Moss. You know, the grey stuff that hangs in Oak trees?....

Stuff it down their throat till they choke?
Is it poisonous ?

It’s mildly toxic but it would take years of exposure of the essential oil. If you want to kill someone with plant extracts, I’m a good person to know.

I’m hoping this is for a murder mystery you are writing.

Kolckack the Night Stalker (1975) just had an episode (on MeTV) where a creature from Louisiana folklore, made of Spanish Moss and rotting vegetation, was killing people. It was created by the nightmares of a man in a sleep/dream research lab. Kolchack had to kill IT using a branch of a particular tree to pierce the creature. Not sure the kind of wood.

So, create a kind of Gollum or shambler out of the Spanish moss and rotting vegetation ,,,

than oughta do it…

*Golem

The stuff burns explosively hot if you dry it out in the sun for a couple of days.
I’ll leave placement and ignition method up to you.

GA @LuckyGuy
I’ll leave placement and ignition method up to you, too.
But don’t go for the spontaneous combustion method.

So you are planning moss murder?

Just don’t listen to Exile on Main Street, there is no moss there.

Smoosh it over their face so they can’t breath.

^I don’t think that would work. It’s gas permeable. That would make it relatively ineffective in LuckyGuys cannon thingie, as it would be hard to propel.

It’s pretty harmless stuff.

@Kardamom . I have asked multiple questions like this one. I know we’ve covered cucumbers, and some other stuff. It’s just an exercise in thought… I usually do a “how do you save a life with _____?” too, as a follow up…

Get it wet and put it at the top of a steep set of stairs? Less effective than a banana peel, but it would blend in better.

Spanish Moss is neither Spanish nor moss. It can be braided and fashioned into a pretty strong rope.

You is my friend, right @MrGrimm888?

C’mon—EVERYBODY does it. The question is, how do YOU do it?

There is a Scandinavian variety of what LOOKS like Spanish Moss. It may be the inspiration for tinsel on Christmas trees.

It is commonly known as Methuselah’s beard or the scientific name is Usnea Longissima or Dolichousnea Longissima. I would like to know how THEY kill people with it.

Dutch. Of course…

@Yellowdog The lichen you are referring to is nothing like Spanish Moss. It was used to save lives, not take them and I don’t know why you said ‘Scandinavia’ because Usnea grows everywhere. It’s something the American Indians used as well. The stuff is mildly antibacterial. Tinctures are still trendy among the herbal medicine crowd. I think it’s one of the plants they used to use to dye clothing, as well.

Take an M67 grenade.
Remove the safety clip.
Wrap the grenade tightly with the moss so it holds down the spoon, then pull the pin.
Put it on their front porch with a note that says “Money inside”
Get out of town.

@ScienceChick The examples I am familiar with I first found in Sweden and Norway, and did look very similar to Spanish moss. Yes, it is a lichen and Spanish Moss is, of all things, a bromeliad—more related to orchids than lichens. But I’ve seen and lived among both…

Spanish Moss probably looks better, but Usnea on a frosty morning has a tinsil-like quality which makes up for it. How you can say they are not alike at least in appearance is beyond me.

Thanks for the unsolicited info—it was actually good to be informed of its uses. But If everything I say pisses you off so much, maybe you need to invent a chill pill.

Drop a ton of it on their head. Half a ton would work too.

You guys funny!

I would let them admire its tiny tiny flowers close up and then whack them with a tyre iron.

It has flowers? Where?

It is a flowering plant. Google Spanish Moss Flowers.

OK, so when they get closer and closer and closer to see the flowers, when they’re right up on it, smash it in their face then wrap their whole face up with duct tape to keep the moss in place.

If you’re going to drop a ton of Spanish Moss, wouldn’t two tons of Christians (the Christians who didn’t support trump) be more effective, since they’re more dense?

Nope. A ton is a ton is a ton.

We dont want any spaneysh mowss in this here america. That there stuff is faweign isn’t it. Keep it out at the bawduurr ayn’ just shoot him in the face the american way goddamit

@Dutchess_III A ton of golf balls is a lot more lethal than a ton of ping pong balls.

@Yellowdog I don’t think so. I mean even a ton of feathers will crush you.

A ton is a ton. A ton of feathers weighs as much as a ton of bricks.

But that is science, and just like it produced the fake news of evolution, global warming, big bang, round earth, and old earth, the science of 1000kg of feathers being equal to 1000kg of bricks, is fake news.

Ha!

Ha – Ha!

A crushing response Hahaha.

A ton of feathers may crush you as much as a ton of bricks, because they’re flat—but a ton of ping pong balls will not. A ton of air is crushing you all the time. But because its air, who cares. A ton of shards of metal or broken glass will kill you much faster than a ton of water, which probably wouldn’t knock you down.

*sits back and eats her popcorn.

A ton is a ton. Why are you having so much trouble understanding this? It takes fewer bricks to make a ton, and a whole lot more feathers or ping pong balls to equal a ton, but it’s still 2000 pounds, any way you slice it. So yes. 2000 pounds of ping pong balls will crush you.

