WEBVTT - Fan Favorite: What are the Weirdest Experiments in Science? 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:04.960 I guess what will? What's that? Mango? So have you 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:07.760 heard of this experiment from Albany Medical College where they 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.000 tried to figure out whether rats like jazz or classical 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.720 music more? I don't know. I haven't heard about this 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.640 because it seems like a really important experiment, and actually 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:18.799 I have to meet I am curious so so so 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.280 which one do they like? More? So? The scientists played 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.759 for a lease on loop for ninety minutes, and then 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.800 they'd switched to Miles Davis and his song four, So 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.440 they just go from Ford for at least to four. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.640 And of course they discovered that the rats like silence 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.680 better than continuous music. But when they had to choose, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.440 the rats like Beethoven more than hard bop. And I 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.559 guess that makes sense. If we're talking about on repeat 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.479 and they're having to hear this over and over, I 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.080 guess it's a little more soothing, right, Yeah, But the 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.120 experiments weren't done then, so I have no idea why 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.080 they did this. They injected the rats with cocaine after 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.840 this for seven straight days, and once the rats had 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.040 this cocaine just racing through their system, they couldn't get 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:04.880 enough Miles. This, which also makes sense fairly. Science tells 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:09.039 us that coked up rats really love jazz. But there's 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.920 a whole world of questionable science experiments, from the weird 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.080 to the funny to the seriously ill advised. And that's 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:38.679 what today's show is all about. Let's dig in. Hey, 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.200 their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.520 Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.600 Manesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass, 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:48.800 putting his good name on the line for the sake 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.200 of science conducting. What is we assume, the first ever 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.040 scientific attempt to bring a potato back to life. That's 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.160 our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, a potato back to life. Mano, 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.680 this is big science. I saw the potatoes, I saw 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.160 the labco I had no idea what was going on there. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.760 I think that's what the defibrillator is for. And you 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.480 might be wondering how you can tell the difference between 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.640 a live and a dead potato. Well, those are all 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.680 heavy questions, and hopefully Tristan's work will help shed some 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.280 light on just a few of those. It maybe two 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.560 over our heads. We'll see most of what Tristan does 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.000 is anyway. I know this experiment sounds ridiculous, but honestly, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.400 everything on today's show sounds a little ridiculous. So we'll 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.559 dig into some of the weirdest, most questionable science experiments 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.000 in history. Now, Mango, I know, for a while as 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.200 a kid you wanted to be a scientist, and I've 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.639 heard you talk about some of the experiments you conducted. 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.239 So did you come up with any terrible experiments along 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.919 the way? So many? I mean, you know, my dad's 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.320 a scientist, and he's a good one. So we test 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.040 things and I tell him about inventions ideas for inventions 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.760 I had, like I had an idea for a d microwave, 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.880 and the whole idea was that, like you could cool 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.120 down a hot bagel fast. And yeah, you tell me 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:00.919 like why it would or would work or what I'd 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.480 have to think about. But I think the biggest failure 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.440 I had as a kid was in second grade and 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.560 my friends and I were at the bus stop and 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.960 we always wanted a day off from school, you know, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.200 especially when the weather was nice, because you want to 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.160 stay home and play and whatever. So I hatched this 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.320 amazing scheme, like our our friend Kristen had access to 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.280 a ton of gum for some reason, and I knew 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.079 that gum on the ground is sticky when you step 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.359 on it. And I don't remember how we calculated this out, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.160 but there were drawings and some terrible math involved, but 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.480 we figured that if we could get a big enough 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.160 wad of sticky gum in the right place, the school 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.360 bus tire would probably stick to it and get stuck 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:39.920 there for the day and we wouldn't have to go 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.200 to school. I really want to hear that this worked, 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.000 but I'm gonna guess that maybe this didn't work. Yeah, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.080 of course not. I mean, my calculations were off, I guess. 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.120 And but the plan was like so elaborate. We we 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.240 planned about it, we talked about it, We made this 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.360 giant wad of gum, and then we placed it in 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.240 what we thought was going to be the perfect spot, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.960 and in the school bus tire didn't even roll over, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.400 and so it's like super anti climatic and we sort 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.760 of like deflatedly walked onto the school bus. But uh, 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.040 now that I think about, the gum was also care free, 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.320 so it wasn't really like a sticky type of gum 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.719 that was your problem because care Free was it's sugarless, right, Yeah, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.240 but I mean you go to war with the gum 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.640 you have and it was not a great day for science. