WATCH YOUR STEP!

Some performers walk over hot coals or shattered glass to wow crowds. They say both are less painful than walking on Lego pieces! There are a few factors that make stepping on the plastic bricks extra awful.

First is the material they’re made of. The superstrong plastic used to form Lego pieces is one of the toughest plastics. “You can hit a Lego brick with a hammer, and it won’t break,” says Frankie Wood-Black, a chemical physicist from Northern Oklahoma College. When you step on one, it doesn’t bend at all under your weight. In other words, the toy absorbs none of that force when stepping down. Instead, every bit of force goes straight into your foot.

Another reason stomping on a Lego brick is so painful “has a lot to do with the concentration of nerves in the bottom of your foot,” says Dr. Lauren Geaney. She’s a foot specialist at UConn Health in Connecticut. The sole of the foot is packed with nerve cells. They sense the damage to your foot first. The nerve cells start a relay race throughout your body’s nervous system that all happens in one-tenth of a second (see How You Feel Pain).

Nerve cells, also known as neurons, collect in bundles called nerves. They’re found all over your body. The bottom of your foot has about 200,000 nerves. That’s about 20 times more nerves than those found in the skin of your leg! All those nerves boost the sensation you feel when you step on something, says Geaney.

Now you can experiment for different results. Do you like soft, moist cookies? Use more brown sugar than granulated because brown sugar absorbs more water. Do you want your cookies to be puffier? Use baking powder instead of baking soda. It creates more gas bubbles.

People have different tastes. That’s why there isn’t one perfect cookie recipe. “But if you use science, you can develop your own perfect recipe,” says Tran.