Don’t forget the pop @ScienceChick.

They’d roll off and are full of air.

How about a ton of helium balloons?

Right, because air pressure is nothing, right, @Yellowdog ? Nobody mentioned the velocity they would be dropped.

You honestly don’t understand this concept, @Yellowdog, that a ton is a ton is a ton? The only difference is the number of feathers or balloons or ping pong balls it takes to reach 2000 pounds.

Some tons are spread over a larger area—A ton of ping pong balls do not have the effect of a ton of lead BBs or shot from a weight. Air has weight, too—and a ton of it doesn’t effect me very much. Maybe a ton of air effects YOU but not most of us.

A ton of helium balloons wouldn’t kill you. A ton of poop would.

A ton of helium balloons attached to your lawn chair could kill you, but on Earth, you can’t ‘drop’ balloons filled with helium. It just depends on how hard you bail the feathers, balls and if you wouldn’t mind putting your ton of air theory to the test, I’m sure I can find a lab with a hyperbaric chamber you can sit in and I can up the normal 14.5 pounds of pressure you feel at sea level up as high as the machine goes and see how close we can get to a ton of air.

Smh….

It depends on how you contain them. But whatever, it is still a ton.

I don’t have a ton of air compressed onto me so it doesn’t affect me at all.

@Yellowdog If you are spreading the weight over a larger area you are not comparing like with like. A ton of feathers or a ton of ping pong balls placed over your chest and kept there will kill you. Helium balloons have negative weight as they float in the atmosphere. You will never get a ton.

The weight of the air presses on us from all directions. We don’t feel the 14 pounds per square inch that presses down on us as an exactly equal force presses upwards. Finally, the last sentence in your answer above is a load of crap.

Thank you. I see what you did there! His last sentence is a ton of crap!

Atmospheric pressure at sea level is 101 kPa. Which translates to about 10000kg/m²,
The average surface area of a common human is a bit less than 2m².
So overall, a human experiences 20 tons of air pressure every moment of its life.
Take that pressure away, and it dies. Like in space.

Wow. Guess my answer sparked some interest! Hey @ScienceChick…pass the popcorn!

I believe it’s over. But I would like popcorn, please.

Yes. A ton of it!

Half a ton would do.

Just a box full, please!
Actually it’s time to eat and I’m going for spaghetti. If my husband ever gets home.

Just leave cold ones out for him.

I’m gonna eat a ton of Spanish Rice

Careful, you might die from MS13.

It would depend on how the material was “dropped.” The height of the drop would be more important than the weight. If you just dumped a ton of ping pong balls, all separate, on me, I doubt it would affect me at all. As the weight would lose it’s relevance to the height of each individual ball.
If you took a ton of ping pong balls, and put them in a container, now you’re talking deadly.
I am reminded of the people who get found dead under stacks of old news papers. Each page is pretty harmless, but the accumulated mass of many make it heavy.

I suppose, the argument could be made, that any material would be the same. Even lead is made of single atoms, and molecules combined. It’s just that they are more densely packed, than most other things…

Now. If you’re talking about a ton of feathers, there “will” be a survivable distribution of the 1 ton (or the equally effective half ton.) Somewhere, there is a red line. It would differ depending on whom it was dropped on…

So… You could take a water bottle, and fill it with Spanish moss, and drop it out of an airplane. The velocity it gathers, as it falls, should be sufficient to drill into some poor bastard’s head.

In matters of death by having something dropped on you, the height, is really the most important variable. Right?.... Or, the speed of the object/material when it contacts human tissue/bone…

Let’s keep in mind that there are usually red bugs/chiggers, in Spanish moss. That could thicken the plot…

@MrGrimm888 Don’t discount the allergy possibility. Some people are allergic to feathers and lichen, and Spanish moss, and probably ping-pong balls.

^YES. You’re getting it! But how to use this knowledge? ....

@MrGrimm888 I mentioned that it would have to be bailed tightly.

@ragingloli air pressure is relative. That pressure is what is around us, but we would only feel that if were had no substance ourselves, but we do. We have a vascular system that creates pressure against our surroundings. It’s so relative that we measure other planets atmosphere in relation to our own. ‘1 atmosphere’ is equivalent to what we feel at 0 degrees celsius at sea level. The net result is pressure we feel on our skin of 14.7psi. If we felt all the pressure, we’d be worse off than a washed up jellyfish. We don’t measure pressures in bars. No international standard exists. In North America, they use psi.

I think that is why this is remains a confusing subject for people. The most common reason folks die of air pressure is loss of blood, not in outer space. If we didn’t have that air pressure surrounding us, we wouldn’t bleed, but that’s gravity and air pressure for you. Always trying to kill you. That is why taking into account the relative relationship between air pressure and human physiology eclipses the simple measure of the tonne of air. We tell little kids that number to spark their interest in science because it sounds so outrageous.