TikTok's favorite chemistry teacher wants you to be careful with hydrogen peroxide

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge High school chemistry teacher Phil Cook (@chemteacherphil) didn't know anything about TikTok until one Friday in August, when a student in his class suggested that he make one of the day's in-class demonstration: an experiment he calls the "gummy bear" sacrifice, where adding sugar (a gummy bear) to a test tube of potassium chlorate creates a contained explosion. "I said, here's my phone, make the video and we can take a look at it," Cook says. He posted t...