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A living archive celebrating funny and silly scientific studies, because
- the scientific method is our best way to get at the truth
- scientific progress is nonlinear
- great science thrives on creativity and novelty
The wacky experiments of today might just lead to the great discoveries of tomorrow!
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Academics
- Don’t let writer’s block prevent you from publishing. A behavioral therapist had writer’s block and decided to self-treat. It didn’t work. He published the results anyway. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- Is reviewer 2 always the worst? Researchers know that receiving feedback from peer reviewers on manuscripts can be a daunting experience, as reviewers can often be harsh. This is especially true of reviewer 2, who is seemingly always unnecessarily mean and ignorant. Is this always the case? Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Zoologists can be a bit sexist when describing female mating behavior. A group of zoologists felt that their colleagues were mis-using the word “promiscuous” when describing animal sexual behavior. They found that other zoologists were much more likely to use the term when describing female behavior than male. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- A new record for the number of economist co-authors sharing the same last name. Academic publishing in economics is tricky. The author order is determined alphabetically, giving those with last names that start with letters at the front of the alphabet an unfair career advantage. Well, then why not only publish with economists who share your last name? Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
- The friendliest and most fun way to determine authorship order. Two friends and co-first authors on a publication decided to play a few games of Super Smash Bros to determine who would be listed first on the authorship list. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
Anatomy
- Yes gentlemen, size does matter. A team of scientists (all male, of course) showed female participants computer generated, nude male figures with varying penis size, body shape, and height, and asked the women to evaluate the figures on attractiveness. They found that penis size did influence male attractiveness, but in interesting ways. Discussed on S01E10.
- Do old men have big ears? A team of primary practice physicians interested in contributing to the scientific literature decided to measure their patients’ ears. With the help of a computer, they found that ears consistently get longer as people age. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
Animal Behavior
- Chickens can be trained to appreciate human beauty. A group of researchers trained chickens to be attracted to human faces and found that the chickens had the same exact preferences for faces as college students. Discussed on S01E02.
- Bat fellatio increases copulation time. A group of researchers videotaped and carefully analyzed bat mating behavior and found that female bats frequently engaged in fellatio, which strongly correlated with longer copulation time. Discussed on S01E01.
- Tan et al., 2009. Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time. PLoS One.
- Bonus: male bats apparently return the favor. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1. Maruthupandian et al., 2013. Cunnilingus apparently increases duration of copulation in the Indian flying fox, Pteropus giganteus. PLoS One.
- Goats may or may not be afraid of air force helicopters. It’s unclear. A group of scientists had the Dutch Air Force fly combat helicopters above goats and looked for changes in behavior, cortisol levels, and heart rate in the goats. Discussed on S01E07.
- Elephants yawn and it might be contagious. Might be. A group of scientists videotaped elephants for 47 nights using an infrared camera to determine whether they yawn. The answer is yes (but not that frequently). Discussed on S01E08.
- Octopuses play catch by themselves when they get bored. A couple of neuroscientists decided to record octopuses housed in a tank for around 93 days and observed that they play with tube caps for fun. Discussed on S01E18.
- Cows need to be potty trained too. A couple of scientists wondered if potty training cows will help keep them cleaner and healthier. How did they do this? With electric shocks, of course. Discussed on S01E24
- What’s the deal with birds? An ornithologist was sick of receiving persistent calls for manuscript submissions from predatory journals out to make a quick buck, so he decided to submit his latest “work” to one. In it, he reveals his true thoughts on birds. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- Are birds sexist? A few ornithologists approached birds in several cities across Europe to see how close the birds would let them get before flying away. Interestingly, they found that birds let the men get a bit closer than the women. Discussed on S02E03.
- Monkeys use human hair to floss their teeth. A group of primate researchers discovered that resourceful monkeys in Thailand enjoy plucking long hair from human tourists to use as dental floss. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
Anthropology
- Making turkeys exercise can teach us human history. A few anthropologists wondered whether human leg bone structure reflects how much we exercise. How did they study this? Make turkeys workout on treadmills and analyze their bones, of course. Discussed on S01E17.
- Chimps recognize each other by their butts. Also, humans are pretty good at recognizing butts. A couple of scientists showed college students and chimps images of female human and chimp faces, butts, and feet, to determine how humans and chimpanzees process and recognize these images. Discussed on S01E21.
