Buzz
Scientists are often perceived as dedicated intellectuals working on complex projects that most of us struggle to grasp. However, even the most serious minds enjoy a bit of fun. Here are 10 amusing pranks carried out by respected scientists, targeting their peers, and occasionally by individuals posing as scientific authorities.
10. Leaving Already, Mr. Twain?
During the late 1800s, the sharp-witted author Mark Twain and the brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla formed an unexpected friendship. Alongside other prominent writers, actors, and musicians of the era, they frequently attended lively dinner parties at the New York residence of poet and editor Robert Underwood Johnson. Reluctant to let the evenings end, guests like Twain would often accompany Tesla back to his lab to witness his groundbreaking electrical experiments. However, overstaying one's welcome at a scientist's home is never advisable.
During one of Twain's visits to Tesla's lab, the scientist invited the writer to stand on a small platform. Tesla then activated his oscillator, sending mild vibrations through Twain's body. Twain found the sensation exhilarating, claiming it left him feeling rejuvenated.
However, shortly after the vibrations started, Tesla cautioned Twain to step off the platform to avoid discomfort. Twain, ignoring the warning, continued to relish the experience for a few more minutes. Suddenly, he cried out, 'Tesla, where is it? Hurry!'
Tesla, amused, gestured toward a nearby room as Twain rushed off in embarrassment. The scientist and his team couldn't contain their laughter, already familiar with the oscillator's unintended laxative effect.
As Twain learned, Tesla wasn't above using a playful trick to encourage his friend to leave.
9. Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
This prank targeted both scientists and the establishment of the 1960s. The origins of the hoax remain unclear, but in 1967, a group of hippies, eager to explore new highs, reportedly sought to determine if bananas could induce serotonin-like effects similar to LSD.
Inspired by counterculture publications, enthusiasts began scraping banana peels, drying the inner pith in ovens, crumbling it, and rolling it into joints to smoke like marijuana. The Berkeley Barb even published a recipe for creating 'bananadine,' also known as 'mellow yellow,' leading to a surge in banana demand that left local vendors struggling to keep up.
The story quickly gained traction in mainstream media, with outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, and Los Angeles Times covering the phenomenon. Public events like parades and love-ins followed. The US Food and Drug Administration even launched an investigation into the alleged hallucinogenic properties of banana peels. United Fruit Company joined in, enlisting Dr. Sidney Cohen, a leading LSD researcher, to analyze 70 kilograms (150 lb) of bananas.
Ultimately, the scientific inquiries yielded no evidence of hallucinogenic effects. As three UCLA scientists concluded, 'Bananadine contains no known hallucinogens.'
8. Leap for the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect
Have you ever set a New Year’s resolution to shed some pounds? If you did so in 2014, you might have received an unexpected assist by jumping into the air precisely at 9:47 AM on January 4. If that didn’t work, you could have tried again on April 4, 2014. Alternatively, you might have been among those tricked by this prank on April Fools’ Day, 1976, when British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore introduced it on BBC Radio 2.
Moore leveraged his reputation as an astronomer to persuade a trusting radio audience that Pluto would align behind Jupiter relative to Earth at exactly 9:47 AM on April 1, 1976, creating the so-called Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect. This entirely fabricated theory claimed that the alignment would generate a stronger tidal force, temporarily reducing Earth’s gravity and making people feel lighter.
To experience this zero-gravity effect, Moore instructed listeners to jump at 9:47 AM, promising they would feel a 'strange floating sensation.' He claimed it would take three seconds (instead of the usual 0.2 seconds) to return to the ground. According to Time magazine, 'By 9:48, the phone lines were jammed with callers describing their brief weightlessness. The revelation that Moore had fooled them surely brought everyone back down to reality.'
7. It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane . . .
. . . it’s a campus police cruiser with flashing lights perched on the Great Dome of Building 10 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
While most college parents fret over their kids' drinking habits or unsafe behavior, MIT parents have the added concern of their children being arrested for applying their scientific expertise in a campus tradition known as the MIT 'hacks.' These ingenious pranks, despite the name, rarely involve computers. As Brian Spatocco, a PhD student and 2012 president of the MIT graduate student council, explained, 'What makes MIT unique is its culture of creative irreverence. Students are urged to challenge everything. The motto here is that it’s a living lab.'
