Professor Lipton's work as a professional, rather than an amateur, chemist avails him surely of many insights. Professional discretion would likely constrain him in the event that these insights included the following.
Those who would remain innocent, read no further.
X X X
I confessed online in 1991 my own rude, sorcerer's-apprentice experience with hydrogen sulfide and ethanethiol ("ethyl mercaptan"). Some of you may enjoy at least the come-uppance part (or the Lovecraft quote re Miltonic Legions.) If so, read the four-article thread beginning:
More subtle and devious (and successful) was the ethyl-acetate gambit of a shrewd friend during teen years. This solvent with its ripe-fruit smell, a natural component in ripe fruit I think, and focus of Tom Stevenson's screed against carbonic maceration in Beaujolais in his _New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia_ ("the trade calls it `lollipop' wine and it is ideal for anyone who does not actually enjoy the characteristics of real wine") has a little-known undermining action on balloon rubber, and, well, BANG! Moreover, olive oil (non-virgin) slows the effect. The shrewd friend found that by adjusting the olive-oil content, he could sprinkle the solvent on balloons and be safely distant when trouble struck. (Some friends of ours sold balloons at a museum.) Deviously, a tiny squirt gun accomplished the sprinkling. Discreetly. (Thus are launched great careers in science.)
Later we did other things, more devious still, mentioned on sci.electronics in the 1980s, which I saved, though evidently absent from public archives. (Maybe just as well.)
Max