- Knives made out of frozen human feces do not work. Legend has it that an Inuit man once made a butcher knife out of his own frozen feces. A group of archeologists decided to rigorously test if this is actually possible. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Do kids even like mall Santas? A mall Santa-hating man observed 300 kids and their interactions with mall Santas to determine that, no, kids do not enjoy meeting jolly old Saint Nick. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
Chemistry
- Can you unboil a hardboiled egg? A group of biochemists discovered that hardboiled egg whites can actually be quite easily unboiled. Discussed on S01E12.
- Adding poop to graphene enhances its electrocatalytic properties. A team of innovative material scientists wondered if anything you add to the magical material graphene makes it better, so they tried adding chicken poop. The results? Graphene’s effectiveness as an electrocatalyst doubled. Discussed on S01E23.
Earth & Planetary Science
- Dogs align their bodies to the earth’s magnetic field while pooping. A team of German scientists recruited dog owners to carefully examine their dogs while they poop. They discovered that, while pooping, dogs align their bodies along the north-south axis when the earth’s magnetic field is stable. Discussed on S01E08.
- Storm prediction made easy: Watching insects mate is potentially a great way to forecast the weather. A team of entomologists observed the mating behavior of moths and beetles in the lab. Interestingly, they discovered that both insect species studied mate more when the weather is pleasant. Discussed on S02E04.
Ecology & Evolution
- Why are babies so small? A biologist wondered why baby animals and plants (i.e., seeds) are often smaller than their parents. He proposed (tongue-in-cheekly) six compelling hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Painting zebra stripes on mannequins protects them from flies. Stripes are thought to protect zebras from horseflies. A team of biophysicists and ecologists wondered if body painting in humans may serve a similar function. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
Economics
- Expensive placebos work better than cheap ones. Two independent studies showed that expensive placebo drugs work better than cheap ones in reducing pain and in improving Parkinson’s Disease symptoms. A third study showed that Spanish internet users are more willing to believe that more expensive fake drugs work better to treat fake diseases. Discussed on S01E11.
- Waber et al., 2008. Commercial features of placebo and therapeutic efficacy. Journal of the American Medical Association.
- Espay et al., 2015. Placebo effect of medication cost in Parkinson disease: a randomized double-blind study. Neurology.
- Diaz-Lago et al., 2023. Expensive seems better: The price of a non-effective drug modulates its perceived efficacy. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.
- Do ovulating lap dancers earn more tips? A group of scientists wondered if human estrus is a thing and wanted to find economic evidence for it. Where did they go to conduct their study? A strip club in Albuquerque, of course. Discussed on S01E22.
- Japan’s Phillips curve looks like the map of Japan. An economist noted that when Japan’s unemployment rate vs. inflation rate was plotted, the resulting graph looks almost exactly like the map of Japan, with all four main islands. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- What do men and women look for in the ideal booty call mate? Let’s find out with economics. A team of psychologists gave people fake “mate dollars” to spend on building the ideal mate for a one night stand, a booty call relationship, and marriage. They found some interesting differences in how men and women spend their money. Discussed on S02E01.
Ethics & Society
- Eating meat objectively makes you immoral. Scientists fed beef to college students and found that afterwards, the students developed more immoral opinions of cows. Discussed on S01E05.
- Ethicists may not be all that ethical. Are ethicists ethical? To find out, a philosopher went to academic libraries to see if people who study ethics were more likely to steal books. Discussed on S01E17.
- The presence of Batman makes people more prosocial. A group of psychologists wondered why pregnant women often do not get offered seats on the subway. Turns out, it’s because Batman isn’t also on the train. Discussed on S01E18.
- Do images of eyes make dogs less likely to steal? The watching eye effect is a famous phenomenon where people are less likely to steal when there are images of eyes around them. Well, what about dogs? Discussed on S02E05.
- Does seeing images of noses make people more likely to donate money? Images of eyes have also been shown to make people more likely to donate money to charity. What about images of other parts of the face? Discussed on S02E05.
