Weird Science #5: All-Time Top 10 Maddest Experiments
Author: Ink-Stained Wretch
The friendly folks at the UK's amazing newspaper The Guardian compile a list of the Top 10 most bizarre experiments in history. By all means, check out the whole article... but here are the headlines... elephants on acid, two-headed dogs and a see-saw to revive the dead. Ladies and gentlemen, we simply cannot make sh!t up that's any weirder than this.
1. Elephant receives massive dose of LSD to see if it induces temporary madness.
Conclusion: LSD is fatal to elephants
2. Aircraft passengers told they are about to die in crash make more mistakes in written test.
Conclusion: Extreme stress harms cognitive ability
3. Two-headed dogs created by Soviet surgeon but die within a month.
Conclusion: Tissue rejection makes animals incompatible
4. Psychologist begins experiments on son to test if laughing is spontaneous when tickled.
Conclusion: Laughing is an innate response to tickling
5. A room of nail-biting boys is played a recording or spoken announcements to break the habit while they sleep.
Conclusion: Sleep learning is possible. Others prove otherwise
6. To test if people can sleep through anything, volunteers have their eyes taped open and bright lights shone in their eyes.
Conclusion: The men dozed off in 12 minutes
7. People asked to smell ammonia, put hands in a bucket of frogs and watch porn.
Conclusion: Disgust has no single expression.
8. Doctor rubs vomit from yellow fever patients into open wounds and drinks it.
Conclusion: Mistakenly claims it is not infectious
9. Animal corpses placed on seesaw to restart circulation and bring them back to life.
Conclusion: Two animals survive with blindness and brain damage
10. Fake female turkey dismantled limb by limb to find minimum that a male will mate with.
Conclusion: Male turkeys aroused by a head on a stick, but not a headless body
uhm... ewwwww!~
so if there is money for these experiments, there has to be money for tying cats to balloons....
YEah!!!
does anyone remember what the rationale was for putting the cat on the balloon?
after some reflection, throwing the cat in the fireplace seemed like not such a good idea.
Wow, I'm kinda glad I missed this particular party...
It was fuzzy recognition after a particularly heavy session of "cleaning the tubes" (squeegee the thrid-eye sort of thing) one deluded individual has some unknown rationale for sending said cat aloft... in a moment of clarity perhaps someone has threatened to eat it??? Once the chase begins there is a sort of "seemed like a good idea at the time" mentality. The ballon pardicament is a catalyst (if you pardon the pun) for the "road" portion of the story. In my mind, at this point, it sort of morphed into PURE MAD BREEZE.
Ultimately, I think the ballon business was a reason to get our story on-the-road. As for the real reason? It was funny and do we really need a reason? It's sort of a great hook to start the story with.