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UNDERGRADUATE stupidity knows no bounds. In an attempt to impress his or her classmates, a student took a sip of liquid nitrogen to prove that it is safe. It isn’t. Within two seconds, the victim had collapsed in intense pain, unable to breathe, and eventually passed out. All-night surgery ensued.

“My entire upper gastrointestinal tract was badly scarred and perforated,” the hapless student recounts in an anonymous letter to the journal Chemical Health & Safety (vol 9, p 4). “They removed part of my stomach and had my entire digestive system, top to bottom, running on machine power…

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