Food & Cooking
- Kids think bacon is a plant. A team of psychologists interviewed 176 four- to seven-year-olds from an American metropolitan area and found that roughly half of them think that meat come from plants and do not think animals are things we eat. Discussed on S01E09.
- People can’t tell pâté and dog food apart. A team of scientists and food critics wondered if people can tell apart dog food from pâté, liverwurst, and SPAM, so they asked some friends and colleagues to blind taste-test each of these different food items. Discussed on S01E20.
- Do not eat red hot chili if you just had anal fissure surgery. A proctologist recruited anal fissure surgery patients to eat chili powder for a week after receiving surgery. The patients experienced increased pain and anal burning. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Bacon can cure nosebleeds. An unfortunate 4-year-old patient with a blood clotting disorder had a life-threatening nose bleed. All medical and surgical therapy failed. What did her doctors try as a last resort? Bacon. Do not try this at home. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
Language & Communication
- Manspreading in photos gets you Tinder likes. A team of psychologists and business administrators found that nonverbal displays epitomized by manspreading are beneficial for people on speed dates and dating apps. Discussed on S01E07.
- Let’s explain mansplaining. Does mansplaining actually exist, and if so, why? Why do men engage in this heinous act? Two female scientists investigated these questions and looked at whether mansplaining can be explained by the better-than-average effect and the interpretation bias. Discussed on S01E16.
- Bees on cocaine dance more exuberantly. A group of apiologists wondered if bees enjoy cocaine as much as people, so they gave bees cocaine and monitored their behavior. The bees did indeed enjoy cocaine, which caused them to exaggerate more when communicating through dance. Discussed on S01E14.
Medicine
- Teenage boys often pick their nose, and some are ashamed of it. A couple of psychiatrists investigated how often high school boys engage in nose picking using a very comprehensive survey. Discussed on S01E02.
- Shocking yourself with electricity is not a good way to treat venomous snake bites. Case report: a pet rattlesnake owner and frequent venomous snake-bite victim convinced his neighbor to shock him with a car battery to treat his most recent bite. His doctors describe his subsequent hospital stay. Discussed on S01E01.
- Reanimating cadaver arms is a good way to test pumpkin carving safety. Pumpkin carving can lead to serious hand injuries, so a few orthopedic surgeons tried to determine the safest knives to use for pumpkin carving. How did they do this? By carving pumpkins using reanimated cadaver arms, of course. Discussed on S01E15.
- Clowns make really good anxiolytics for kids pre-surgery. Two groups of anesthesiologists examined whether clowns can help calm kids’ nerves before they underwent surgery. The surgeons and surgical teams, unfortunately, did not appear to enjoy these experiments as much as the kiddos. Discussed on S01E21.
- Medical case report: finding a ladybug on colonoscopy. Some gastroenterologists found an intact ladybug in the transverse colon of a relatively healthy man who came in for a screening colonoscopy. How does that happen? Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- Colonoscopy can be performed in the sitting position … by yourself. A gastroenterologist took it upon himself to figure out a way to make colonoscopies more comfortable. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Does knuckle cracking lead to arthritis? A physician meticulously cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, while avoiding cracking the knuckles of his right hand. He did this for 50 straight years. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
- Viagra is a potent drug for treating jet lag in hamsters. A team of biologists gave hamsters jet lag and then found that Viagra is quite effective in helping the hamsters recover. Unsurprisingly, it also caused some unyielding – er, hard to deal with – side effects. Discussed on S02E01.
- Persistent hiccups can be cured by massaging the rectum. Three separate medical case reports showed that digital rectal massage (that’s with a finger up the bum) immediately causes days-long hiccup attacks to stop. It’s unclear who invented this procedure. No one has laid claim to the discovery of this incredible technique. Discussed on S02E04.
- Fesmire, 1988. Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage. Annals of Emergency Medicine.
- Odeh et al., 1990. Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage. Journal of Internal Medicine.
- Lee & Tong, 2017. Termination of Persistent Hiccups by Digital Rectal Massage. The Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Microbiology
- Is double dipping really unsanitary? Scientists investigated whether double dipping actually contaminates various dips (salsa, chocolate sauce, and cheese dip) with oral bacteria. Discussed on S01E06.
