The chimps who throw their poop the most frequently and most accurately not only have the largest and best developed motor cortex — duh — but also comparatively well-connected and developed Broca’s areas and left hemispheres in general. If that wasn’t enough, the kicker is that the specific areas and connections that are well-connected and developed are the same ones that play important parts in speech for humans.

I wonder what the results indicate about humans who are good at communication.

Link Via Geekosystem

Tripping Elephants On Parade

Image via http2007 [Flickr]

While many test animals are killed in the name of research, many of them are at least being used to investigate potentially life-saving drugs. Perhaps the saddest and most spectacular failure of any animal-based experiment occurred in 1962, when Tusko the elephant (not the one pictured) was given LSD simply for the sake of seeing how the magnificent beast would react to such a substance.

Unfortunately, the researchers, Louis Jolyon West and Chester M. Pierce, had no idea how much LSD it would take to dose an elephant. Rather than erroring on the side of safety, the doctors decided that they didn’t want to have to do the experiment again just because they underdosed the elephant the first time. They ended up deciding to give Tusko 297 milligrams, which is about 3000 times the dosage a human takes, despite the fact that an elephant weighs about 90 times more than the average human.

After being dosed, Tusko immediately started running around in his pen and soon lost control of his movements, eventually collapsing to the ground and going into seizures. To counteract the LSD, the doctors gave the elephant 2,800 milligrams of an antipsychotic. The drug reduced his seizures slightly, but didn’t stop them. After another hours, the doctors decided to give Tusko a barbiturate to calm him down, but it didn’t help. He died a few minutes later.

Two other elephants were later dosed with the drug and suffered no ill effects. Ultimately, the doctors that dosed Tusko summed up their experiment in Science by saying, simply, “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD.” Even so, it is still unclear whether or not Tusko died from the acid or a combination of the three drugs given to him that day.

The Monster Study

The effects of positive vs. negative reinforcement have fascinated scientists and parents for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, testing on a group of unsuspecting orphans isn’t the best way to find out. In 1939, Doctor Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa and his assistant, Mary Tudor, selected 22 children from an orphanage in Iowa. Ten of the children had stutters and the rest spoke just fine.

The stutterers were put in two groups, group IA that was to use positive reinforcement and other, group IB, that was to receive negative reinforcement. The non-stutterers were also broken into two groups, group IIB, that was told they spoke fine, and group IIA, who were told they were starting to stutter and needed to avoid making mistakes at any cost. The goal was to get those in group IA to stop stuttering and those in group IIA to start stuttering.

The impact on group IIA was exactly what the doctor had hoped for. The entire group started falling behind on their school work. The children started to second-guess their speech abilities and many stopped talking at all. One girl ran away shortly after the experiment ended. While Mary Tudor visited the orphanage three times after the experiment was over, attempting to convince the children that they didn’t have any speech problems, the damage was already done. Although none of the kids became stutterers, many of the children retained speech problems their entire life and most were reluctant to speak. In 2007, six of these children were awarded $925,000 in a lawsuit against the state for the university’s role in the experiment.

The study has since been dubbed “The Monster Study” by the public and scientists alike who were disgusted with the doctor’s methods.

The Baby Born A Chimp

Image via BoingBoing

There have been ample stories of human children being raised by other species and eventually becoming more like that animal than an actual human. If the process could go one way, Winthrop Kellogg was sure that it could also go the other, particularly if the animal involved was one of our closest genetic cousins.

In 1931, Kellogg received a grant for his experiment and the timing couldn’t be better –his wife just had a baby boy, David. This would give them the unique opportunity to raise a baby chimp, named Gua, right along side a human baby. It didn’t take long for the babes to bond and become best friends.

Kellogg and his wife took impeccable notes on their two “children” noting their physical changes, emotions and how they scored on small intelligence tests. The chimp scored notably higher on the intelligence tests due the fact that the species matures faster than human babies.

Gua picked up quite a few human behaviors, such as walking upright and eating with a spoon, but she failed to learn how to speak and learn simple repetition games, like patty cake. Her emotions were also much less predictable and inclined to change at the drop of a hat.

Unfortunately, the experiment really started to go wrong when little David started to become more chimplike than Gua became humanlike. He only learned a few simple words and often took to making chimp howls when he wanted something.

After only nine months, the Kelloggs gave up on Gua, concerned that David would fail to grow up like a normal human child. In the years since this project, plenty of people have adopted chimps as babies, proving beyond a doubt that the animals can never act completely human –even if they are adorable in overalls.

