[Biology] Are hangovers caused by impurities instead of alcohol?
One idle Sunday Afternoon At University, we were discussing what causes hangovers. Someone said it was due to various impurities in the drinks rather than alcohol. To test this, two of my friends decided to drink 10 pints of water each to see if they could get a hangover this way. For some reason, they had a rule that you were not allowed to piss until the 10 pints had been consumed (I'm not sure if this would have had an effect on the original aim of the experiment).

So they started drinking the water from stolen pint-glasses (my next-door neighbour in my corridor had a big pile of them). About halfway through, one of them needed a shit. The High Council of Bored Students (HCoBS) decided that it was OK to shit as long as no pissing took place, so off he went to let his bladder expand to the vacated space in his bowels (IIRC, nobody verified the lack of pissing - we just took is word). Eventually, the other guy started puking up when he was near the end of his 10 pints of water.

I cannot for the life of me remember the conclusion of this experiment, but it's one of those experiments that if you change the premise, you can fiddle it to get the result you want, but in this case, the premise would have to change from the domain of biology to the domain of sociology so that it becomes an experiment to see how bored students cope with Sunday afternoons.

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( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 12:24, 3 replies)

I demand
more stupid experiments that could result in devastating internal damage
(Freddles, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 12:43, closed)

its all the water!!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7520756.stm

anyone that cant be bothered reading its about a woman that started a detox diet that involved drinking 4 litres of water a day. and ended up having siezures.
(suboftheday, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 15:36, closed)

10 pints of water
is well beyond anyone's limit for a session. In sixth form at school we had a challenge of drinking 10 mugs/coffee cups of water over lunch time. Not sure if anyone managed it, but pretty much all comers chundered.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Tue 29 Jul 2008, 17:52, closed)