- Beards can be contaminated with bacteria, unless you wash them. A group of microbiologists suspected that their bearded colleagues were a contamination risk and devised interesting experiments to test this. The experiments involved a lot of chickens, for some reason. Discussed on S01E05.
- Are farts sterile? Do they contain bacteria? As told by Dr. Kruszelnicki on his radio show, a surgical nurse asked him whether breaking wind during surgery breaks the sterile field of the operating room. Dr. Kruszelnicki investigated this question with a couple of microbiologists. Discussed on S01E13.
- Should stool samples be sent in “log” form for parasite examination? Serious-ish question; not-so-serious-ish figure 1. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
- Should you close the toilet lid when flushing? A team of scientists asked the age-old question: does closing the lid when flushing the toilet prevent contamination of nearby surfaces? To find out, they inoculated toilet bowl water with harmless virus particles and flushed the toilet either with the lid open or closed. Spoiler alert: they found no difference in the total amount of aerosolized virus that ended up on the floor and walls surrounding the toilet. Discussed on S02E07.
Neuroscience
- Roadkill animals might be dumber. A taxidermist with 3500 dead birds teamed up with a zoologist to determine whether birds killed by cars have smaller brains compared to the other dead birds in their collection. Discussed on S01E10.
- Scratching your left arm can relieve itch in your right arm if you use a mirror. A team of neurologists examined whether they can relieve itch in one arm by scratching the other, with the help of mirrors. Discussed on S01E06.
- Dog owners are pretty good at identifying their dogs by smell. Dog owners were asked to distinguish their dog’s odor with that of an unfamiliar dog, and they were surprisingly accurate. Cat owners? Not so much. Discussed on S01E11.
- Pianos taste sweet and brass horns taste bitter. A group of scientists tested whether people’s senses of taste and hearing “cross-streams.” Turns out, they kind of do. Discussed on S01E12.
- Some people dedicate brain cells to recognizing specific celebrities. Some neurosurgeons found that when they showed their patients images of celebrities, such as Jennifer Aniston and Halle Berry, specified neurons lit up. Discussed on S01E16.
- Can fetuses taste what their moms eat? Are they picky about what their moms eat? A team of scientists used 4D ultrasound to image the facial expression of fetuses after their mothers ate sweet vs. bitter things. Discussed on S02E02.
- Looking at beautiful paintings reduces the amount of pain you feel. A team of psychologists decided to shoot study participants with a giant laser while they viewed either ugly or beautiful paintings. They found that both the subjective rating of pain and brain waves corresponding to the pain stimulation were lower in participants when viewing beautiful paintings. A trip to the museum, anyone? Discussed on S02E07.
Physics
- When you need to drag sheep, choose wooden flooring. Sheep shearing is hazardous, in particular the sheep dragging step. Some scientists asked sheep shearers to drag sheep 400 times across different types of flooring to determine how best to make sheep dragging easier. Discussed on S01E03.
- You don’t swim slower in syrup. A swimmer and an engineer filled a swimming pool with syrup and asked professional and recreational swimmers to swim in it. The methods section is 10/10. Discussed on S01E04.
- The best abstract ever written? Probably not. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
- Berry et al., 2011. Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement? Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical. By the way, superluminal neutrino speeds was an erroneous finding, as discussed on S01E21.
Physiology
- Swallowed Legos take one to three days to pass. Kids often swallow small toys and parents always worry about how long it will take for the swallowed object to pass. Inspired by the noble history of self-experimentation in medicine, six dedicated pediatricians took it upon themselves to figure this out. Discussed on S01E19.
- Eating garlic makes men smell more attractive to women. Garlic is famous for causing bad breath, but how does it affect body odor? A team of scientists fed garlic to men, collected their armpit sweat, and asked women to rate the smell. The results were quite surprising. Discussed on S01E23.
- Sitting too long on the toilet can cause deep tissue damage. A group of biomedical engineers created an intricate model of the buttocks to study the dangers of sitting on the toilet for too long. They also found that specialized toilet seats can help prevent tissue damage to the butt. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 1.
