WEBVTT - What are the Weirdest Experiments in Science? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.639 Guess what will? What's that? Mango? So have you heard 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.360 of this experiment from Albany Medical College where they tried 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.000 to figure out whether rats like jazz or classical music more? 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:11.360 I don't know how I haven't heard about this because 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.120 it seems like a really important experiment, and actually I 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.480 have to meet I am curious so so so which 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.840 one do they like? More? So? The scientists played for 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.439 a lease on loop for ninety minutes, and then they'd 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.400 switched to Miles Davis and his song four, So they 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.200 just go from Ford for at least to four. And 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.319 of course they discovered that the rats like silence better 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.199 than continuous music. But when they had to choose, the 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.120 rats like Beethoven more than hard bop. And I guess 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.080 that makes sense. If we're talking about on repeat and 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.160 they're having to hear this over and over, I guess 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.160 it's a little more soothing, right, Yeah. But the experimenters 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.720 weren't done then, so I have no idea why they 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.600 did this. They injected the rats with cocaine after this 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.360 for seven straight days, and once the rats had this 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.800 cocaine just racing through their system, they couldn't get enough. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:02.600 Miles Davis also makes sense fairly. Science tells us that 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.960 coked up rats really love jazz. But there's a whole 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.560 world of questionable science experiments, from the weird to the 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.000 funny to the seriously ill advised. And that's what today's 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:37.080 show is all about. Let's dig in a their podcast. Listeners, 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.440 Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.880 always I'm joined by my good friend man Guesh Ticketer 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.399 and on the other side of the soundproof glass, putting 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.360 his good name on the line for the sake of 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.160 science conducting what is we assume the first ever scientific 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.560 attempt to bring a potato back to life. That's our 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.559 friend and producer Tristan McNeil, a potato back to life. Mano, 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.120 this is big science. I saw the potatoes, I saw 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.600 the labco I had no idea what was going on there. 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.160 I think that's what the defibrillator is for. And you 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.880 might be wondering how you can tell the difference between 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.040 a live and a dead potato. Well, those are all 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.080 heavy questions, and hopefully Tristan's work will help shed some 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:16.359 light on just a few of those. It may be 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.720 two over our heads. We'll see most of what Tristan 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.600 does is But anyway, I know this experiment sounds ridiculous, 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.239 but honestly, everything on today's show sounds a little ridiculous. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.920 So we'll dig into some of the weirdest, most questionable 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.040 science experiments in history. Now, Mango, I know, for a 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.200 while as a kid you wanted to be a scientist, 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.480 and I've heard you talk about some of the experiments 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.840 you conducted. So did you come up with any terrible 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.840 experiments along the way? So many? I mean, you know, 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.080 my dad's a scientist, and he's a good one. So 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.920 we test things and I tell him about inventions, ideas 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.080 for inventions I had, Like I had an idea for 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.680 a d microwave, and the whole idea was that, like 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.920 you could cool down a hot bagel fast. And yeah, 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:57.799 you tell me like why it would or wouldn't work, 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.000 or what I'd have to think about. But I think 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.440 the biggest failure I had as a kid was in 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.280 second grade and my friends and I were at the 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.200 bus stop and we always wanted a day off from school, 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.320 you know, especially when the weather was nice, because you 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.880 want to stay home and play and whatever. So I 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.119 hatched this amazing scheme, like our our friend Kristen had 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.000 access to a ton of gum for some reason, and 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.120 I knew that gum on the ground is sticky when 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.760 you step on it. And I don't remember how we 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.799 calculated this out, but there were drawings and some terrible 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.359 math involved, but we figured that if we could get 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:32.760 a big enough wad of sticky gum in the right place, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.240 the school bus tire would probably stick to it and 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.120 get stuck there for the day and we wouldn't have 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.000 to go to school. I really want to hear that 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.240 this worked, but I'm going to guess that maybe this 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.560 didn't work. Yeah, of course not. I mean, my calculations 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.240 were off, I guess. And but the plan was like 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.200 so elaborate. We we planned about it, we talked about it, 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.680 We made this giant wad of gum, and then we 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:55.760 placed it in what we thought was going to be 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.680 the perfect spot. And then the school bus tire didn't 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.480 even roll over and so super anti climatic, and we 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.160 sort of like deflatedly walked onto the school bus. But uh, 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.440 now that I think about, the gum was also care free, 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.760 so it wasn't really like a sticky type of gum. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.120 That was your problem because care Free was it's sugarless, right, Yeah, 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:17.640 but I mean you go to war with the gum 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.040 you have and it was not a great day for science. 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.560 All right, Well, today's show is all about odds science experiments, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.520 and just because their bizarre doesn't mean we should automatically 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.000 discount them. In fact, I was reading this article by 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.760 Alex Boss and he wrote a great book about odds 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.479 science experiments, and there's a section where Alex explains why 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.080 he first got into weird projects and and why he 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.599 believes they should still be thought of as worthwhile. So 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:43.120 I just want to read a bit from this. So 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.960 here's what he says. I confess I had no profound 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.720 intellectual motive at first. I simply found them fascinating. They 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:54.040 filled me with disbelief, astonishment, discussed, and best of all laughter. 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.800 But with hindsight, perhaps there is a deeper message. These 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.080 experiments are not the work of cranks. All were performed 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.000 by honest, hard working scientists who were not prepared to 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.280 accept a common sense explanation of how the world works. 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.640 Sometimes such single mindedness leads to brilliant discoveries. At other 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.560 times it can end up closer to madness. Unfortunately, there's 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.680 no way of knowing in advance where the journey will lead. Yeah, 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:19.440 I mean, that's certainly something to keep in mind as 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.960 we go along. But while it might be true that 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.279 none of the people that Alex talked about were crackpots, 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.840 some of the ones I want to talk about definitely work. 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.760 So this includes the first guy we've gone on the list, 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.360 a Renaissance era physician and alchemist named Paracelsus. Now Parasulsis 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.240 is known for doing some of the earliest research in 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.719 toxicology and also psychotherapy, which are I guess both weird 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.440 in their own right, but without doubt his strongest claim 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.280 to theme was his account of how to grow your 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:49.480 own homunculous. To grow your own homunculous, mega can grow 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.640 your own I do want to confess I'm a little 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.200 rusty on my pseudoscience lingo from what you said the right. So, so, 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:02.479 what exactly is a humunculous. It's a mythological creature. Apparently, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.000 parasols Is believed in all sorts of those, including giants 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.520 and wood nymphs. But homunculus was basically like a tiny 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.040 living human the size of a doll or something and 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.720 Paracelsis actually claimed to have made his own, which he 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.960 said was about a foot tall. Right, And you said 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.599 this man was a doctor, right, Yeah, I mean it 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.599 was easier to get into medical school back then. Some 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.640 people thought he was a medical genius. Others thought he 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.240 was more of this loud mouth drunk type. I'm guessing 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.080 the truth was somewhere in between. But these are actually 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.800 the instructions Paracelsus has laid out to create your own 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.279 little homunculus. So here we go. Let the seat of 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.120 a man by itself be putrified in a gored glass 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.720 and sealed up in horse done for the space of 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.560 forty days, until so long as it begins to be alive, 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.760 move and stir. After this time, it will be something 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.920 like a man, yet transparent and without a body. Now, 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.120 after this, if it be every day warily, imprudently nourished 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.760 and fed with man's blood, and be kept for the 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.479 ace of forty weeks and a constant equal heat of 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.080 horse dung, it will become a true and living infant. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.000 You know what, just hearing this, it kind of makes 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:10.720 me want to go back and watch those old s 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.360 n L skits where Steve Martin played the medieval barber, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.000 because it sounds like pretty similar advice. And you know, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.080 I admire paracelsis ingenuity, and obviously at the time they 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.040 had a much different set of knowledge. But I feel 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:25.880 like it might be smarter for the human race to 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.160 stick with the you know, the old fashioned horse dung 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.840 freeway to make a true and living infant. But anyway, 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.680 you know, word of crazy experiments like this and these 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.080 medical fallacies, they got passed around a lot during the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.000 Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance. So much so, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.760 in fact, that a physician philosopher named Sir Thomas Brown 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.000 actually put together a massive list of these widely believed 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.200 tall tales, and he referred to these as vulgar errors. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.120 So Brown would go around testing all these absurd claims 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.040 in order to disprove them once and for all. So, 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.080 for example, one weird idea that it's bred in the 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.400 sixteen hundreds was that you could an accurate weather vane 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.720 just by hanging a dead kingfisher bird from a string. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.040 It's as simple as that. I love art and crafts projects. 