3 of the strangest scientific investigations ever published

Including some things that seemed funny at first and eventually proved to be more than just an academic fable.

Perhaps that will be the case for the next three.

Failure is an essential and inevitable part of research.

It’s an integral part of the scientific method: you observe something, formulate a hypothesis, and test it. Of course, this assumption is often wrong.

So start over, over and over.

Even if you don’t find anything in the end, what you did will be valuable, because, among other things, it excludes options.

This is why it is not uncommon for scientists to publish studies of their disappointments.

And in 1974, Dennis Eber of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brockton, Massachusetts, USA did just that.

Currency Featured in Applied Behavior Analysis, the journal of the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior in that country.

Title: Self-treatment of the writer’s blocking issue failed.

Content: The most reliable proof of that…a blank page.

Now, this, as is often the case with all studies published in scientific journals, has been peer-reviewed or peer-reviewed, and evaluated by one or more experts in the field to assess the quality, feasibility, and scientific rigor of the study. a job.

Normally, the opinions of these judges remain confidential, but due to the exceptional nature of this research, the journal decided to publish reviewer A’s commentary.

“I have studied this manuscript very carefully With lemon juice and x-rays And I didn’t discover a single flaw in the design or the writing style.

“I suggest that it be published without saving.

“It is clearly the most concise manuscript I have ever seen, yet it contains enough detail to allow other researchers to repeat Dr. Obers’ failure.

“Compared to the other manuscripts you send me which contain all these intricate details,It was a pleasure to check out

.

Surely we could find a place for this article in the magazine, perhaps on the edge of a blank page?

(*Remember that repeat experiments are necessary to validate them).

There are failures and … well, other things.

Things that lead you to wonder why you made the decision to post something if what’s showing isn’t exactly what was meant. In 2002, a team of researchers He wrote a report entitled Effects of blue dye on the diet of caterpillar speciesVanessa Cardoy

Getty Images

The study wanted to see if adding food dye to the food of the larvae changed the color of their wings.

Something similar happens to people who eat a lot of carrots and their skin turns orange, or when you add aniline to water in a vase and the flowers change color.

Unfortunately, the result of the study was not conclusive, which, as we have already established, does not exclude that it has some value.

Until you read the section entitled “Discussion”.

from the control group.

3. Some penguins

However, not everything is a failure, so among the many examples of strange studies, we wanted to say goodbye to a successful investigation.

Getty Images explain itWe do not make any value judgments about its importance

; He caught our attention from a purely childish point of view.

The researchers found that “chinstrap and Adélie penguins generate great pressure to expel their excrement from the edge of the nest.”

They calculated these pressures to “repel aqueous substances” and “to expel substances with a higher viscosity similar to olive oil.”

They concluded that “the forces involved, far superior to those known to humans, are high, but do not result in a waste of energy in the turbulent flow.”

And they left the door open for further research: If the bird deliberately chooses the direction in which it decides to expel its faeces, or if it depends on the direction from which the wind is blowing at the time of evacuation,Are the issues that need to be addressed on another expedition to Antarctica

(and some octopuses)

Questions about the ability of some animals to release jets don’t just interest scientists — deeply, based on the latest example.

Getty Images

In 2008, employees of the Sea Star Aquarium in Germany faced a problem: at the end of their day they left everything in order. But the next morning“When we entered, everything was silent. Nothing worked”

explained Elfriede Comer, director of the aquarium.

Some of the staff spent the night in the aquarium to keep an eye on it. But they didn’t see anything. Finally, they installed the cameras.

They found that when the humans were gone, Otto, a six-month-old octopus, would climb up the side of his tank every night and spray water on a 2,000-watt flashlight above him.

And it was able to pump out enough water to not only shorten the power, but also disable the entire building’s electrical system.

In a laboratory at the University of Otago in New Zealand, another octopus used the same trick…so many times that the cost of repairing the damage forced it to release the octopus.Octopuses don’t like bright lights and pump water into all sorts of things that annoy them.

. And this is something discovered by Peter B. Deuse, who is considered the main founder of the system of behavioral pharmacology, and which he analyzed in Essay on his active behavior

It was published in 1959 in the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB).

Perhaps at that time there were those who found it curious that they spent so much time observing octopuses, because we still don’t know much about how amazing these creatures are.

Getty Images Remember that