The Anís del Mono Corporate Icon

The monkey who is the symbol of this Spanish anisette company bears the face of Charles Darwin.




Read more here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 21, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Science, Corporate Mascots, Icons and Spokesbeings, Historical Figure, Europe, Nineteenth Century, Alcohol

Stepping on Rattlesnakes

Arizona biologist M. Cale Morris created an artificial leg (a boot on the end of an aluminum pole) to test the response of rattlesnakes to being stepped on.

He stepped on a total of 175 rattlesnakes and concluded that, despite popular belief, they're not very aggressive. The majority of the stepped-on rattlesnakes tried to crawl away without biting the fake leg.

More info: reddit, basisseniorprojects.com (pdf)

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 28, 2025 - Comments (2)
Category: Science, Experiments, Reptiles, Snakes, Worms and Other Slithery Things

Unusual Scalp Dermatitis in Humans

Jay R Traver (1894-1974) was an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts. In 1951 she published a paper in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington describing how her body had been infested by mites.

Much of the article reads like a horror story. She details the itching and crawling sensations she felt as mites crawled under her skin, and even in her eyes:


She describes her efforts to capture the mites by digging them out of her skin, and goes into detail about the increasingly caustic substances she applied to her skin in an attempt to rid herself of the mites. She even tried radiation therapy.

The catch is that the medical community refused to believe she was actually infested by mites, and they still don't. The consensus is that she was suffering from "Delusory Parasitosis" (the false belief that one is infested by parasites). As one reviewer has noted, "the article makes no sense entomologically. The house dust mites do not and cannot parasitize humans."

You can find her original article at archive.org, or there's a transcript available at birdmites.org.

Incidentally, the "R" in Jay R Traver didn't stand for anything. Her middle name was R.

More info: "Mad Scientist: the unique case of a published delusion," wikipedia

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 24, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Insects and Spiders, Science, Mental Health and Insanity

Dies for Science

I suppose it would have been worse if they didn't accept his body.

Waterloo Region Record - Feb 2, 1976

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 06, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Science, Suicide, 1970s

How to transform silver into gold

The current value of silver is around $32 an ounce. The value of gold is around $2975 per ounce. Being able to turn silver into gold would generate a substantial return.

As it turns out, back in the 1920s the French scientist (and alchemist) François Jollivet-Castelot claimed he could do exactly this, and he shared his method.

If you decide to try it, let us know how it works!

You can find more detailed instructions at FontanaEditore.com.

Kansas City Post - Apr 12, 1923

Jollivet-Castelot in his laboratory

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 26, 2025 - Comments (5)
Category: Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Money, Science, Pseudoscience, 1920s

The Strange Science of Yusaburo Noguchi

In 1929, Dr. Yusaburo Noguchi, a Japanese biologist, made headlines by claiming that by means of "electrical nutrition and glandular control" he could change a person's race. He could "change an Indian to a darker color" or "mold a Japanese so that he would have the same appearance as the Caucasian."

New England Journal of Medicine - Nov 7, 1929

After his brief moment in the limelight, Noguchi seemed to disappear from view. At least I haven't been able to find out any more about him. Japanese archives probably have more info.

But you have to wonder what kind of insane stuff he was up to.

I can guess what he meant by "glandular control." Back in the 1920s, a number of scientists believed it was possible to reprogram biology by transplanting glands from one person to another, or from one species to another. A famous proponent of this idea was Dr. Serge Voronoff who claimed that he could rejuvenate elderly men by grafting monkey glands onto their testicles.

But what did Noguchi mean by "electrical nutrition"? Was he simply electrocuting people? Probably.

Yusaburo Noguchi - Oct 24, 1929

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 24, 2025 - Comments (2)
Category: Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Racism, Science, 1920s

Hamster Egg Penetration Test

Some weirdness from the world of In Vitro Fertilization. Since the 1970s, one of the tools used to gauge male fertility by IVF clinics has been the "Hamster Egg Penetration Test."

As described by the University of Utah's Health page:


In other words, they test to see if the sperm of the male donor can fertilize a hamster egg.

Wikipedia notes:


Congratulations, you're the father of a humster.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 01, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Babies, Science

Rat-Operated Vehicles

We've previously posted about researchers who created fish-operated vehicles.

Along similar lines, neuroscientist Kelly Lambert of the University of Richmond has trained rats to drive small vehicles. She found that they were eager drivers: "the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the 'lever engine' before their vehicle hit the road."

More info: theconversation.com

"Some rats training to drive press a lever before their car is placed on the track, as if they’re eagerly anticipating the ride ahead."

Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 06, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments

Likelihood of Paper Cuts

A recent article in the journal Physical Review E explores what kind of paper is most likely to give you paper cuts. The answer: dot-matrix paper. Followed by magazine pages.

The likelihood of cutting has to do with the thickness of the paper. Too thin and the paper buckles instead of cutting. Too thick and it indents material rather than slicing it. There's a specific range in between too thick and too thin where the paper cuts.

For the purpose of their research, the authors created a "papermachete" which they used to cut apples, bananas, chicken, etc. (see image below).

The article itself ("Competition between slicing and buckling underlies the erratic nature of paper cuts") is behind a paywall, but you can find a copy on github. One of the authors posted a video on YouTube that explains their research and findings.

More info: phys.org

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 27, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Injuries, Science, Experiments

Science Fair Heart Transplant

March 1968: Robert McDavid, a junior at Schulte High School in Terre Haute, Indiana, performed a heart transplant on a live rabbit for his science fair project. School administrators had approved his project. In fact, they applauded it as highly topical since the first successful human heart transplantation had been performed just the year before by the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard.

After performing the operation, McDavid measured the length of time that the rabbit's body functioned with the new organ. He later exhibited the results of his project at the Regional Science Fair of Indiana State University and received an award for creativity in his field.

Questioned by reporters, McDavid revealed that he had prepared for the procedure by first conducting a number of practice operations, including skin grafts and bone section transplants on chickens. He said that he had also read a number of books about transplants and had conducted interviews with several physicians.

I haven't been able to track down if McDavid went on to become a surgeon.

Terre Haute Tribune - Mar 17, 1968

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 14, 2024 - Comments (4)
Category: School, Science, Surgery