The Hacker’s Code of Conduct advises pranksters to prioritize safety, subtlety, and avoid causing lasting harm. It allows 'borrowing' but prohibits theft, discourages hacking under the influence, and emphasizes the importance of not hacking alone. Additionally, hackers are encouraged to maintain anonymity.
This leads us to one of MIT’s most legendary hacks: the campus police cruiser placed atop the Great Dome on the final day of classes in May 1994. The car was actually a wooden frame adorned with parts from a Chevrolet Cavalier, meticulously painted to resemble an MIT police vehicle. It featured the license plate 'IHTFP' and a rear window sign reading, 'I break for donuts.' Inside, a dummy officer sat with a toy gun and a box of donuts, adding to the prank’s charm.
6. The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind
This prank began in 1997, involving two scientists, a fascination with flatulence, and a shared admiration for musician Bob Dylan.
Professors John Jundberg and Eddie Weitzburg from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, authored a study on measuring intestinal gas to identify inflammation. They titled their paper, 'Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind,' inspired by one of Dylan’s iconic songs.
A few years later, a librarian introduced them to Jonas Frisen and Konstantinos Meletis, who had named their research paper 'Blood on the Tracks: A Simple Twist of Fate,' referencing a Bob Dylan album and song. The four scientists made a playful wager: whoever published the most articles featuring Dylan quotes before retirement would win a free lunch at a local restaurant, Jons Jacob.
Another professor, Kenneth Chien, joined the challenge with his paper, 'Tangled Up In Blue: Molecular Cardiology in the Postmolecular Era.' Frisen and a colleague responded with 'Eph Receptors Tangled Up In Two.' Jundberg and Weitzburg countered with 'The Biological Role of Nitrate and Nitrite: The Times They Are a-Changin’' and 'Dietary Nitrate—A Slow Train Coming.'
These scientists hold Dylan in high regard. Weitzburg believes Dylan deserves a Nobel Prize in literature, while Chien compares him to a modern-day Shakespeare. Meletis sees Dylan as akin to a skilled researcher, stating, 'Good music is innovative, like Bob Dylan’s. The same applies to research. A researcher must explore new and unconventional paths.'
5. Don’t Let The Name Fool You—This Kills
In Aliso Viejo, California, city officials nearly banned foam cups containing dihydrogen monoxide—a colorless, odorless substance linked to frequent urination and severe dehydration. This chemical, responsible for thousands of deaths annually, is an 'invisible killer' commonly found in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. The US Navy invests billions in technology to manage and utilize dihydrogen monoxide during military operations. Research facilities distribute vast quantities of it through underground networks, often storing it for future use.
Upon learning about the risks, such as the potential lethality of inhaling dihydrogen monoxide, the Aliso Viejo city council proposed a law prohibiting foam cups at city events to safeguard public health. Had they known how much of this chemical is sprayed on produce annually, they might have considered banning food as well.
However, they soon discovered that a paralegal had fallen victim to a classic scientific prank that gained traction online in the 1990s. Dihydrogen monoxide, or H2O, is simply water. As one police chief humorously noted, 'If you drowned in it, yeah, it could kill you.'
4. Their Body Rituals Are Just Weird
We are encouraged to embrace cultural diversity, particularly when encountering practices vastly different from our own. This includes tribes like the Nacirema, whom Horace Miner described in a 1956 anthropological study.
Miner highlights that the Nacirema dedicate much of their day to peculiar body rituals. They believe their bodies are inherently unattractive and perform ceremonies in household shrines to improve their appearance. Each shrine features a small basin where family members bow before a charm box and perform ritual cleansings. The Nacirema are particularly fixated on oral rituals, fearing that neglecting them would result in tooth loss, social rejection, and romantic failure. One ritual involves inserting a bundle of hog hairs coated in magical powders into their mouths. Women undergo special ceremonies four times a month, baking their heads in small ovens for about an hour.
