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ProfessorF
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:56 pm Posts: 12030
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 |  |  |  | Quote: Thai Cook Fries His Own Hands, Doesn’t Get Burned By Spooky on July 7th, 2011 Kann “Superhands” Trichan got the cool nickname for his incredible ability of scooping pieces of chicken from burning-hot oil with his bare hands.
The 50-year-old Chiang Mai-based street cook can sink his fingers into 480 degrees hot grease without getting so much as a blister on his hands, and his amazing ability has won him international fame. People from all over the world come to his “Fried Chicken Iron Hands Man” food stall to see Kann use his hands to scoop out the chicken and he and his wife travel the globe showing off his gift. Superhands has no idea why he can do what he does, but he’s just happy it brings more and more customers for his business, every day.
Kann Trichan first discovered his unusual gift seven years ago, when he accidentally got hot oil splattered all over his body. While attending his giant woks, he noticed a squirrel eating a mango on a branch just above him. The squirrel dropped the big fruit right in the oil splattering it all over Kann’s body and head. A taxi took him home and when he got up the next day ready to go see a doctor, he took a look in the mirror only to see he had no burns. The redness was fading away and his skin was practically intact, so he just decided to go back to work, to the astonishment of his fellow street vendors. From there on, his reputation grew, and everyone wanted to see the man who survived a shower of hot oil without a single burn. Trichan began experimenting and noticed he was able to use his bare hands to handle the pieces of chicken in hot oil so he decided to use it to attract customers. They were loving it and business was booming. Seven years later, Kann Trichan is still operating his food stall in front of the Chang Mai technical college, surrounded by curious tourists wanting to see his hands dipped in boiling grease.
Kann Trichan also holds the Guinness Record for picking 20 pieces of chicken from oil heated to 480 degrees Celsisus, in just one minute. He says he can feel the oil is hot when he dips his hands in it, but it simply leaves no mark. Scientists have yet to unravel this peculiar gift. |  |  |  |  |
http://www.odditycentral.com/videos/thai-cook-fries-his-own-hands-doesnt-get-burned.html
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:47 pm |
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davrosG5
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:37 am Posts: 6954 Location: Peebo
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That's just plain weird.
I could understand him not feeling anything if he a condition that meant his nerves didn't work but that wouldn't explain the lack of burns.
_________________ When they put teeth in your mouth, they spoiled a perfectly good bum. -Billy Connolly (to a heckler)
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 3:21 pm |
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finlay666
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:40 pm Posts: 4876 Location: Newcastle
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Sound like the leidenfrost effect, the extreme difference actually acts to protect him
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
_________________TwitterCharlie Brooker: Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 4:57 pm |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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He is a mutant. What is his name? Is he with Magneto or Dr X?
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 7:00 pm |
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leeds_manc
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:19 pm Posts: 5071 Location: Manchester
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No matter what device you sent that from, the point is not valid :p if the leidenfrost effect was the cause then everyone would be able to do it, it would be a party trick. This is more along the lines of mind over mater, it's the match trick in Lawrence of Arabia, it's not that it doesn't hurt, it's that he doesn't care that it hurts. I expect that just like the martial artists who punch through cement, it's not that their hands don't break, it's the fact that through years of training they've broken/healed their hands so often and so gradually that they now have physically stronger characteristics to "normal" hands.
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:17 pm |
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ProfessorF
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:56 pm Posts: 12030
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A good theory, but if the story is true, then how can he have developed this skill across other parts of his body beside his hands? Skin doesn't behave like microfractures in bone after all. My money's on mutation. Or Photoshop.
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:20 pm |
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leeds_manc
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:19 pm Posts: 5071 Location: Manchester
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How do you explain the fact that we have tougher skin on our feet than on our hand s then? And that children who live in poor countries can play football barefoot without a care for stepping on a pebble?  And how do lego enthusiasts manage to build up a tolerance for stepping on a brick?
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:24 pm |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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Evolution? 
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:44 pm |
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ProfessorF
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:56 pm Posts: 12030
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Good point. But I can't see any process for building up a tolerance to hot oil that wouldn't prove potentially fatal or horribly disfiguring. His story is after all, the stuff that government safety videos are made of - if we had issues with squirrels dropping mangoes into chip pans here in the UK I suppose.
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:10 am |
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cloaked_wolf
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm Posts: 10022
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Whilat pain can be mentally overridden, this man would have tissue damage from exposure to the heat of the oil.
_________________ He fights for the users.
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:53 am |
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davrosG5
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:37 am Posts: 6954 Location: Peebo
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I'd go for continual exposure to very different conditions. If you look at a babies hands and feet the skin is pretty much identical - soft and flexible. As the person grows their feet and hands are normally exposed to very different conditions. The feet have to carry a heavy load a lot of the time on surfaces that are quite different to the ones the hands deal with so over time the skin of the feet thickens and hardens to adapt. If you do something repetitive that puts pressure on a part of your hand for a long time then the skin will harden up to protect the area - people who do a lot of sewing or knitting will have hard parches of skin where the needles rub all the time. People who do a lot of heavy manual work with their hands (brick layers for instance) will frequently have rougher, tougher skin on their hands than someone who only does office work (assuming neither do anything to treat their hands to mitigate the effects). If you walked on your hands frequently for several years I expect you'd end up with pretty tough skin on your hands as well. There is probably also an evolutionary aspect to it - if you and your ancestors have to run barefoot on hard ground a lot then it makes sense that evolutionary pressure would favour those who had the toughest skin and/or developed it fastest. You'd need to be able to test many different people exposed to the same conditions from birth to tell I would think. Would be a tricky experiment to run as snaffling children and putting them in artificial environments doesn't tend to be a very ethical thing to do 
_________________ When they put teeth in your mouth, they spoiled a perfectly good bum. -Billy Connolly (to a heckler)
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:00 am |
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bobbdobbs
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:10 pm Posts: 5490 Location: just behind you!
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Is it? oh damn better let them out then 
_________________Finally joined Flickr
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:00 am |
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Fogmeister
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:35 pm Posts: 6580 Location: Getting there
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definitely. You can tell from the shadows.
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:12 am |
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l3v1ck
What's a life?
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:21 am Posts: 12700 Location: The Right Side of the Pennines (metaphorically & geographically)
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Reminds me of the Mythbusters episode with the molten lead.
Myth confirmed!
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:44 pm |
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finlay666
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:40 pm Posts: 4876 Location: Newcastle
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Not sure if I can turn it off or not on the phone.. Even the mythbusters did it themselves with molten lead, it's the same principle as walking on burning coals or walking on broken glass, to know how to do it safely without injuring yourself, you can learn to do it safely and repeatedly do it, it's not that big a deal You can put an iron rod either on/just under the voicebox (not sure which), have another person do the same and walk to each other bending the rod, the human body is incredibly resiliant The 'trick' in Lawrence of Arabia is just a lit match, a lit match is considerable cooler than molten metal or oil at frying temperatures, as such the leidenfrost effect does not apply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effectActually that is structural integrity, cement/wooden blocks are very string if you try to punch perpindicular to the grain, but it's with the grain and not very string
_________________TwitterCharlie Brooker: Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
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Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:22 pm |
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