Green slime … or greenbacks?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 30, 1997 | by Stephen Dinan

Gus Gray and Justin White, juniors at Bluestone High School in Mecklenburg County, Va., were boiling up some green slime as a Halloween trick when the experiment exploded. Parts of the slime landed in another flask and hardened around a stirring rod, forming a kind of clear lollipop. It looked rigid, but when one of the boys held it in his hand, the glob curled into a bar.

The boys' chemistry teacher, Holly Hash, encouraged them to re-create the material for class. After a week's worth of miscues and more explosions, however, they realized that the slime must have mixed with the contents of the second flask. Voila! They had discovered the recipe.

"I didn't think it was that important," says Hash about the weird slime. "I just thought it was kind of fun."

But the boys thought their gunk was unique, and so did their teacher. They coated glass with the stuff and, thanks to another mishap, discovered that it prevents shattered glass from breaking apart. Now a Netherlands entrepreneur wants to coat the hulls of ships with the slime -- he believes it will reduce drag while sailing.

The fact is, the boys may have invented something big. Eight months after the first explosion, they've been the subject of several newspaper articles and a CNN report, and they recently were flown to New York to appear on ABC's Good Morning America.

Gus and Justin, however, have a specific market in mind for their product: gelcaps. Hash was pretty sure the slime was edible, but she first tried to test it on a white mouse. The mouse refused, so Hash ate some herself. "I've eaten more of it than anyone, and I haven't even gotten sick yet," she boasts. JG's Edible Plastic, the boys' name for their invention, takes about the right amount of time to dissolve and may be much cheaper to make than current gelcaps. Du Pont has been in touch.

Though the invention was an accident, something like this was bound to happen in Hash's classroom. A 40-year-old mother who has worked as a truck driver and mortician as well as chemistry teacher, she believes in letting kids experiment to their hearts' content. That is, when she has the materials. The chemistry classroom at Bluestone uses a 1950s-era wooden fume hood, where Justin and Gus made their slime. There aren't enough stools for students to sit on. In fact, Hash herself paid for all of the Edible Plastic materials and much of the other ingredients her class uses. The boys say she'll get one-third of any payoff their discovery brings.

Justin and Gus haven't revealed their ingredients or process -- they're waiting on a provisional patent. Meanwhile, they've been toying with various ideas for JG's Edible Plastic, which so far comes in strawberry, peppermint and cinnamon-toast flavors.

Despite the promise of riches, the boys don't seem changed by their invention. "We're not like the big science geeks with the big ol' Coke-bottle glasses -- you know, the straight As and all that," explains Justin. Neither has quit his part-time job: Gus works at a day camp and Justin at a golf course.

But if the big money does come their way, they're ready. In fact, Justin says he has picked out his first purchase -- a black 1998 Corvette. Hash says she'll just buy more equipment for her classroom with her share of any take.