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.120 All right. Well, today's show is all about odds science experiments, 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.120 and just because their bizarre doesn't mean we should automatically 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.600 discount them. In fact, I was reading this article by 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.359 Alex Boss and he wrote a great book about odds 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.080 science experiments, and there's a section where Alex explains why 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.680 he first got into weird projects and and why he 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.200 believes they should still be thought of as worthwhile. So 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:45.720 I just want to read a bit from this. So 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.560 here's what he says. I confess I had no profound 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.280 intellectual motive at first. I simply found them fascinating. They 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.600 filled me with disbelief, astonishment, discussed, and best of all laughter. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.360 But with hindsight, perhaps there is a deeper message. These 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.680 experiments are not the work of cranks. All were performed 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.560 by honest, hard working scientists who were not prepared to 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.880 accept a common sense explanation of how the world works. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.240 Sometimes such single mindedness leads to brilliant discoveries. At other 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.120 times it can end up closer to madness. Unfortunately, there's 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.240 no way of knowing in advance where the journey will lead. Yeah, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.040 I mean, that's certainly something to keep in mind as 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.520 we go along. But while it might be true that 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.719 none of the people that Alex talked about were crackpots, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.159 some of the ones I want to talk about definitely 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.039 worth So this includes the first guy we've gone on, 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.640 the list of Renaissance era physician and alchemist named Paracelsus. 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.320 Now Parasulsis is known for doing some of the earliest 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.719 research in toxicology and also psychotherapy, which are I guess 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.240 both weird in their own right, but without doubt his 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.320 strongest claim to theme was his account of how to 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.479 grow your own homunculous. To grow your own homunculous, mega 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.840 can grow your own I do want to confess I'm 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.479 a little rusty on my pseudoscience lingo from what you 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.920 said the right. So, so, what exactly is a humunculous. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.880 It's a mythological creature. Fairly, Parasolsis believed in all sorts 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.000 of those, including giants and wood nymphs. But homunculus was 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.240 basically like a tiny living human the size of a 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.200 doll or something, and paras els has actually claimed to 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:17.960 have made his own, which he said was about a 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.359 foot tall. Right. And you said this man was a doctor, right, Yeah, 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.680 I mean it was easier to get into medical school 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.560 back then. Some people thought he was a medical genius. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.240 Others thought he was more of this loud mouth, drunk type. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.240 I'm guessing the truth was somewhere in between. But these 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.000 are actually the instructions Paracelsus has laid out to create 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:41.440 your own little homunculous. So here we go. Let the 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.880 seed of a man by itself be putrified in a 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.880 gored glass and sealed up in horse done for the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.440 space of forty days until so long as it begins 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.560 to be alive, move and stir. After this time, it 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.440 will be something like a man, yet transparent and without 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.640 a body. Now, after this, if it be every day warily, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:02.200 imprudently nourished and fair with man's blood, and be kept 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.560 for the space of forty weeks and a constant equal 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.560 heat of horse dung, it will become a true and 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.280 living infant. You know what, just hearing this, it kind 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:12.840 of makes me want to go back and watch those 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.160 old s n L skits where Steve Martin played them 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.160 medieval barber because it sounds like pretty similar advice. And 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.200 you know, I admire Paracelsis ingenuity, and obviously at the 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.520 time they had a much different set of knowledge. But 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.120 I feel like it might be smarter for the human 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.160 race to stick with the you know, the old fashioned 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.000 horse dung freeway to make a true and living infant. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.880 But anyway, you know, word of crazy experiments like this 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.240 and these medical fallacies, they got passed around a lot 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.200 during the Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance. So 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.600 much so, in fact, that a physician philosopher named Sir 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.680 Thomas Brown actually put together a massive list of these 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.680 widely believed tall tales, and he referred to these as 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.840 vulgar errors. So Brown would go around testing all these 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.640 absurd claims in order to disprove them once and for all. So, 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.680 for example, one weird idea that it's spread in the 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.640 sixteen hundreds was that you could make an accurate weather 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.280 vane just by hanging a dead kingfisher bird from a string. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.680 It's as simple as that. I love arts and crafts projects. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.280 I'm guessing that didn't end wilda well. Apparently he found 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.760 himself a dead kingfisher one day, and he hung it 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.040 up from a beam outside, and much to his dismay, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.679 the bird just sort of dangled and seemed to sway 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:25.960 at random, you know, as you'd expect from a corpse 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.040 of a dead bird. But you know, being this man 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.040 of science, Brown knew he couldn't definitively disprove this claim 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.520 with just a single dead kingfisher, So he got another one, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.800 strung it up next to the first, and watched his 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:43.000 both birds spun aimlessly in different directions. So with that, 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.760 with that degree of science, Mango Brown was able to 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.360 say conclusively that dead kingfishers are a poor way to 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.480 determine win direction. So forget trying. This is just not 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:57.280 gonna work. I do like that it took uh, just 0:08:57.520 --> 0:08:59.720 two dead birds to put a stop to this idea, 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.280 but it you know, no one else had thought of this, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.000 and I feel sorry for like whatever poor salesman at 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.600 the market had stocked up on baskets of kingfishers, and 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.080 I guess like Brown just ruined his entire business model. 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.720 That's there and other interesting cat I came across was 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.040 this guy named Johann Conrad Dipple, and he was this 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.600 German scientist in the late sixteen hundreds who had actually 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.959 been born in the real Castle Frankenstein, which is kind 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.560 of amazing, And of course he had a lot of ideas. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.880 Probably his least bizarre achievement was that he developed one 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.040 of the world's first synthetic pigments, in fact, the first. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.439 It's a die called Prussian Blue that's still in use today. Yeah, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.360 I've heard of Prussian Blue. But I think you said 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.960 least bizarre achievements. So what was his most bizarre achievement? Yeah, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.360 I did because I wanted to talk about Dipple's oil. 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.360 It was supposed to be kind of a life extending potion, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:53.080 but was in reality just this like terrible, disgusting slurry 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.520 made from a mix of random animal bones and hides. 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.640 It's too bad. I'm curious that Did he sell a 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.440 lot of dipples oil? I'm at and it must have 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.400 been a big hit with the local villagers there. Yeah, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.080 you'd think so, but not so much. In fact, Dipple 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.559 was eventually run out of town because of all these 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.120 rumors that started circulating about what he was really doing 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.600 in his lab. Like one of the rumors claimed that 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.480 Dipple was a grave robber and that he'd once tried 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.240 to move a soul from one corpse to another using 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:21.640 just a funnel, a hose and a bit of lubricants. 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.040 You need the lubricant to get it through. But yeah, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.640 I think we can both agree that's a bit of 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.760 the suspect signs there. I mean, I guess so I 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:31.800 could see where they were going with that. But but 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.720 I do see what you mean about him being a 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.839 mad scientist, all right, But if you don't mind, I 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.840 kind of want to transition away from the total crackpots 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:40.880 and start talking about some of the scientists who are 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.240 maybe I don't know, just a little misguided instead. And thankfully, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.440 I think I have the perfect person to help us 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.400 make that leap, because he really does tow this line 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.760 between those two types. And his name was Stubborn's Firth. 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.000 Isn't that a great name. It just seems like somebody 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.440 that would tow those lines. All Stubbens. But in the 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.040 early nineteenth century he was training to be a doctor 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.480 in Philadelphia, and so during this time Stubbins began studying 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.839 the effects of yellow fever, and that was, of course 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.319 a disease that had laid waste to the area's population 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.480 just a few years before this and he had noticed 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.440 that the fever hardest hit in the summer months, and 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.920 then it would disappear almost entirely by wintertime. And so 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.640 this led him to the conclusion that all these widely 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.760 held opinions about yellow fever being contagious were completely false. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.040 So to him, it seemed much more likely that yellow 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.240 fever was brought on by excessive heat and food and noise, 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.640 and all of these things were much more abundant in 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.560 the summer than they were in the winter. I like 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.079 the idea of just a lot of noise causing yellow fever. 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:41.800 It does sound like this guy's heart was in the 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.880 right place, Like I know, this doesn't feel like a 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.640 sound theory about what goes on from here. Well, this 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.360 is where Stubborns needed proof on this. So so the 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.839 doctor in training began a series of self experiments to 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.040 show that no matter how often he was exposed to 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.280 yellow fever, he would never catch it. And, not being 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.880 the kind of guy to do anything halfway, Stubborns decided 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.560 that his best chance to ensure he was properly exposed 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.480 to the disease was to use This was the quote 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.920 from this notebook, Fresh Black Vomit from yellow fever patients. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.680 So this is already disgusting and I'm pretty grossed out, 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.719 but I do have to ask, like, what do you 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.240 mean by he used it? He used to how well 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.520 in all sorts of ways, and this actually gets even 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:25.920 more disgusting. But here the way. So first he tried 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:27.880 to make small cuts on his arms, and then he 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.959 would pour some of this vomit into his wounds. Next 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.679 he DAPs some of the mess directly into his eyes. 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.160 Then he heated some in a skillet and inhaled the fumes. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.160 And then lastly, as if those things weren't gross enough, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.720 he just went for it. And I'm not joking. I 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.000 think you saw this coming. He just chugged some of 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.680 the stuff, which makes me feel sick just hearing this. 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.280 But I mean, Stubbns never got sick, which, of course, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:54.960 and I don't know how he would know that he 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.600 didn't get sick, because I can't imagine doing any of 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.199 these things and not vomiting yourself. He took this all 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.000 as proof for his theory, so I don't understand how 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.560 any of that's possible. Like I thought yellow fever was contagious, 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.960 so it definitely has I mean it's highly contagious. But 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.679 as we know, the disease needs to come into direct 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.960 contact with the blood stream in order to cause that infection. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.960 And that's likely why Stubborns observed so many more cases 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.280 of yellow fever in the summer. There were just more 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.680 mosquitoes around to spread the disease. So I get that, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.240 But why didn't Stubborns get sick when he was cutting 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.320 himself in you know, like exposing that stuff to his cuts, 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.440 And I mean that that had to get in his 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.520 blood stream right, Well, normally, yes, but as it turned 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.840 out in this case, most of the patients whose samples 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.480 he used were in the late stages of yellow fever, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.000 and by that point they were actually no longer contagious. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.959 Though of course, you know Stubborns didn't know this. Well. 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:48.560 I mean, i'd say we're firmly in the realm of 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.160 misguided experiments after that one. So I'm actually gonna keep 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:52.920 the ball rolling with what I hope will be something 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.679 of a palate cleanser. And this is this crazy study 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.280 I found out about mating instincts of turkeys. I like 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.800 how you're calling mating instincts of turkeys a a palate cleanser. 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.040 But but tell me more here. Yeah, it's a turkey 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:10.600 and moose bush. So wild turkeys are notoriously difficult to hunt, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.679 which is why human hunters often resort to these lifelike 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.640 decoy models of female turkeys. They use these to lure 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.640 the bigger male birds to them, and the males don't 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.080 seem to mind or even notice the difference. For the 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.640 most part. They're actually perfectly content to mate with these 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.920 phony birds. And that behavior is actually what caught the 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.680 attention of these two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.800 Oh wow, so we're back in Pennsylvania again. Yeah, it's 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.640 a hotbed of science. But anyway, these guys that you 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.400 pen start wondering what was the minimal stimulus for exciting 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.840 a turkey, and so to figure that out, they decided 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.200 to gradually remove parts from a decoy turkey until the 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.760 male inevitably lost interests. So first they removed the tail 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.960 and the tail feathers, and then the feet and lastly 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.640 the wings. But despite all of these missing appendages, the 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.200 males were still eager to mate with the decoy. I mean, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.280 I guess they just loved the personality and eventually the 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.160 researchers were down to just ahead on a stick. And 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.000 the strangest far is that the mail try keys were 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.160 still interested. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I have to admit 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.560 I feel slightly scandalized and more than a little concerned 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.800 about what the good people of Pennsylvania are doing with 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.320 their time. All in the name of science, I guess. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.800 But alright, well, since you open the seal on weird 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.840 animal studies, there's one I've been dying to tell you about. Absolutely, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:43.400 But first let's take a quick break. You're listening to 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:44.920 part time Genius and we're talking about some of the 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.200 strangest experiments in the history of science. Now for better 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.040 Whereas many of the weirdest projects do tend to involve 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.040 animal test subjects, but rather than focusing on the more 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.080 upsetting ones where animals come to harm, instead, I want 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.080 to tell you the story of a young boy and 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.720 his adopted chimpanzee sister. And yes, I said it is 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.040 adopted sister. Now, probably the most troubling aspect of this 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.360 one is that the boy's father decided to carry out 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.160 his experiment using his own son. But don't worry before 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.560 I tell you about this the boy makes it through unharmed, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.600 or at least more or less unharmed. Anyway. The father's 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.440 name was Winthrop Kellogg, and he was a psychologist who 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:22.720 wondered what would happen if an animal was raised by 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:26.440 humans as a human. This was in the early nineteen thirties, 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.120 so if you think about the time, then this is 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.600 when you know the Tarzan books were all the rage, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.560 and there are also several real life accounts of feral 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.880 children who had been raised by animals, And so Kellogg 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.120 was inspired by these stories and he wanted to test 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.040 the opposite case, like, if an animal was raised as 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.440 a human, would it eventually act like a human too? 