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36 Actual Scientific Experiments That Are Rightly Left Out of Science Textbooks

March 01, 2024

It’s crazy to think that STEM fields get a reputation for being boring, when in practice, they’re exactly where you want to go if you want to pull off unfathomable depravity.

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36

1960S KIDS VIEWED A VIDEO OF A CLOWN BEING BEATEN. THEN THE PSYCHOLOGIST SENT IN A REAL LIVE CLOWN. Sure enough, the children happily assaulted the man with punches, kicks, and hammer blows, proving not only that kids imitate aggression, but also that they have a somewhat limited grasp of consequences. CRACKED.COM — Source

35

DURING CIRCUMCISION, DAVID'S PENIS BURNED OFF. A PSYCHOLOGIST SAID TO RAISE HIM AS A GIRL. David wasn't transgender, and the psychologist wanted to see if gender identity could be instilled in people. David never accepted the female role imposed on him, continued to act male, and ultimately died by suicide. CRACKED.COM — Source

34

THE MILITARY LOOSED 330,000 MOSQUITOS UPON GEORGIA. THEN THEY RELEASED TWICE AS MANY IN FLORIDA. The experiment was known as Operation Big Buzz. The aim was to find out how disease-spreading bugs would fare in military use (answer: fine), and how many people they'd bite (answer: many). CRACKED.COM — Source

33

NASA SENT FLATWORMS TO THE SPACE STATION. SCIENTISTS CHOPPED A BUNCH OF THEM UP. One middle segment grew a new head. Then it grew a second head on its other end. Terrified, scientists cut both heads off to study them in isolation. The middle segment then sprouted two additional new heads. CRACKED.COM — Source

32

RESEARCHERS GAVE TURKEYS A MODEL FEMALE TURKEY. THE TURKEYS HAD SEX WITH IT. The researchers then removed the feet, tail, and wings from the model, and the oblivious turkeys kept on doing their thing. Soon, they were mating with a severed model head. Then researchers attached a real severed head to a stick. Turkeys tried having sex with that too. CRACKED.COM — Source

31

COULD FOES BIOLOGICALLY ATTACK THE U.S. COAST? TO FIND OUT, WE SPRAYED GERMS OVER SAN FRANCISCO. Within days, people with mysterious, hard-to-treat infections-caused by the rare bacteria-trickled into the area's hospitals. Weird infections have sporadically cropped up in the Bay Area ever since. CRACKED.COM — Source

30

A RESEARCHER TOLD KIDS НЕ TREASURED A TOY. НЕ GAVE EACH KID THE TOY, WHICH WAS RIGGED TO BREAK. When it broke despite the child's carefulness, the researcher just stared at the kid for a full minute. Interestingly, kids most traumatized by the experiment went on to have the fewest behavioral problems over the next five years. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

IN 1924, A DOCTOR DREW GRIDS ON SUBJECTS FACES. 8 9 7 THEN НЕ MADE THEM DO THINGS THAT DISGUSTED THEM. Like looking at porn and touching frogs. Then he forced them to decapitate rats while he photographed their faces. The goal was to find what expression people make when disgusted. His conclusion? There is no single disgusted expression. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

AMERICA TESTED MUSTARD GAS ON ITS OWN TROOPS. R2BM Ra HD G HD GAS HD GAS GO 155H 155H 155H 5 LOT PUD LOT POD LOT FOO RSD г SHELL 16 SHELL ME LND SHELL 1 SH 1 DOS RAB R 60,000 WWII TROOPS, MOSTLY PEOPLE OF COLOR. Participants kept their mouths shut well into 1980s. It took until 1991 for the Department of Veterans Affairs to create guidelines to take care of them. This coincided neatly with the tests becoming declassified in 1993. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

A DOLPHIN MOVED IN WITH A PRETTY HUMAN UNDERGRAD. THE DOLPHIN, PETER, BECAME ATTRACTED TO HER. Не bit and bruised her to get her to comply with his sexual will. To get him to cooperate in the study, she consented to rubbing his penis with her foot and hand. The study was deemed a success. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA TRIED TO CONVERT GAY SOLDIERS. TREATMENT COMBINED GAY PORN WITH ELECTRIC SHOCKS. After this horror movie method, there was always the ultimate solution: forced sex changes. They tried that on an estimated 900 people, sometimes at the pace of 50 surgeries a week. The operations were ... not always executed with the utmost skill. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Eye Tricks

SUBJECTS LOOKED IN A MIRROR TILL MONSTERS APPEARED. IMAGINARY MONSTERS. IT TOOK LESS THAN A MINUTE. In a follow-up, healthy young individuals stared at each other, eyeball-to-eyeball, in low-light. Once again, the subjects started seeing monsters. Our neurons go a little stir-crazy when forced to look at the same thing for long. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

TWO PSYCHOLOGISTS BUILT A VISUAL CLIFF. A GLASS SURFACE LOOKED LIKE A SUDDEN DROP. One at a time, they plopped a bunch of babies on the cliff and had their mothers соах them across the glass. In other words, they had mothers tell their babies to do something that the babies believed was certain death. Most crawled away from their mothers. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

SIX DIFFERENT MISSIONS TOOK NEWTS TO SPACE. WE WANTED TO SEE HOW THEY MATE, AND HOW THEY HEAL. Their fertility-much like that of humans-went a little haywire, and. the space trip initially seemed to do nothing for their healing abilities. But once they returned to Earth, thèy actually appeared to heal faster. CRACKED.COM- — Source

