All of the groundbreaking medical and technological advancements we enjoy right now
started out as experiments conducted by scientists who wanted nothing but to make
the world a better place. But when they breach certain ethical boundaries, these experiments
end up doing more harm than good. Let’s explore 12 Science Experiments that went HORRIBLY wrong!
What’s up, fact-natics! This is Discovery Amuse, serving up your daily dose of the most
outrageous, outlandish and out-of-this-world fun facts!
Stay tuned for our number one entry because it will literally haunt you in your sleep.
Let’s get prototyping!
#12: Crazy Elephant Experiment
In 1962, American psychiatrist Dr. Jolly West from the University of
Oklahoma wanted to prove the adverse effects of LSD. His not-so-brilliant
plan? Administer the hallucinogen on a 3.5-ton elephant named Tusko!
But Dr. Jolly went a little trigger-happy when he injected almost 300 milligrams of LSD on Tusko!
For reference, that’s enough LSD to make 900 humans hallucinate!
Just five minutes after being injected, the poor elephant began defecating,
trumpeting and shuddering violently! He also started gasping for air! In an
attempt to calm Tusko, the mad doctor gave him anti-psychotic drugs and tranquilizer.
Both of which didn’t help though as Tusko died an hour later.
Keep watching because our number one pick went down in history as one of the most
controversial science experiments ever conducted.
#11: Monster Study
Although this experiment didn’t give birth to a monster like Frankenstein, it was still
dubbed as such because scientists at the time found the experiment to be downright inhuman.
In 1939, Wendell Johnson and Mary Tudor of the University of Iowa divided 22 orphaned
children with speech difficulties into 2 groups. One group was given positive speech therapy,
meaning they were showered with praises despite their speaking imperfections.
On the other hand, the second group of children were berated and belittled for their stuttering!
At the end of the study, most of the kids in the second group went on to
suffer serious psychological effects, and kept their speech problems for the rest of their lives!
See, I told you the experiment deserved its name.
#10: A Man’s Worst Nightmare
Just seven months after Canadian man David Reimer was born in August 22, 1965,
his penis was burned after a botched circumcision. His parents grew concerned
that baby David might not be able to live a full life as a man, so they sought the help
of renowned psychologist John Money, who was a pioneer in the study of gender identity.
Dr. Money saw David as a perfect case study for proving that gender identity
is a result of social learning, so he recommended to have baby David
undergo a sex reassignment surgery, removing his testes and replacing it with a vagina!
The little boy was then raised as a girl and was given the name Brenda.
But when David turned 14, his parents couldn’t keep the deception from their own child any
longer. After learning the hard truth about his identity, David decided to reverse the
gender reassignment, and underwent another sex operation to be able to live his life as a man.
#9: Cooking up a Storm
When we talk about someone who can control the weather, only one person comes to mind:
Storm from X-men!
But a chemist by the name of Irvin Langmuir wanted to prove that you don’t
need superpowers in order to control the weather—hurricanes in particular.
In 1947, Langmiur teamed up with the US Military for Project Cirrus,
which aimed to weaken destructive hurricanes. Pretty noble cause if I may say so myself.
The plan was to seed the eye of the hurricane with dry
ice which will cause the eye to release heat, which in turn would widen the eye
and significantly reduce the storm’s destructive force!
The strategy sounded good on paper, but when they tried it on a mild hurricane named King, things
took a turn for the worst. When the team poured dry ice pellets into King’s eyewall, the storm
grew even stronger! Worse, the hurricane pivoted on its course and raced into Savannah, Georgia!
Whoops, that wasn’t supposed to happen!
Hurricane King ended up causing $3 million worth of damage,
and Project Cirrus turned into a media circus.
#8: Chimp Buddy
The nature versus nurture debate has spawned thousands of experiments to see
which aspects of human and animal behavior are inherited or acquired.
In 1931, Winthrop Kellogg wanted to see whether rearing a baby chimpanzee named Gua
alongside a human toddler will make Gua act more human-like. So,
he raised Gua along with his 10-month old son, Donald.
Has he not seen “Planet of the Apes?” Oh right, it’s 1931.
It didn’t take long for the cute babies to bond and become best buddies. But instead
of Gua learning words, Donald started to copy Gua’s sounds! After only nine months,
Kellogg canceled the experiment and Gua was sent back to a primate center in Florida.
#7: Yellow Fever
In 1793, the yellow fever epidemic killed as many as 5,000 people,
prompting medical experts to scramble to figure out this dreaded disease.
Dr. Stubbins Ffirth wanted to prove that yellow fever was not contagious,
but his approach was rather “crude,” to put it mildly.
First, he collected vomit from people infected with yellow fever. Then,
he cut his arms and smeared the barf on them! He also poured some on his eyes for
good measure. But when he didn’t fall ill, he resorted to drinking the vomit as is!
