madness of Measurements and Weights
  	Lifetime backpack warranty
  	Glass Recycling
  	Peculiarities of the American School System
  	Poor Economic Situation and Closures.
  	It's Shaking Again
  	The Governator
  	Netscape End of Life?