22

PURDUE BUILT A CRAWLING TINFOIL ROBOT BABY. THE GOAL? TO INVESTIGATE DUST INHALATION. Turns out breathing in floor debris isn't so bad. Purdue also carefully analyzed the movements of the robot baby itself presumably for potential weaknesses, should we find one speeding toward us in the dead of night. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

The Manhattan Project

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT CONTINUED POST-HIROSHIMA. DOCTORS INJECTED UNWITTING PATIENTS WITH PLUTONIUM. They also pulled 15 teeth from the first injectee, for research. At no point did anyone inform him why. Finally, he figured out he was a test subject and fled the hospital at night, somehow going on to live for eight more years until his heart failed in 1953. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

JAPANESE SCIENTISTS GAVE A GIBBON A BUNCH OF HELIUM. SURE ENOUGH, THE GIBBON'S VOICE TURNED SQUEAKY. The team wanted to find how gibbons make their noises. It appears that gibbons consciously control their vocal system, much like humans do, except that they specialize in singing rather than speech. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

SLEEP PARAL YSIS FREEZES YOU AS NIGHTMARES TAKE OVER. RESEARCHERS ARE STUDYING IT ... BY INDUCING IT. As one study's notes stated: She... was suddenly attacked by paralysis. She felt much stronger fear than ever before. She tried to fight the paralysis by turning over in bed. However, despite an attempt at turning, her paralysis did not cease. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

SOME PEOPLE CAN'T FEEL FEAR, DUE TO A BRAIN CONDITION. SCIENTISTS TRY THEIR BEST TO SCARE THEM ANYWAY. They eventually discovered even the clinically fearless can indeed be spooked. Just mess with their air. Breathing high levels of CO2 made research subjects feel fear, and then panic. Note that these subjects did not previously know what fear even felt like. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

RESEARCHERS PHOTOGRAPHED A BUNCH OF CHIMP BUTTS. THEN THEY ASKED CHIMPS TO MATCH THEM WITH FACES. The chimps could indeed recognize their peers just by looking at their hindquarters. This is apparently important, because the concept of whole body integration was thought to be something only humans can do. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

SCIENTISTS HAVE BUILT ROBOT SHOCK GHOSTS. Tactile feedback Master robot Slave robot ELECTRODES TELL SUBJECTS SPECTRAL WRAITHS ARE NEAR. As Professor Olaf Blanke puts it, Our experiment induced the sensation of a foreign presence in the laboratory for the first time. It shows that it can arise under normal conditions, simply through conflicting sensory-motor signals. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

Sex in an MRI. Scientists convinced their subjects to have sex with each other and by themselves while an MRI machine took pictures of their genitals for... um... well, it's not totally clear why. Their conclusion is basically, Yes, it turns out we can do that. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

This MK-Ultra side project was more of a party. It basically consisted of hiring sex workers to drug men and let nature take its course while the CIA watched, which somehow proved something about Soviet mind control techniques. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

Johann Ritter electrocuted his dick. In a series of early experiments with electricity, Ritter applied electrical currents to various body parts, including his dick, which he liked so much he scienced all over himself. It's not clear what he was trying to prove, but he judged it a resounding success. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Giles Brindley flashed a whole lecture hall. To demonstrate his work with erectile dysfunction drugs, Brindley dropped trou right at the podium, which isn't technically a study but is a sex crime. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Simulating sex with toys. Scientists claim they were trying (and succeeded) to prove an evolutionary theory by using dildos on fake vaginas full of cornstarch semen, but it just sounds like what we used to do with our Babies. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Men like bigger boobs when they're hungry. the adidas ... - NOT - TEAM NICO - To answer a question no one was asking, scientists tested men's preference for boob size before and after they ate and proved they really are just big babies. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Jerking it for justice. TEL Scientists forced men to answer questions of sexual ethics while masturbating, ostensibly to test whether arousal affected decision-making but also probably because it was really funny. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Scientists looked at lots and lots of boobs. They compared the breasts and daily habits of twin sisters to determine what lifestyle choices might cause ta-tas to become less bodacious. They found nothing surprising and totally didn't write twincest fic later. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Nicholas Senn blew smoke (or rather hydrogen) up his own ass. It turned out to be an effective method of locating complicated wounds, but he had plenty of proof with other subjects. Не just wanted to see what it felt like. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Spanking people makes them happy somehow. Russian scientists gave addicts a literal ass-whipping and found the ensuing endorphin rush cured their depression and pain. Weirdly, it works best when performed by a member of the opposite sex. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Scientists looked at lots and lots of hot butts. To help plastic surgeons determine what butts should look like, they looked at 1,320 pictures of butts and talked about which ones were the hottest, which is just Friday night for lots of guys. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Two scientists crushed each other's nuts. Herbert Woollard and Edward Carmichael wanted to test nerve connections and found that nut shots did indeed cause generalized torso pain, which anyone who played Little League could have told them. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

Michael Smith encouraged bees to sting his junk. Не tested 25 different body parts, including his twig and berries, to see where it was most painful to be stung. The winner was actually the nostril, but the dick was close behind. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

Watching public sex for science. The only way for sociologist Laud Humphreys to prove that all kinds of men were hooking up with each other in public bathrooms in the '60s was to hang around and watch them. His subjects were weirdly cool with this. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Robert Dickinson f*cked women with test tubes. Не used phallic-shaped glass tubes to observe the physiological process of orgasm inside the vagina in the early 20th century. To be fair, speculums didn't exist ye-- oh, wait, they totally did. CRACKED.COM — Source

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