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.720 I'm guessing that didn't end wilda well. Apparently he found 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.160 himself a dead kingfisher one day, and he hung it 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.480 up from a beam outside, and much to his dismay, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.120 the bird just sort of dangled and seemed to sway 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.360 at random, you know, as you'd expect from a corpse 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.440 of a dead bird. But you know, being this man 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.440 of science, Brown knew he couldn't definitively disprove this claim 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.920 with just a single dead kingfisher, So he got another one, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.199 strung it up next to the first, and watched his 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.400 both birds spun aimlessly in different directions. So with that, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.160 with that degree of science, Mango Brown was able to 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.800 say conclusively that dead kingfishers are a poor way to 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.880 determine win direction. So forget trying. This is just not 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:54.719 gonna work. I do like that it took uh, just 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.160 two dead birds to put a stop to this idea. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.600 But you know, no one else had thought of this, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.400 and I feel sorry for like whatever poor salesman at 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.000 the market had stocked up on baskets of kingfishers, and 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.520 I guess like Brown just ruined his entire business model. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.920 That's all there. And other interesting cat I came across 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.360 was this guy named Johann Conrad Dipple, and he was 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.640 this German scientist in the late sixteen hundreds who had 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.160 actually been born in the real Castle Frankenstein, which is 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.400 kind of amazing. And of course he had a lot 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.760 of ideas. Probably his least bizarre achievement was that he 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.959 developed one of the world's first synthetic pigments, in fact, 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.680 the first. It's a dye called Prussian blue that's still 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.080 in use today. Yeah, I've heard of Prussian blue. But 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.320 I think you said least bizarre achievements. So what was 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.400 his most bizarre achievement? Yeah, I did because I wanted 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.000 to talk about Dipple's oil. It was supposed to be 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.000 kind of a life extending potion, but was in reality 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.280 just this like terrible, disgusting slurry made from a mix 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.520 of random animal bones and hides. It's too bad. I'm 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.079 curious that did he sell a lot of dipples oil. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:58.640 Imagine it must have been a big hit with the 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.760 local villagers there. Yeah, you'd think so, but not so much. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.560 In fact, Dipple was eventually run out of town because 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.920 of all these rumors that started circulating about what he 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.079 was really doing in his lab. Like one of the 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.920 rumors claimed that Dipple was a grave robber and that 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.800 he'd once tried to move a soul from one corpse 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.040 to another using just a funnel, a hose and a 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.320 bit of lubricants. You need the lubricant to get it through. 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.480 But yeah, I think we can both agree that that's 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.760 a bit of the suspect signs there. I mean, I 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:28.679 guess so I could see where they were going with that. 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:30.839 But but I do see what you mean about him 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.240 being a mad scientist, all right, But if you don't mind, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.640 I kind of want to transition away from the total 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.160 crackpots and start talking about some of the scientists who 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.680 are maybe I don't know, just a little misguided instead. 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.440 And thankfully, I think I have the perfect person to 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.280 help us make that leap, because he really does tow 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.000 this line between those two types. And his name was 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.880 Stubborn's Firth. Isn't that a great name. It just seems 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.600 like somebody that would tow those lines full Stubbens. But 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.000 in the early nineteenth century he was training to be 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.439 a doctor in Philadelphia, and during this time Stubbins began 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:03.920 studying the effects of yellow fever, and that was, of 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.160 course a disease that had laid ways to the area's 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.480 population just a few years before this, and he had 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.440 noticed that the fever hardest hit in the summer months, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.200 and then it would disappear almost entirely by wintertime, and 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.680 so this led him to the conclusion that all these 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.160 widely held opinions about yellow fever being contagious were completely false. 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.440 So to him, it seemed much more likely that yellow 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.640 fever was brought on by excessive heat and food and noise, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.080 and all of these things were much more abundant in 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.960 the summer than they were in the winter. I like 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.520 the idea of just a lot of noise causing yellow fever. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.240 It does sound like this guy's heart was in the 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.320 right place. Like, I know, this doesn't feel like a 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.040 sound theory, But what goes on from here? Well, this 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.800 is where Stubborns needed proof on this. So so the 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.280 doctor and training began a series of self experiments to 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.439 show that no matter how often he was exposed to 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.720 yellow fever, he would never catch it. And not being 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.319 the kind of guy to do anything halfway, Stubbors decided 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.000 that his best chance to ensure he was properly exposed 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.880 to the disease was to use This was the quote 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:10.359 from this notebook, fresh black Vomit from Yellow fever patients. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.120 So this is already disgusting and I'm pretty grossed out, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.160 but I do have to ask, like, what do you 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.640 mean by he used it? He used to how well 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:20.920 in all sorts of ways, and this actually gets even 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.320 more disgusting. But here the way. So first he tried 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.280 to make small cuts on his arms, and then he 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:29.360 would pour some of this vomit into his wounds. Next 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.120 he DAPs some of the mess directly into his eyes. 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.600 Then he heated some in a skillet and inhaled the fumes. 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.559 And then lastly, as if those things weren't gross enough, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.160 he just went for it. And I'm not joking. I 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.400 think you saw this coming. He just chugged some of 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.080 the stuff, which makes me feel sick just hearing it. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.679 But I mean, Stubbns never got sick, which, of course, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:52.400 and I don't know how he would know that he 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.040 didn't get sick, because I can't imagine doing any of 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.360 these things and not vomiting yourself. But he took this 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.280 all as proof for his theory, so I don't understand 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.880 how any of that's possible. Like I thought yellow fever 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.240 was contagious, so it definitely has. I mean, it's highly contagious. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.640 But as we know, the disease needs to come into 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.720 direct contact with the blood stream in order to cause 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.840 that infection. And that's likely why Stubborns observed so many 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.400 more cases of yellow fever in the summer. There were 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.400 just more mosquitoes around to spread the disease. So I 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.200 get that, But why didn't Stubborns get sick when he 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.040 was cutting himself in you know, like exposing that stuff 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.520 to his cuts, And I mean that that had to 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.320 get in his blood stream right, Well, normally yes, But 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.200 as it turned out in this case, most of the 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.080 patients whose samples he used were in the late stages 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.000 of yellow fever, and by that point they were actually 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.439 no longer contagious. Though of course, you know Stubborns didn't 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.599 know this. Well, I mean, i'd say we're firmly in 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:47.880 the realm of misguided experiments after that one. So I'm 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:49.719 actually gonna keep the ball rolling with what I hope 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.200 will be something of a palate cleanser. And this is 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.960 this crazy study I found out about mating instincts of turkeys. 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.240 I like how you're calling mating instincts of turkeys a 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.920 a palette, but tell me more here. Yeah, it's a 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.679 turkey and moves bush. So wild turkeys are notoriously difficult 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.000 to hunt, which is why human hunters often resort to 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.559 these lifelike decoy models of female turkeys. They use these 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.440 to lure the bigger male birds to them, and the 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.320 males don't seem to mind or even notice the difference. 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.760 For the most part. They're actually perfectly content to mate 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.960 with these phony birds. And that behavior is actually what 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.360 caught the attention of these two researchers at the University 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.000 of Pennsylvania. Oh wow, so we're back in Pennsylvania again. Yeah, 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.960 it's a hotbed of science. But anyway, these guys that 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.200 you pen started wondering what was the minimal stimulus for 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.960 exciting a turkey, and so to figure that out, they 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.440 decided to gradually remove parts from a decoy turkey until 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.840 the male inevitably lost interests. So first they removed the 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.840 tail and the tail feathers, and then the feet and 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.840 lastly the wings. But despite all of these missing appendages, 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.200 the males were still eager to meete with the decoy. 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.680 I mean, I guess they just love the personnel. And 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.960 eventually the researchers were down to just ahead on a stick, 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.240 and the strangest far is that the mail try keys 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.360 were still interested. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I have to 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.520 admit I feel slightly scandalized and more than a little 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.000 concerned about what the good people of Pennsylvania are doing 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.760 with their time. All in the name of science, I guess. 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.240 But alright, well, since you open the seal on weird 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.240 animal studies, there's one I've been dying to tell you about. Absolutely, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:40.800 But first let's take a quick break. You're listening to 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:42.360 part Time Genius, and we're talking about some of the 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.640 strangest experiments in the history of science. Now for better 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.480 Whereas many of the weirdest projects do tend to involve 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.480 animal test subjects, but rather than focusing on the more 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.480 upsetting ones where animals come to harm, instead, I want 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.480 to tell you the story of a young boy and 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.120 his adopted chimpanzee sister. And yes, I said it, his 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.440 adopted sister. Now, probably the most troubling aspect of this 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.800 one is that the boy's father decided to carry out 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.600 his experiment using his own son. But don't worry before 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.000 I tell you about this, the boy makes it through unharmed, 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.000 or at least more or less unharmed anyway. The father's 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.880 name was Winthrop Kellogg, and he was a psychologist who 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.120 wondered what would happen if an animal was raised by 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.840 humans as a human. This was in the early nineteen thirties, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:25.520 so if you think about the time, then this is 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.000 when you know the Tarzan books were all the rage, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.000 and there are also several real life accounts of feral 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.280 children who had been raised by animals, and so Kellogg 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.520 was inspired by these stories and he wanted to test 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.480 the opposite case, like, if an animal was raised as 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.880 a human, would it eventually act like a human too? 