Yellow Fever Fever

Doctor Stubbins Ffirth observed that yellow fever was prominent during the summer, but receded as winter approached and made the mistaken conclusion that this meant the disease was not contagious. The fact that he never caught the disease after constant exposure to patients with the malady further inspired him. In order to prove the disease was non-contagious, Ffirth decided he needed to expose himself to all types of bodily fluids secreted by yellow fever victims. He drank the vomit of the victims, he injected it into his veins, he dripped it into his eyes and he inhaled the fumes from the vomit. Through it all, he never did manage to contract the disease.

Rather than admitting that he made his point or moving on to testing on other people, Ffirth realized there were far more body fluids for him to experiment with. He used blood, urine, saliva and perspiration. Even after all of these tests, his still managed to resist the disease. Unfortunately, Ffirth failed to take into account the different stages of the disease. His samples all came from persons who were in the late stages of the malady, and were, thus, no longer contagious. Had he experimented with samples from people who only recently contracted the disease, his results likely would have been a whole lot different.

As for the observation that the disease disappeared during the winter months? He was right about that, just wrong about the cause. Yellow fever is caused by a RNA virus that is spread by mosquitoes. That’s why it was so much more common during the humid summers on the East Coast. Fortunately, before word of Ffirth’s research spread, locals believed the disease was spreading through the waterways and Philadelphia introduced a closed water system that helped eliminate cisterns and barrels full of water that served as mosquito breeding grounds during the summer.

A Baby In A Box

Image via Silly Rabbit [Wikipedia]

This is perhaps the only science experiment in this list that went totally right –up until the idea was released to the public. Doctor Fredric Skinner had a lot of trouble bending down into his baby’s crib to pick her up. When his wife became pregnant with a second child, he worked hard to develop a more comfortable and elegant solution. What he came up with was a “baby box.”

The box was about six feet tall and lifted the baby up about three feet high. The sleeping area was a shallow bin with a safety glass window that allowed it to see the outside world while keeping it safe. The box provided the baby with a heater, humidifier and an air filter so the baby always had fresh, warm air. It was also well-insulated to help keep out loud noises. Parents could lift the baby out of the device without back strain. The baby stayed warm, so it didn’t need clothes or blankets that could get tangled up and become a hazard. Plus, this also meant less laundry for the parents. The mattress was made of a sheet of canvas held in place by two rollers, so when it got dirty, they just had to roll it to reveal a new, clean section. All in all, the device had tons of benefits and the doctor’s baby responded to the device quite well.

Unfortunately, Skinner decided to bypass academic journals and send an announcement of his achievement through Ladies’ Home Journal. While the title of the piece he sent was “Baby Care Can Be Modernized,” editors decided to change it to “Baby In A Box.” This one little change was largely responsible for the public backlash against Skinner’s revolutionary idea. People accused the doctor of caging his child up like an animal, raising a child like a vegetable garden and gaining inspiration for his idea from a grocery freezer case.

While Skinner did want to run formal experiments comparing ten children who were raised with the box and ten children who were raised in a crib to see if either group had any disadvantages long term, the public outrage against his work led him to back off on his project. His own daughter did seem to come out just fine in the end, becoming a successful artist in London. Eventually, Skinner did get a manufacturing deal, selling a few hundred units of “The Air Crib,” but the head of the manufacturing company soon passed away, leaving the idea to die in the process.

Now, obviously, there are far more science projects gone wrong than just these. If you’ve heard any stories, feel free to share them in the comments. Or let us know what you think about the projects. Personally, I think the baby box is a great idea and I would love to have had one when I have a kid.

Sources: Elephants On Acid And Other Bizarre Experiments, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Listverse

Of the handful of critters that seem to enjoy playing dress up, an even smaller group has actually enjoyed a relative amount of success from their imitation of human clothing. In honor of National Dress Up Your Pet Day, we at Neatorama celebrate the few, the brave, the clothed.

Sugar Bush Squirrel

While most pets who agree to wear costumes tend to be dogs, the animals that have become best known for their clothing antics are a variety of species. One of the best known costumed animals is Sugar Bush Squirrel, whose owner, Kelly Foxton, started making her tiny little outfits and photographing her in wonderfully elaborate settings.

Foxton soon started adding the images to a website, where Sugar Bush developed a huge cult following. Since then, the little critter was featured in a number of advertisements and has been the subject of a documentary. Sugar Bush even holds the unofficial title of World’s Most Photographed Squirrel –someone call Guinness quick!

