Here are 25 scary
experiments that destroyed lives, or have the potential to unleash
doomsday.
Creepy animal experiments
Pig Powder
From the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute of Regenerative
Medicine, comes regenerative powder. Cells are scraped from the lining
of a pig's bladder, the tissue is decellulised, and then dried. From
this they managed to regrow a finger. There is something chilling about
the idea that dried pig organs will be used to regrow human limbs.
Source:
PubMed
Pit of Despair
Psychologist Harry Harlow induced clinical depression in monkeys by
taking young macaques that had bonded with their mother, and placing
them in complete isolation, in a darkened cage, for up to ten weeks.
Within a few days they became psychotic, and most could not be treated.
Source:
American Journal of Psychiatry
Russians re-attaching dog heads
This infamous propaganda film from 1940 shows Soviet Dr Sergei S.
Bryukhonenko removing the head of dogs, and keeping them alive on a
heart-lung machine. While possibly a Soviet fake, it produced a major
stir in the west.
Source:
Time Magazine
Spider Goat
Nexia Biotechnologies developed a transgenic goat whose milk contains
proteins like that of spider silk. The milk can then be refined into
superstrong biosteel polymers. We crossed spiders with goats, with no
idea of how these could impact the ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, DARPA
funded it.
Source:
Science
Horrifying human experiments
THN1412 Drug Trial
In 2007, drug trials started for THN1412, a leukemia treatment. It had
been tested previously in animals, and was found completely safe.
Generally a drug is deemed safe to test on humans when it is found to be
nonfatal to animals. When testing began in human subjects, the humans
were given doses 500 times lower than found safe for animals.
Nevertheless this drug, safe for animals, caused catastrophic organ
failure in test subjects. Here the difference between animals and humans
was deadly.
Source:
New Scientist
A human brain - trapped in a mouse!
Researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla discovered how to grow
human brain cells by injecting embryonic stem cells into fetal mice.
This combines the twin horrors of stem cells and transgenic research to
give us either supersmart squirmy mice babies, or people with rodent
brains.
Sources:
Salk Institute and
Washington Post
Implantable Identity Code
The first RFID implant in a human was in 1998, and since then it's been
an easy option for people wanting to be a little bit cyborg. Now
companies,
prisons, and hospitals have FDA approval to
implant them into individuals, in order to track where people are going. A
Mexican attorney general got 18 of his staff members chipped
to control who had access to documents. The prospect of a business
forcing its employees to receive an implant of any type is creepy and
totalitarian.
Stanford Prisoner Experiment
Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prisoner experiment took place in the 1970s.
The psychiatrist took 24 undergraduates and assigned them roles as
either prisoners or guards, in a mock prison on campus. After just a few
days, 1/3 of the guards exhibited sadistic tendencies, two prisoners
had to be removed early due to emotional trauma, and the whole
experiment only lasted six of the planned 14 days. It showed just how
easily normal individuals can become abusive, in situations where it is
encouraged.
Source:
Stanford University
Milgram Experiments
The infamous "shock" experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the
1960s showed just how far people would go, when ordered to hurt somebody
else by an authority figure. The well-known psychological study brought
in volunteers who thought they were participating in an experiment
where they would deliver shocks to another test subject. A doctor
requested that they deliver greater and greater shocks, even when the
"test subject" started to scream in pain and (in some cases) die. In
reality, the experiment was to see how obedient people would be when a
doctor told them to do something that was obviously horrific and
possibly fatal. Many participants in the experiments were willing to
shock the "test subjects" (actors hired by Milgram) until they believed
those subjects were injured or dead. Later, many participants claimed
they were traumatized for life after discovering that they were capable
of such inhumane behavior.
Source:
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
Hofling Hospital Experiment
In a similar vein is the
Hofling hospital experiment,
which involved nurses being told to administer a dangerous dose of a
drug to a patient. In the Milgram experiment, it could be argued the
participants didn't really know the danger of what they were doing. With
Charles Hofling's work, the nurses knew exactly how toxic the dose
would be, yet 21 of the 22 would still have performed the injection.
Source: Hofling CK et al. (1966) "An Experimental Study of
Nurse-Physician Relationships". Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
141:171-180.
Historical atrocities
Sigmund Freud and the case of Emma Eckstein
In the late nineteenth century, Eckstein came to Freud to be treated for
a nervous illness. He diagnosed her with hysteria and excessive
masturbation. His friend Willhelm Fleis believed that hysteria and
excessive masturbation could be treated by cauterizing the nose, so he
performed an operation on Eckstein where he essentially burned her nasal
passages. She suffered horrific infections, and was left permanently
disfigured as Fleiss had left surgical gauze in her nasal passage. Other
women suffered through similar experiments.
Source:
Freud, Surgery, and the Surgeons (via Google Books)
Nazi Experiments
The medical atrocities performed by the Nazis are well-documented, and
undeniably horrifying, with Josef Mengele's work on twins being
especially disturbing. What's also terrifying is how useful this
information was to medical science. A large amount of our knowledge
about how hypothermia and cold effect humans is based on this data. Many
have raised questions about the morality of using data gathered under
such horrific circumstances.
Source:
JLaw
Unit 731
Slightly less well known than the Nazi experiments were the ones
inflicted on the native Chinese population by the Japanese in WWII.
