What are the weirdest science experiments you have heard of? (hopefully excluding the really horrific stuff…)
A recent Discover article about brain development mentioned one where the researchers trained bees to react when presented with a yellow square. They then fitted the bees with eyepatches(!) and tested them again. When performing with only the left eye, they did just fine; right eye, not so hot. That says some cool stuff about brain symmetry, but nowhere as cool as pirate bees. I couldn’t find a photo
Honorable mention to last years’ (?) ants-on-stilts experiment, and the infamous human ear on a mouse (photo not linked for your benefit).
I spent an hour and a half today discussing a paper that measured flies’ sleep patterns to figure some stuff out. How do you tell if a fly is asleep, you ask? You shine an infrared beam through the fly-containing tube and measure how often the fly breaks the beam. Sleeping flies don’t wander back and forth.
If you’re interested in weird experiments, I recommend reading Elephants on Acid.
The dumbest experiment I remember hearing about was a study on how cats reacted to having their testicles squeezed. No points for guessing what happened there.
In one conference on optical engineering, there was a presentation about using LIDAR to locate and track bees. Not just any bees, but ones trained to find land mines. IIRC they feed the bees nectar laced with explosive chemicals, which trains them to respond to the smell of explosives.
This reminds me of a paper I read back when I was doing some research in college. It was on REM sleep deprivation, and the way they managed to selectively deprive mice of REM sleep was to put them on a tiny island in the middle of a pool of water. When they went into REM, their muscles relaxed and they fell off.
My question, when I learned about it, was “Did they get a grant for that one’s duration ? And is so, can I apply for one at the local uni in order to replicate it and independantly verify their results ?”
Um… the book, that is.
Reminds me of another oldie but goodie: Doped Spiders. It was done by NASA, but I don’t think the spiders were in space… leaving it in the realm of the Groovy, but not quite Far Out.