Protein shake, anyone?
It was later found out that the vomit Dr. Ffirth used for his
slimy experiment turned out to be from patients who were no longer contagious.
#6: Balls to the Wall
In the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to determine how much radiation astronauts could
bear during their spaceflights. Naturally, they can’t experiment on actual astronauts,
so they resorted to testing their theories out on… prisoners.
The experiment was conducted on a total of 130 inmates from Washington and Oregon State prisons,
who were basically paid peanuts to get their nuts submerged in water,
and exposed to radiation as strong as 20 modern x-rays!
While the prisoners did the experiment voluntarily,
they were unaware of the longer-term risks. Some of them developed testicular cancer
while others became sterile. This led to 20 inmates filing a lawsuit in 1976.
#5: The Elephant Man Trial
In March 2006, eight healthy individuals volunteered to take part in the Phase 1 trial
of a drug called TGN1412, which was meant to treat leukemia and certain auto-immune diseases.
The drug was slated to become the miracle product of German firm TeGenero.
While the experimental drug was previously tested on monkeys to positive results,
during the clinical test, the drug was administered to six volunteers
ten times faster than they had been injected on monkeys!
In just a matter of minutes, the volunteers suffered extreme pain in the backs and heads.
One of the volunteers even claimed that he felt his brain was on fire,
and his head swelled like an elephant, hence the infamous drug trial’s nickname.
The other volunteers ended up vomiting, fainting and defecating uncontrollably.
The worst affected volunteer suffered from heart, liver and kidney failure after the tragic trial.
#4: Guatemala Syphilis Experiment
In one of the most controversial experiment sin clinical history,
a group of doctors endangered the lives of more than a thousand people in Guatemala
when they decided to throw their moral compass out the door in the name of science.
Led by Dr. John Charles Cutler, the experiment was supposed to test the efficacy of penicillin
in treating venereal diseases. To do this, Dr. Cutler and his team paid
prostitutes infected with syphilis to have sex with prisoners, while other subjects
were directly injected with the disease. In total, more than 1,300 people were involved,
but only half of them were given some form of treatment! Of those left untreated, 83 died.
In 2010, former president Barack Obama issued an apology to Guatemalan president
Alvaro Colom for the experiment that was quote-unquote “a crime against humanity.”
#3: Minnesota Starvation Experiment
At the tail end of the second World War, researchers from the University of Minnesota
wanted to determine the effects of severe dietary restriction
and the effectiveness of postwar relief strategies.
The 36 subjects involved in the experiment were semi-starved for six months,
wherein their caloric intake was significantly reduced. The result? Well, some of the subjects
experienced depression and hysteria, while others showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation.
One of the test subjects even chopped three fingers off his hand with an axe!
I guess the study can be considered a success,
but the jury’s still out on whether it was actually ethical.
#2: Biosphere 2
This next experiment played out like a
real-life Westworld, or the reality show Big Brother minus…well, big brother!
In September 1991, eight brave souls embarked on an experiment that required them to live
inside a gigantic greenhouse called Biosphere 2—for two straight years!
The goal was for the housemates—er,
subjects—to live off the makeshift land which had a miniature forest, savannah and even a
desert! But mainly, the stunt was to attract tourists! “Will these human lab rats survive?”
Barely any footage was shown, but the public learned that an injured
participant was let out and returned carrying a bag full of supplies!
Oxygen also had to be injected into the biosphere to replenish the depleting
oxygen levels, essentially ruining the illusion of a fully controlled environment. These ruined
the validity of the test for many people, and eventually, it lost all credibility.
We’re finally down to our number 1 pick but before that, make sure to
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#1: The Stanford Prison Experiment
This experiment became so notorious that it inspired
a movie starring Billy Crudup and Ezra Miller!
From August 14 to August 20, 1971, 24 students of Stanford University were assigned by psychology
professor Philip Zimbardo to play prison guards and inmates, in an attempt to investigate the
power play between prisoners of officers. But the experiment quickly went awry when the pretend
guards took the role too seriously and subjected some of the inmates to psychological torture!
On the other hand, the prisoners began exhibiting signs of emotional disturbances and rage. Because
of this, the study came to an abrupt end after six days to prevent further psychological damage.
After the fact, some experts questioned the way Zimbardo instructed the guards
to torture the prisoners. Other critics also noted that some participants acted
in such a way that will yield positive results for the study.
The experiment might have been an epic fail as a scientific study,
but I guess it was a successful display of method acting.
So, which of these experiments did you find the
absolute craziest? Let us know in the comments section below!
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And if you want more madness, be sure to check out our countdown of the 15
prison Escapes that went Horribly Wrong!
‘Til then, stay curious, fact-natics! And see you in the next video!