http://www.slatev.com/media/swfs/SlateGroupPlayer.swf

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will be on The Sporkful in a couple weeks talking cocktails, but ahead of that, someone at her office appears to be conducting Sporkful-style Pop-Tart experiments, with alarming results. TVNewser reports that a Pop-Tart caught fire in the microwave during Monday night's show, setting off fire bells at 30 Rock.

TVNewser is an excellent media blog, but they've overstepped their beat and made a toaster pastry error we're asking for a correction on. Despite the title of their post, Pop-Tarts are in fact microwave safe, as long as you follow two key instructions on the box: take it out of the wrapper, and nuke it for no longer than three seconds. Not sure what happened at NBC. In any case, microwave ranks dead last in Pop-Tart preparations, after toasted and my personal favorite, untoasted. (Feel free to debate me on this in the comments.)

And if you want to see extreme Pop-Tart experimentation done right, check out our Slate video above. /mark