If you haven’t realized yet, 'Nacirema' is 'American' spelled backward. The rituals described are everyday activities like brushing teeth in front of a bathroom sink with a medicine cabinet. Women in the 1950s often used oven-like hair dryers weekly for styling.
Miner delves deeper into his analysis, emphasizing that while we consider ourselves advanced and cultured, our customs might appear primitive to an outsider reading an anthropologist’s account of our behavior.
3. Some Pranks Are A Piece Of Cake
Occasionally, simply appearing to have scientific backing is enough to deceive government officials, the media, and unsuspecting celebrities.
In 1997, Chris Morris, under the alias Ted Maul, hosted a British mockumentary titled Brass Eye, which satirized news programs. In one episode, Morris warned viewers about 'Cake,' a fabricated drug allegedly entering the UK from Prague, Czech Republic. He explicitly called it a 'made-up drug,' clarifying that it wasn’t derived from plants but 'made up' from chemicals. Celebrities, journalists (including Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher’s former press secretary), and Conservative MP David Amess (who even raised a question about Cake in parliament) were all duped during the filming of a fake public service announcement.
They claimed that Cake’s neon yellow hue came from an industrial dye causing 'Czech neck,' a fatal condition where the neck swells dramatically, obstructing the nose and mouth until the user suffocates. They also asserted that Cake’s active ingredient activated 'Shatner’s Bassoon,' a fictional brain region responsible for time perception. For users, a second would feel like a month. Legend has it that one user, believing he had months to cross a street, was hit by a bus and killed.
Thankfully, two advocacy groups, British Opposition to Metabolically Bisturbile Drugs (BOMBD) and Free the United Kingdom from Drugs (we’ll skip the acronym), took the lead in combating this fictional chemical menace.
2. How Unbearable Babies Won Prehistoric Wars
Evolutionary scientists occasionally propose such bizarre theories that they’ve created a competition to poke fun at themselves. Known as 'The Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses (BAH!),' participants vie for an award honoring the most thoroughly researched yet utterly absurd evolutionary idea. The prize features a skeptical Charles Darwin with the caption, 'I guess so?'
In 2013, MIT graduate student Tomer Ullman won with his theory that infant crying provided prehistoric warriors a tactical edge in combat. By attaching these noisy infants to their backs, warriors reportedly 'excelled in violent motor tasks.' Ullman humorously avoided delving into technical details, stating, 'so let’s not.' However, his calculations suggested that the infants’ cries delivered a 'natural adrenaline boost,' fueling the warriors to annihilate their enemies.
He proposes that tribes with a higher number of crying babies had a greater chance of victory, allowing their vocal genes to dominate ancient populations. Post-battle, a selection process occurred where louder infants were occasionally eliminated and substituted with quieter ones. Using an estimated Paleolithic infanticide rate of 15–20 percent, the proportion of vocal infants was calculated to be 20–35 percent, mirroring the current rate of colicky babies in today's world.
Ullman remarks, “When a crying baby drives you to the brink of frustration, remember that one of your forebears likely acted on that impulse.”
1. Is This Thing On?
While Thomas Edison is best known for creating the lightbulb, few are aware that he was reportedly developing a 'spirit phone'—or 'psycho-phone'—designed to facilitate communication with the deceased.
The idea originated from a 1920 conversation between Edison and B.F. Forbes of Scientific American. Edison stated, “If our essence persists after death, it’s reasonable to conclude it maintains memories, intellect, and the knowledge gained in life. Hence, if we could develop a device sensitive enough to detect this surviving essence, such a tool, once perfected, should capture something.” He then elaborated on constructing this device to interact with the spirit world.
Years afterward, Edison claimed his remarks were made in jest. Upon his death, no designs or prototypes of such a device were discovered. Paul Israel, writer of Edison: A Lifetime of Invention, noted that the 1920 interview occurred amid heightened public fascination with the supernatural, fueled by the immense casualties of World War I.