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.680 Oh so it's like a bizarro jungle book or like 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.000 the reverse of Amogli situation. Yeah. So so that in 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:57.080 Kellogg brought home a seven month old female chimpanzee named Gua, 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.360 and he and his wife, who must have been this 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.960 extremely patient woman, started raising the chimp alongside their ten 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.239 month old son Donald. And the Kelloggs treated their two 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.159 kids exactly the same. Donald and Gua were allowed to 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.040 play together, they ate together. They also took part in 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.159 regular tests to track their development. For example, there was 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.640 this one cookie test where the Kelloggs hung a cookie 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.960 from a string in the middle of the room and 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.000 then they timed how long it took the boy and 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.520 the chimp to reach it. Okay, so I mean he 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.920 was pitting a chimp against a baby, so the chip 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.119 mop the floor with him, not surprising, it was no contest. 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.720 In fact, Gan typically outperformed Donald on just about all 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.439 the tests they took, except some of the ones that 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.879 involved language acquisition. So I know this is supposed to 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.760 be like a non upsetting study, but constantly losing to 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.440 a chimp couldn't have been good for a kid's self esteem, right, 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.840 Probably not, But you know, one downside did become clear 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.480 about nine months into the experiment, and and that was 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.160 that baby Donald's own language skills were not as far 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.600 along as they should have been. And looking back on this, 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.720 that's probably not such a big surprise. But while he 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.240 sometimes did better than Gua on their language based test, 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.080 it really wasn't by much, and so it started to 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.200 look like, rather than Donald having a humanizing effect on Gua, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.720 he was actually starting to adapt some to her way instead. 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.520 And the deciding moment came one day when Donald let 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.520 his parents know how hungry he was by imitating the 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.240 barking sounds that Gua was making whenever she wanted. So 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.440 when the Kellogg's heard the food bark coming from their 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.880 human son, they decided then it was time to pull 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:30.639 the plug on the experiment. But I like that it 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.600 took that much to get them to realize maybe it 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.240 wasn't a great idea. Yeah, it seems like a smart move. 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.320 But strangely enough, the Kelloggs weren't the only scientists parents 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.639 to use their own kids as test subjects. So I 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.600 was reading about this other psychologist from the ninet thirties 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.879 named Clarence Luba, and he used his own kids to 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.040 determine if people learned to laugh when tickled or if 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.280 it's an innate response. I mean, this sounds more pleasant 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.679 than being pitted against the chimp. But I mean, if 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.640 you're going to use your own kids as test subjects, 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.520 at least don't be creepy about it, you know. Yeah, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.879 I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of creepy. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.639 Because Luba decided that he shouldn't laugh or show a 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.600 happy expression while he was tickling his kids because that 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.119 might ruin the experiment. So you know, the the idea 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.600 is that they might mimic his behavior or use it 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.400 to infer the proper response is to laugh when tickled. 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.640 So just to prevent that, Luba actually banned all unauthorized 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.480 tickling in his household and he institute these clinical daily 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.880 tickling sessions instead. And during these designated tickling times, uh, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.240 Luba would hide his facial expressions behind a mask and 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.960 then joylessly tickle his son. Oh, I take it back, man, 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:43.320 this is the creepiest thing I've ever heard tickling sessions. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.119 And that's just I don't know, maga, It's just like 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:49.679 deeply unnerving. Yeah. And Luba even took this measured approach 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.399 to how he tickled his son, like first he started 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.720 with a light tickle and then he would like tickle 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.960 more enthusiastically, and he always did the same order like 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.440 he um. I think he started under the pits and 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.800 then went to the ribs and then chin, neck, knees, feet, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.080 and uh. He kept this up for a full seven months, 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.359 and then after that he repeated the experiment for another 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.840 seven months with his daughter when she was born. This 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:14.479 is just I don't want to hear about this one 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.959 anymore because I I guess I am curious though, So 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.040 what were Louba's results? Well, in both cases, as you 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.400