The MythBusters The MythBusters

MythBusters Episode 28: Is Yawning Contagious?

Premier Date: March 9, 2005

Over a ¼ mile long down-hill course a toy car can beat a full size Dodge Viper powered only by gravity.

busted

The toy car was able to beat the Viper over 100 feet (30 m) but over the full length of the course the Viper won by an extremely wide margin.

A person can be subconsciously influenced into yawning if another person near them yawns.

plausible

In a test pool of 50 people those who were influenced into yawning by the MythBusters yawned 29% of the time. However, those who were not influenced yawned only 25% of the time. Despite this supportive evidence, the 4% difference between the experimental and control groups was not large enough to constitute a statistically significant difference (at alpha = 0.05), and therefore no definitive conclusion could be reached based on these results.

Toast is more likely to land buttered-side down when dropped.

busted

In an extensive and highly objective test the toast showed no statistical preference for landing buttered-side down or up when dropped. It was an even 50-50 split when the final results were compared. However, when simply pushed off the side of a table, toast showed preference to flip once and land buttered-side down.