Yet more fun stuff from "
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader"
Experiment: A scientist named Spalding brilliantly theorized that a baby chick's instinct to follow a mother hen originates in its brain. In an 1873 experiment, he removed the brains of baby chicks and placed the chicks a few yards from a mother hen.
Conclusion: Spalding's groundbreaking paper, "Instinct," tells us: "Decerebrated chicks will not move towards a clucking or retreating object.
Experiment: To test the rumor that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, Harvard University researchers added sperm samples to test tubes, each containing a different type of Coke.
Conclusion: A minor success. Diet Coke was the most effective, followed by Classic Coke, New Caffeine-Free, and in last place, New Coke. Researchers suggest that levels of acidic pH and perhaps some secret formula components were the determining factors. In any event, a Coca-Cola official was quoted to say: "We do not promote Coca-Cola for medical purposes. It is a soft drink."
Experiment: Are rats psychic? In 1974, two parapsychologists named Craig and Treuriniet decided to find out. They put rats in a lab maze with only two exits... one leading to freedom, the other to death. (They would kill the rats.)
Conclusion: Half chose the correct path; half didn't. Unsatisfied with the results, Craig and Treuriniet theorized a correlation between the rat's psychic powers and phases of the moon.