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.080 Oh so it's like a bizarro jungle book or like 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.280 the reverse of a Mowgli situation. Yeah. So So that 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.440 in Kellogg brought home a seven month old female champion 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.400 zee named Gua, and he and his wife, who must 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.960 have been this extremely patient woman, started raising the alongside 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.359 their ten month old son Donald. And the Kelloggs treated 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.199 their two kids exactly the same. Donald and Gua were 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.160 allowed to play together, they ate together. They also took 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.320 part in regular tests to track their development. For example, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.520 there was this one cookie test where the Kelloggs hung 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.240 a cookie from a string in the middle of the room, 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.240 and then they timed how long it took the boy 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.840 and the chimp to reach it. Okay, so I mean 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.000 he was pitting a chimp against a baby, so the 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.760 chip mop the floor with him, not surprising, it was 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.400 no contest. In fact, Want typically outperformed Donald on just 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.560 about all the tests they took, except some of the 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.879 ones that involved language acquisition. So I know this is 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.720 supposed to be like a non upsetting study, but constantly 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.600 losing to a chimp couldn't have been good for a 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.560 kid's self esteem, right, probably not, But you know, one 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.119 downside did become clear about nine months into the experiment, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.840 and and that was that baby Donald's own language skills 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:55.720 were not as far along as they should have been. 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.399 And looking back on this, that's probably not such a 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.400 big surprise. But it he sometimes did better than Gua 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.240 on their language based test, it really wasn't by much, 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:06.680 and so it started to look like, rather than Donald 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.119 having a humanizing effect on Gua, he was actually starting 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.240 to adapt some to her way instead. And the deciding 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.560 moment came one day when Donald let his parents know 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.879 how hungry he was by imitating the barking sounds that 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.360 Gua was making whenever she wanted. So when the Kellogg's 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.720 heard the food bark coming from their human son, they 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.800 decided then it was time to pull the plug on 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.800 the experiment. But I like that it took that much 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.600 to get them to realize maybe it wasn't a great idea. Yeah, 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.960 it seems like a smart move. But strangely enough, the 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.280 Kellogg's weren't the only scientists parents to use their own 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.800 kids as test subjects. So I was reading about this 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.240 other psychologist from the nineteen thirties named Clarence Luba, and 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.440 he used his own kids to determine if people learned 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.640 to laugh when tickled or if it's an innate response. 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:52.760 I mean, this sounds more pleasant than being pitted against 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:54.679 the chimp. But I mean, if you're going to use 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:56.840 your own kids as test subjects, at least don't be 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.800 creepy about it, you know. Yeah, I mean I guess 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.399 the is on your definition of creepy. Because Luba decided 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.320 that he shouldn't laugh or show a happy expression while 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.239 he was tickling his kids because that might ruin the experiment. So, uh, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:11.679 you know, the idea is that they might mimic his 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.680 behavior or use it to infer the proper response is 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.119 to laugh when tickled. So just to prevent that, Luba 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.960 actually banned all unauthorized tickling in his household and he 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:26.280 institute these clinical daily tickling sessions instead. And during these 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.560 designated tickling times, uh, Luba would hide his facial expressions 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.200 behind a mask and then joylessly tickle his son. Oh, 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.320 I take it back, man, this is the creepiest thing 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:41.480 I've ever heard me or tickling sessions. That's just I 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.239 don't know, maga, It's just like deeply unnerving. Yeah. And 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:47.960 Luba even took this measured approach to how he tickled 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.679 his son, like first he started with a light tickle 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.000 and then he would like tickle more enthusiastically, and he 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.520 always did the same order like he um. I think 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.439 he started under the armpits and then went to the 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.159 ribs and then chin, neck, knees, feet, and uh. He 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.520 kept this up for a full seven months, and then 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.320 after that he repeated the experiment for another seven months 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.639 with his daughter when she was born. This is just 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:12.440 I don't want to hear about this one anymore because 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:14.679 I I guess I am curious, though, So what were 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.080