Mad Science Museum: you'll be living on a diet of exclamation points

January 3, 2014 9:38 AM

Alex Boese is interested in hoaxes, as you can tell from his Museum of Hoaxes website (lots previously), but he also enjoys tracking down weird science stories like Evan O'Neill Kane's self-appendectomy and Allan Walker Blair's black widow bite experiment on himself, as collected at the Mad Science Museum online.
posted by filthy light thief (3 comments total)

The title comes from a line in the 1951 Colliers article, "What Scientists Believe." The full quote is "Hobnob with the scientists very long and you'll be living on a diet of exclamation points." I came across it from the Mad Science Museum post from that article, with snippets of various scientists talking about their belief in God.

And if you read the NPR interview on Boese's interest in weird science stories and wanted to know more about Benjamin Franklin electrocuting turkeys and resuscitating one with mouth-to-beak, here's an introduction to that anecdote, a bit on the reviving of the turkey, and an afterword about the accidental tenderizing of the turkey was noticed by French chefs.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:48 AM on January 3, 2014

Allan Walker Blair's black widow bite experiment seemed inconclusive to me. Not enough sample data. I think somebody should use two female black widow spiders and hold them down for twice as long.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:56 AM on January 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Museum of Hoaxes used to be one of my favorite online haunts. Thanks for this post!
posted by saulgoodman at 10:05 AM on January 3, 2014