- Riding a rollercoaster may help pass kidney stones. Two physicians went to Disney World and rode the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster 60 times to test if the ride can help pass kidney stones. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
- Boxers vs briefs: which one is better for male fertility? A team of public health scientists examined the health of sperm from men at a fertility clinic to see if their choice of underwear makes a difference. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
- Men have trouble peeing when someone is using the urinal next to them. Why do men also leave an empty urinal in between them when peeing in a public restroom? A team of scientists wondered if the answer could be physiological. Discussed on S02E06.
Psychology
- Drinking fake alcohol makes you find yourself more attractive. Some scientists tricked a group of people into taste testing fake alcohol and discovered that the participants found themselves to be more attractive afterwards. Discussed on S01E04.
- Can you predict who uses iPhones and who uses Android phones? Some psychologists wondered whether there are personality differences between iPhone and Android users, so they conducted a survey. They then took the data and developed a machine learning model to predict who uses what phone. Discussed on S01E14.
- Situations that arouse fear also arouse sexual attraction. A couple of social psychologists asked their attractive female associate to approach single men on bridges. They found that men approached on a scary suspension bridge were much more likely hit on the female associate. Discussed on S01E15.
- Testosterone makes men serve more hot sauce to people. A group of psychologists wondered if playing with a fake gun can 1) increase testosterone levels in men, and 2) make men more aggressive when serving hot sauce to people. Discussed on S01E22.
- Tricking men into thinking they have a small penis makes them want sports cars. A group of psychologists lied to a group of men about the average penis size. The men who were led to believe they had a small penis were more likely to want to buy sports cars. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 3.
- Do moms prefer the smell of their own baby’s poopy diapers? A team of psychologists made moms smell poopy diapers and found that they indeed rated their own baby’s diaper as less disgusting. Discussed on S02 Bonus Episode 1.
- Is touching wood just as good as taking a walk in the woods? A team of scientists recruited a bunch of students to touch wood. Interestingly, they found that touching wood, compared to touching other objects, such as marble and steel, may have calming effects. Discussed on S02E06.
Sports & Exercise
- Are bearded men better at fighting? A few evolutionary psychologists wondered if beards provide men with an advantage during fights. They analyzed ten years worth of UFC fights to find out. Another group wondered if beards specifically act as a cushion to lessen the impact of strikes to the face during fights. They meticulously measured the amount of force various mammalian hairs, glued to fake human bones, can absorb. Discussed on S01E19.
- Dixson et al., 2018. Contest competition and men’s facial hair: beards may not provide advantages in combat. Evolution and Human Behavior.
- Beseris et al., 2020. Impact Protection Potential of Mammalian Hair: Testing the Pugilism Hypothesis for the Evolution of Human Facial Hair. Integrative Organismal Biology.
- Swearing makes you stronger. Across two independent studies, researchers got a bunch of volunteers to perform exercises (wall sit, planking, flat push-ups, and chair push-ups) while saying their favorite swear word. Discussed on S01E24.
- Olympic bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists. A group of scientists watched video footage of Olympians after their competition and during the medal ceremony and graded them on how happy they appear. They found that bronze medalists on average appeared 40% happier than silver medalists. Discussed on S01 Bonus Episode 2.
- Hills look steeper when you’re in the middle of a run. Some psychologists made runners judge the steepness of some hills before and after running around for 45 minutes. The runners consistently judged the steepness to be higher after the run. Discussed on S02E03.
Transportation
- Does cannabis use impair your ability to ride a bicycle? A team of scientists wanted to know if marijuana use impairs automobile driving ability, but such an experiment would be unsafe and unethical. So instead of having marijuana users drive a car, they had them ride a bike through an obstacle course. Discussed on S01E20.
- Are overweight kids more likely to be hit by cars while crossing the street? Concerned about the growing childhood obesity epidemic, a team of scientists tested whether overweight, out-of-shape children are worse at crossing streets using a VR simulation. Discussed on S02E02.
- Can you teach goldfish to drive cars? Move over AI self-driving cars, a multidisciplinary team of scientists gathered to teach six lucky goldfish how to drive little goldfish cars. The results are a resounding success. Discussed on S02E07.
Categories: academics, anatomy, animal behavior, anthropology, chemistry, earth & planetary science, ecology & evolution, economics, ethics & society, food & cooking, language & communication, medicine, microbiology, neuroscience, physics, physiology, psychology, sports & athletics, transportation