These included vivisection without anaesthesia, induced gangrene, live
weapons testing, germ warfare infections, and worse. General MacArthur
granted immunity to these doctors in exchange for helping America with
biological warfare research.
Source:
New York Times
The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment
Between 1932 and 1972, 399 impoverished African-American farmers in
Tuskegee, Alabama, with syphilis were recruited into a free program to
treat their disease, but were denied effective treatment (penicillin)
even after it existed. This was done as an experiment by scientists who
wanted to see how the disease would progress if untreated. The leaking
of this event lead to major changes in American laws on informed consent
in medical experiments.
Source:
Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved
Mind control
Optogenetics
A biotech system that allows scientists to turn neurons in your brain on
and off using different colors of light. The technique, which requires
brain implants, already works in rodents, who can be compelled to turn
in a specific direction. Imagine what would happen if optogenetics were
used to regulate human behavior.
Source:
Wired
Stimocever
José Delgado, a Professor at Yale, invented the Stimocever, a radio
implanted in the brain to control behavior. Most dramatically, he
demonstrated its effectiveness by stopping a charging bull with the
implant. Except this thing could control peoples actions. In one case,
the implant caused erotic stimulation for a woman, who stopped looking
after herself and lost some motor functions after using the stimulator.
She even developed an ulcer on her finger from constantly adjusting the
amplitude dial.
Source:
Pain journal
MK-ULTRA
MK-ULTRA was a code name for a series of CIA mind-control research
experiments, heavily steeped in chemical interrogations and LSD dosing.
In operation Midnight Climax, they hired prostitutes to dose clients
with LSD to see its effects on unwilling participants. The very concept
of a Governmental agency trying to control minds, both to boost the
mental abilities of its friends, and destroy those of its enemies, is
suitably horrific.
Source:
CIA Library
Our new robot overlords
Robo-Rats and Cyber-Beetles
Ready for remote controlled animals to keep an eye on you? Researchers
have already found ways to create cybernetic rats and beetles, both
controllable via remote. If the concept of beady eyed rats watching form
the shadows doesn't scare the hell out of you, then flying bugs might.
Of course, the army is very, very interested in both.
Source:
Technology Review and
Nature
Robots That Eat
The EATR robot (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot), is a DARPA
funded robot meant to forage for itself, by devouring biomass. While the
developers swear it's strictly vegeterian, that's hardly comforting in
the face of inevitable robot intelligence, and it possibly eating all
our forests.
Source:
Gizmodo
The Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV)
This robot is a cluster of warheads on a single vehicle, each of which
uses jets to hover, track, and then destroy incoming missiles. Just
watch the YouTube video of the test of its hovering abilities, and
imagine that thing coming after you.
Source:
Missile Defense Agency
Self-Replicating Replicators
The RepRap project seems relatively innocent - it's just a cheap and
easy program that allows hobbyists to build 3D printers. But it's main
goal is to become a self-replicating device: A replicator that
replicates itself. A self-replicating system, which can create
mechanical objects? This could get ugly.
Source:
Rep Rap Homepage
Evolving Robots
Take a bunch of cute, round robots, give them a generation lifespan two
minutes, and after a few hundred generations, they evolve to cooperate,
find food, and avoid pitfalls. These robots can evolve communication and
intelligence, to some degree. Incredibly short lived, with the ability
to evolve greater intellect. Just wait till they break out of the lab.
Sources:
Technology Review and
Science Direct
It could destroy the fabric of space-time . . . or not!
The Demon Core
During experiments with a sphere of plutonium nicknamed the "demon core"
at Los Alamos laboratory, scientist Louis Slotin died when a
screwdriver slipped and the sphere went supercritical. After the room
grew hot and was suffused in a 'blue glow,' he saved the lives of seven
other people, but died from severe radiation exposure.
Sources:
Trinity Atomic Website and
Wikipedia
The Death Ray
In his last years, mad scientist Nikola Tesla was working on a death ray
(sometimes called a "peace ray"). It was a particle beam weapon that
supposedly could bring down a fleet of 10,000 airplanes at 200 miles. He
tried to sell the weapon, which he claimed ran via "teleforce," to the
USA and a number of European countries, but none of them would take it.
When your death ray is too terrifying for the US military to take, you
know that's worrying.
Source:
New York Times and
Nikola Tesla's scientific proposal about the weapon.
Time Machine
Physicist Ronald Mallett's work is based on using a ring laser to create
closed timelike curves, which may allow time travel. Possibly you would
only be able to travel back in time to the point when the device was
turned on. What could go wrong?
Source:
Mallett's proposal for the time machine [PDF]
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located in an underground facility in
Switzerland, is the world's largest particle accelerator, designed to
ram protons or lead nuclei into each other at ludicrous speeds. The LHC
has suffered a series of delays, and is meant to be back online in
November 2009. Physicists admit there is an infinitesimal chance that it
will generate a black hole that could destroy the Earth - or possibly
another kind of anomaly that would eat the universe. Two scientists have
even put forth the theory that the LHC
is sabotaging itself from the future, to prevent us unearthing the elusive Higgs Boson particle; others
have sued in the hope that they can shut down the LHC before it destroys the world.
Source:
Large Hadron Collider at CERN
Additional reporting by Tim Barribeau.
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