Just in case you haven’t felt your skin crawl enough today, io9 has a list of 25 of the Scariest Scientific Experiments Ever Performed. Above is a picture of the 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.
Another one on the list is this one (not for the faint of heart), a Soviet experiment/propoganda video from 1940 to re-attach severed dog heads:
The rest of the list is after the link. Be warned though: some of them are rather disturbing. It really makes you wonder how far people will go in the name of their research. Maybe they could have learned something after all from the Stanford Prisoner Experiment…
One of the biggest mysteries of archaeology may have been solved, with the discovery of a Persian army, 50 000 strong, who went missing around 525 B.C.
Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.”We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus,” Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News.
Fred LeBain visited New York last summer and photographed various locations. Then he printed out large pictures and set them up in the original locations, photographing them again. It lends a really nice effect. More of my favourites after the jump!
Here’s a 1924 telegram from then Chief of U.S. Naval Operations, Edward W. Eberle, instructing all Naval stations to monitor the airwaves for any unusual transmissions due to anticipated contact from Martians. August 22nd of that year was witness to the closest Mars opposition since 1804 (a mere 55,777,566 km), and as such provided desirable conditions in which to receive radio signals from the Red Planet. The man tasked with clearing the airwaves – a Professor David Todd – somehow managed to persuade both the Army and Navy to report any findings for a three day period, but failed to silence the country’s private radio broadcasters for even two days. Needless to say, the three day exercise produced nothing but static.
A bird has dropped a piece of baguette into outdoor machinery associated with the LHC, causing a technical fault. Was this the work of time-travelling bosons? If so, they’ve proved creative, if not competent: the incident did nothing to delay the run-up of the collider.
The meaning of al-Qaeda in Arabic is, “the Base” or “the Foundation”. I just read a fascinating article that suggests that the name comes from a translation of science fiction writer Issac Asimov’s The Foundation.
“This peculiar coincidence would be of little interest if not for abundant parallels between the plot of Asimov’s book and the events unfolding now,” wrote Dmitri Gusev, the scientist who posted the article. He was referring to apparent similarities between the plot of Foundation and the pursuit of the organisation we have come to know, perhaps erroneously, as al-Qaida.
The Arabic word qaida – ordinarily meaning “base” or “foundation” – is also used for “groundwork” and “basis”. It is employed in the sense of a military or naval base, and for chemical formulae and geometry: the base of a pyramid, for example. Lane, the best Arab-English lexicon, gives these senses: foundation, basis of a house; the supporting columns or poles of a structure; the lower parts of clouds extending across a horizon; a universal or general rule or canon. With the coming of the computer age, it has gained the further meaning of “database”: qaida ma’lumat (information base).
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