# Magnetic Mint leaves **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619 "2015-01-22T20:45:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Thinktank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Thinktank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thinktank)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619/1 "2015-01-22T20:45:20Z")
Ok, not your most serious topic, but everyone needs a breather from that kinda stuff anyway. So I was having tea today (Green tea w/ Mint flavor), to dress things up a bit I plucked two mint leaves from my plant in the window and tore them in half. I tossed them into the cup and noticed they seemed to have a preferred orientation. Then I started playing with them:rolleyes:. The video isn’t great but it demonstrates that time after time the same kind of result would transpire. What causes such things? [![](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619/2 "2015-01-22T21:01:01Z")
It looks to me like they were cohering to each other and the surface tension was making them go to the sides (and adhere to the cup). I’d look up Surface Tension, [Cohesion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohesion_%28chemistry%29)and Adhesion before I started trying take readings from [del]tea[/del]mint leaves. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619/3 "2015-01-22T21:50:18Z")
Apparently this is known as the [Cheerios effect.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerios_effect) Basically, the surface of the water acts like a rubber sheet due to surface tension. A heavy object placed on the sheet deforms the surface downwards, and then a second object will want to move towards the first object because it’s “downhill”. ETA: I don’t know if your mint leaves are heavy enough for it to work quite this way, though. Apparently the mechanism is slightly different for lighter objects. ---
**Author:** ![Thinktank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Thinktank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thinktank)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619/4 "2015-01-22T22:30:02Z")
:] thank you for providing a sense of humor on this site. I had lost hope for such things here. ---
**Author:** ![Thinktank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Thinktank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thinktank)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnetic-mint-leaves/710619/5 "2015-01-22T22:36:24Z")
MikeS, thank you for taking a light-hearted science topic seriously enough to not write it off. I know nothing about what happened in my tea today, maybe it _is_ the cheerios effect. I’m guessing you noticed the leaves stuck to the sides of the cup as well. I’ve seen similar things happen with ice cubes, just not to such an obvious degree. I DO realize that this is not magnetism at work, however the attraction and in some cases what looks like repulsion was too easily described as “magnetic”.