Skulls in the Stars

Here are the Twitter #weirdscifacts for December 1st through December 7th!

263. Dec 01: While developing the bubble chamber c. 1950, physicist Donald Glaser tested early prototypes filled with beer. Bubble chambers are used in high-energy physics to detect and trace the paths of subatomic particles.  They consist of a chamber of superheated liquid; this liquid forms bubbles when particles pass, allowing their tracks to be photographed.  If a magnetic field is applied to the system, the curved trajectories of the particles can be used to deduce their charges and momentum, as well.  Glaser needed a liquid with low surface tension to make this work, however, and beer was one option he tried.  “His experiments with beer left nothing but a stench in the room and raised a few eyebrows, he said. Instead, he filled the tubes with diethyl ether.”

264. Dec 02: Posted another #weirdscifacts for the day, but the arsenic bacteria deserve to be on the list! (@edyong209‘s post) The results are being disputed, however, so it will probably take some time before we know if this fact will stick!

264a. In 1966, physicist Luis Alvarez performed a photo analysis of the Kennedy assassination, improving on the FBI analysis. Alvarez became intrigued by the case after seeing photos of the assassination in LIFE magazine, and decided to investigate what could be learned from the film.

265. Dec 03: Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal detector to find the 2nd bullet that hit assassination target James Garfield in 1881. (Bell’s device failed to find the bullet, and instead detected the metal bed springs.)

266. Dec 04: Nightmare fodder: the goliath bird-eating spider.

267. Dec 05: Louis Slotin, and the horrifying criticality accident that killed him in 1946. Slotin was guiding an experiment in nuclear chain reactions when the slip of a screwdriver let two pieces of material come together to form a critical mass.  Slotin slapped away a piece, stopping the reaction, but he received a fatal dose of radiation in the process, dying 9 days later.

268. Dec 06: The singing sands! (This is an earlier post by @JenLucPiquant that I saved for a later fact!)

269. Dec 07: A popular mathematical puzzle goes back at least as far as ancient Egypt. (h/t @anthinpractice)

Here are the Twitter #weirdscifacts for November 24 through November 30th!

256. Nov 24: Stubbins Ffirth (1784-1820) sought to prove yellow fever not contagious by drinking undiluted vomit from sufferers. Can I get an “eeeeew”?  He actually began his experiments by rubbing vomit on cuts he made in his arms, progressed to frying it and inhaling the fumes, and eventually drinking it. Ffirth was *totally* wrong, however: he had used… samples… from late-stage patients who were no longer contagious.  In other words, he was lucky not to have killed himself.

257. Nov 25: The Sylacauga meteorite — the first documented extraterrestrial object known to injure a human being.

258. Nov 26: A species of squid comes very near to achieving flight! (Hat-tip to @DrCraigMc)

259. Nov 27: In 1803, Giovanni Aldini performed electrical experiments on an executed criminal that made spectators fear he was alive again! Convicted murderer George Forster’s body was provided to Aldini for experiments in Galvanism (the stimulation of muscles by electric current).  The January 18th, 1803 edition of the Newgate Calendar reports on the hanging of Forster and what followed:

He died very easy; and, after hanging the usual time, his body was cut down and conveyed to a house not far distant, where it was subjected to the galvanic process by Professor Aldini, under the inspection of Mr Keate, Mr Carpue and several other professional gentlemen. M. Aldini, who is the nephew of the discoverer of this most interesting science, showed the eminent and superior powers of galvanism to be far beyond any other stimulant in nature. On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion. Mr Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons’ Company, who was officially present during this experiment, was so alarmed that he died of fright soon after his return home.

Some of the uninformed bystanders thought that the wretched man was on the eve of being restored to life. This, however, was impossible, as several of his friends, who were under the scaffold, had violently pulled his legs, in order to put a more speedy termination to his sufferings. The experiment, in fact, was of a better use and tendency. Its object was to show the excitability of the human frame when this animal electricity was duly applied. In cases of drowning or suffocation it promised to be of the utmost use, by reviving the action of the lungs, and thereby rekindling the expiring spark of vitality. In cases of apoplexy, or disorders of the head, it offered also most encouraging prospects for the benefit of mankind.

The professor, we understand, had made use of galvanism also in several cases of insanity, and with complete success. It was the opinion of the first medical men that this discovery, if rightly managed and duly prosecuted, could not fail to be of great, and perhaps as yet unforeseen, utility.

Emphasis mine!

260. Nov 28: The Centennial Light: a lightbulb that has been burning almost continuously for 109 years.

261. Nov 29: The town that went mad (France, 1951), by Neuroskeptic.

262. Nov 30: c. 1903, chemist Soddy advocated inhaling *radium* as a cure for tuberculosis! To researchers of the time, radioactivity was practically a magical process, one that seemed to provide an almost limitless source of energy.  With this in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that people would think of it possessing healing power; it is surprising, however, that a chemist was the advocate!  For the record, radium is over 1 million times more radioactive than uranium — inhaling or ingesting it is a bad, bad idea.