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Dana Porter on 
The Thursday night before the Michigan game, there is a tradition among students at Ohio State to jump into Mirror Lake. It’s not really a lake, it’s more like a small pond. Still, it’s a nice place to visit on a campus that sits in an urban environment.
The jump is student driven and not actually sanctioned by the university. Nobody really knows how it started, it just did.
But as an article in The Columbus Dispatch pointed out, there is something one should consider before making the jump.
Students at the College of Earth Sciences tested the water in Mirror Lake before, during, and after the jump.
“Interesting results from last year’s study include a lake-wide temperature increase of approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the course of the night and an ammonia spike around 1 in the morning,” said Steve Goldsmith, a postdoctoral research associate.
The spike in temperature can easily be explained by the warm bodies of thousands of people jumping into Mirror Lake. But that ammonia spike. Yeah, that’s pee!
Goldsmith said he doesn’t want to stop anyone from jumping in, though he does advise taking a shower afterward.
“Have fun, but don’t open your mouth.”
Here’s a video of the festivities.
You can never underestimate what a liquored up college student will do.
Sources:
Wee bit of pee in lake after ‘jump’
Where did the Mirror Lake jump come from?
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