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They blinded us with science!

24 Very Real Experiments That Belong in Bad Sci-Fi Films

December 11, 2023

We’re unambiguously big fans of science. Things like life-saving vaccines are all thanks to the people who dared to ask a question, and then go through the scientific steps required to find an answer. Objectively, that's a pretty good thing!

But does that mean that science isn’t sometimes freaking weird? Exactly the opposite. In order to get groundbreaking discoveries, sometimes you’ve gotta humor a couple of weird ideas and dangerously disturbing trials that seem more at home in a bad sci-fi movie. Weird and dangerous ideas like…

24

Babies and Cliffs

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

23

Newts in Space

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

22

Tinfoil Robot Baby

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

21

Monkeys & Helium

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

20

Sleep Paralysis

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

19

Feeling Fear

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

18

Chimp Butts

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

17

Clown Beatings

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

16

Awful Robot Baby

24 Very Real Experiments That Belong in Bad Sci-Fi Films — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

15

Radio Wave Brain Control

24 Very Real Experiments That Belong in Bad Sci-Fi Films — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

14

Mustard Gas

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

13

Staring In The Eyes

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

12

Cyborg Stingray

24 Very Real Experiments That Belong in Bad Sci-Fi Films — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

11

Sperm Motors

24 Very Real Experiments That Belong in Bad Sci-Fi Films — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

10

Dinosaur Chickens

GRACKED COM Scientists created chickens with control dinosaur faces. In 2015, researchers from Yale and Harvard, possibly with funding from John Hammond, fiddled with the chicken genome until they created chicks with velociraptor snouts experimental instead of beaks. When faced with ethical concerns of the abomination before God variety, the lead author of the study assured everyone that none of the fetuses were allowed to hatch. alligator But he then added that if they had, they would have survived and done just fine. — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

9

Remote-Controlled Beetles

Scientists created remote-controlled (living) beetles. In the never-ending quest to humiliate nature, scientists from UC Berkeley and Nanyang Technological University have turned living beetles into their slaves. By connecting electrodes to the insects' brains, legs, and flight muscles, the researchers can remotely control these biobots for use in surveillance or to search disaster zones for survivors. The beetles emerge from the ordeal completely unharmed, but embarrassed. Probably. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

8

3D Mice Organs

Scientists turned mice (and organs) transparent. This mouse might look like an exotic street delicacy, but it's heralding a revolutionary medical technology: 3D-printed organs for transplants. German researchers have developed a technique to remove pigment and fat from organic tissues like those in mice- and more importantly, humans. The resulting transparent organs can provide blueprints for a stem-cell-loaded biological 3D printer. And perhaps it can also be infused with flavors like BBQ and ranch. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

7

330,000 Mosquitos

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

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6

San Francisco Germs

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists

5

Kids Breaking Things

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: Disturbing Experiments Done By Real Scientists
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4

Human/Chimp Hybrid?

A Soviet biologist tried to create Ilya Ivanov a humanzee. What do you get when you cross a human with a chimpanzee? The answer is obviously an abomination, but Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanov decided to proceed with such an experiment anyway. Some claim one specimen was successfully created, but no confirmation exists. Surely somewhere, Charlton Heston is bellowing at the hubris of man. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

3

3D Mantis Goggles

Scientists built tiny 3D goggles for praying mantises. This mantis isn't just fashionable with its slick little goggles-it's a boon to science. Mantises are the only known invertebrates with 3D vision, and can accurately strike moving prey even when the image beamed to each eye (via the goggles) is different. This mantis-vision research could help future worker robots navigate the world. Or more effectively murder enemies of the hive mind. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

2

Severed Animal Heads

Sergei Brukhonenko tried to keep severed animal heads alive. Brukhonenko arguably VENOUS helped pave the way for PUMP modern heart and lung machines. Не advanced medical science in a ARTERIAL PUMP profound way, and probably saved the lives of countless human beings. Yet history will always remember him as that guy who cut the heads off dogs to see if he could keep them alive. As it turned out, no. Не could not. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

1

A Really Old Worm

Scientists resurrected a nearly 42,000- year-old worm. Russian and Princeton University scientists say they've thawed and revived two ancient nematodes from the Pleistocene Epoch that were recovered from the Siberian permafrost. The younger is a mere 32,000 years old, while the elder is 41,700 (but honestly doesn't look a day over 40,000). We cannot confirm whether the team is now missing one worm and one husky. CRACKED.COM — Source: Sci Fi-Grade Experiments That (Somehow) Happened

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