Source Sugar Bush Squirrel Website, Sugar Bush Squirrel The Movie Image Via Sugar Bush website.

Keyboard Cat

Of course, some animals are costumed out of necessity. If it weren’t for Keyboard Cat’s stylish garb, you would be able to see his owner’s hands manipulating him to play the piano. It’s just not the same getting “played off” by a Keyboard Cat who doesn’t appear to be doing the work himself. There are over 4,000 videos of Keyboard Cat playing someone off these days, but the original was done by Brad O’Farrell who actually got permission from the film’s original owners for both his clip and anyone who followed in his remashing footsteps.

It should be noted that this meme, which exploded last year was actually filmed back in 1984. Since then, “Fatso,” as he was known by his close family, has passed. Let’s pay our respects to this beloved kitty icon by enjoying Keyboard Cat play off a Glen Beck guest as he passes out. A moment of silence while you watch, please.

Source Wikipedia

Pankun

Pankun is another star of internet videos you may recognize. He is the Japanese chimp often paired up with a bulldog named James and then asked to do simple human tasks. Best of all, Pankun is usually dressed in human clothing while he does sit ups, buys birthday cakes and rides Segways. In some ways, he’s the Japanese, reality-television version of the old Lancelot Link show.

He now lives in a Japanese zoo called Cuddly Dominion, where he and James put on live acts. His current show casts him as an astronaut that has landed on the planet Inusaru.

Here’s an old Pankun clip where the chimp gets a birthday cake, which is stolen by a hawk. Fortunately, he recovers the cake and brings it home in time for his party, where a good time is had by all.

Source Wikipedia, Cuddly Dominion

Station Master Tama

Speaking of Japanese animal celebrities, frequent Neatorama readers are also sure to remember Tama the Station Cat. Tama’s story started when the Wakayama Electric Railway decided to unman all of their stations and hire only one person at each stop to serve as the station master. At Kishi station, a neighborhood grocer named Toshiko Koyama was named as the station master. Koyama had adopted a number of stray cats, feeding them at the station.

In 2007, the company opted to name one of the strays, Tama, as the official station master. In lieu of pay, Tama has been rewarded with free cat food, and a cool hat. Tama’s success actually helped increased traffic to the area and brought 1.1 billion Yen to the local economy. As a result, the company promoted her to “super station manager,” and she is now the only female manager in the company. She now has two feline assistant station masters at her disposal.

As an extra honor, the governor of Wakayama has provided her with a medallion representing her honorary knighthood.

Source Wikipedia, Japan Probe Image Via Wikipedia user Takobou

Mr. Winkle

I wrote about Mr. Winkle before in the famous shelter dogs article. He is a unique mix that looks somewhat teddy bearish. While he started out on the streets, his adopted owner, magazine photographer Lara Jo Regan, has given him everything a pup could ever dream of, including his own internet site and web television show. Mr. Winkle’s been featured on Sex and The City and a number of news programs. As for his costume work, there’s plenty of dress up photos available on his site. You can even buy books and calendars of his pin up works.

Source Mr. Winkle Website, Wikipedia Image Via Mr. Winkle’s site.

Oscar

Oscar is the one animal on this list that is known for being totally naked. While she may look cute dancing and singing, her hard life makes her an inspirational tale of overcoming hardships.

In her early years, Oscar actually was rescued from a crack house by police officers. After suffering from both a beak and feather disease, she completely lost all of her feathers, even after she was nursed back to health by the Humane Society. At the time, vets gave her only six months to live –over 13 years ago.

Since then, Oscar was adopted by Cherie Wachter, who takes great care of her and has been known to post naked videos of the little bird all over the internet. Oscar’s feathers may never grow back, but her brave spirit has never dwindled.

Source DListed, Huffington Post Image by Barry Bland via The Sun.

Well readers, now it’s your turn. Any of you know any famous dressed up animals not mentioned here or care to share some of your favorite costumed pet pics?

This great Japanese video features the filming of a The Ring parody, staring an adorable celebrity chimp, Pan-Kun. The effect is not so scary, but completely hilarious.

Link Via Tokyo Mango

Japanese television is one of the best things in the world. Pair it with another stupidly catching internet song and you have an instant hit -especially when the video and song emphasize the wonder that is created when a chimpanzee rides on a segway.

Link via Mental Floss