pyromania
I was also very interested in fire at the age of 13.
The results are:
1. If you're going to put a Camping Gaz refill in a bonfire, stand WELL back.
2. Ditto asbestos roof tiles; they send fragments of asbestos at high velocity in random directions.
3. When you've used the gunpowder from shotgun cartridges in other experiments, don't throw the remains on the fire; the detonator is still in there.
(Razors, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 22:49, 1 reply)

Luring Cockroaches
Although cockroaches can handle regular water well enough, one day I discovered they drown in soapy water. So, I quickly rendered clotheshangers into skewers and dangled spam over pots of soapy water all over the floor of my apartment.

Clever bastards skipped the traps and found the spam where I left it, with the cheese, on the bookcase.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 22:44, 2 replies)

Home alone
mum and dad are at a wedding... gone for hours

Brothers are away on holiday...

after 3 hr of casual masturbation, i decided to make the most of the empty house..

what did i do?

Microwave a poo...

not a good idea... the house stunk sooo bad...

how did i fix it? well i couldnt, so i deliberatley burn some paper just so i could get the blame for something alot less offensive..

we got rid of the microwave shortly after because it didnt smell right.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 22:40, 8 replies)

Ah, But...
My favourite toy when I was young was a length of mains cable with a 3 pin plug at one end, and bare wires at the other.
If you put a small piece of aluminium foil between the live and neutral, plug it in and flick the switch... big flash of vapourised ally!
Put that in a bowl of petrol... big flash plus flames!
Gunpowder from Dad's shotgun cartridges... prolonged flash!

My biggest regret is that I never thought to try cooking a sausage with a wire in each end.
(Razors, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 22:19, 1 reply)

Many years ago...
I was charging a 6 volt motorbike battery for a friend on Dad's charger.
I was also in posesion of that most dangerous of things; a little bit of knowledge.
While a battery is charging, electrolysis takes place and gives off Hydrogen and Oxygen.
"Aha", I thought, "Hydrogen, Oxygen. H2O!!"
"If I set light to these gaseous emissions, they will re-combine to make water"
I was right, of course. But I failed to take into account the speed of the reaction, which is technically defined as Very Fucking Fast.
Cue big bang, room full of speeding droplets of sulphuric acid and sharp plastic shards.
And one miraculously unharmed boy.
(Razors, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 22:07, Reply)

Dream study
I was very interested in psychology, but specifically the psychology of dreams, in high school. I had (still have) stacks and stacks on various psychological topics, everything from abnormal psychology, childhood development, Sigmund Frued, anthropology, et cetera. I devised a dream study one day while bored. The question I sought to answer was: does music effect your dreams? I had the respondents record their dreams for one week with no music (the control group), then one week with music and another week with a different kind of music, lasting five weeks. I handed out pens and notebooks to everyone in my psychology class and to others who had agreed to help me. I handed out many sets of notebooks, pens and instruction sheets -- about twenty in all. I knew I wouldn't get every one of them back but I did count on at least a few. But I only got two back: one from a close friend of mine and one from a nerdy perverted kid that sat behind me in class breathing heavily, who would pass me notes asking for my bra size, a kid who just generally had shit luck with women. He had agreed to help me, having a crush on me, and handed back a journal diligently recording his dreams and the different types of music he listened to while sleeping. And while the nature of his dreams did NOT change based on whether he listened to country or rock (I had suspected they would change slightly), the notebook he handed back was so...interesting...it proved to be a different experiment in itself. It turns out that whenever the poor, bespeckled, horny teenager went to sleep, he was magically transported to the realm of RPGs. He had incredibly complex fights with large demons and dragons. He checked his item screen to equip weaponry. He rescued princesses and lovely maidens from certain doom and navigated lands that were so vast that he would not have been able to find his way through if it weren't for that handy map screen. He wielded swords and wore heavy suits of armor that he could change in and out of using the item screen. The whole book was such a warped display of a young man's imagination that I read it again and again, sometimes while tittering to myself, amazed at the video game world this poor boy constructed everytime he went to sleep.

It wasn't a pointless experiment for me: It was a genuinely interesting experience. I think I still have the journal somewhere. It was definetely a pointless experiment for him, however. He sent me an email the night he turned in the notebook asking me for a date, to which I promptly and unhesitatingly declined.
(BrainSurgerysFun, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:58, Reply)

Experiments with animals!
DISCLAIMER: no, I haven't done anything really cruel or twisted to animals, so don't get angry with me. I love animals and wouldn't harm them- I just like messing with them a little.

Chipmunk fishing: take a long-ish stick with a string or a fishing pole with the hooks and other tackle removed. Tie a peanut to the end of the string. Toss it out a distance away and wait. The chipmunk will pick up the peanut and stuff it in his mouth, then go to trot off- and will be thoroughly confused by the sudden tug on his mouth. They're stubborn little bastards with very strong jaws. So how high can you lift them off the ground by the mouth?

If you slowly lift them, they'll stay dangling from the peanut for about ten to fifteen seconds, or until about five feet off the ground. If you keep them lower they'll hang on longer- and will even stay on while you swing them like a furry pendulum.

If you try to yank it out of his mouth, the chipmunk will become airborne for quite a distance until they smack into a tree and fall about fifteen feet to the ground, then hop around stunned for about a half minute. My son discovered that one day and felt terrible until it recovered and shot off through the woods.

Squirrels and birdfeeders: I found that they can climb a 1" diameter pipe that you mount a birdfeeder on quite easily. I also found that if you put the birdfeeder three feet out from the shore in a lake that they'll leap out to it and climb up.

If you coat it with an eighth inch thick layer of Vaseline, they'll whirl around the pole like a stripper with an audience and land in the water, swim ashore and be very snarky for a long time.

Sock-headed dog: take one Jack Russell terrier who's being overly friendly as you want to go to bed. Take off shoes, then the well-worn socks. Take the manky sock and put it over the terrier's nose, then pull it up over her ears.

Result: lots of ramming into things, whipping her head around and a blur of paws scrabbling frantically at the sock. When you can stop laughing long enough, grab the toe of the sock and yank it off the doglet's head. Laugh at her wounded dignity, especially as she hides under the bed.

And then there are the deer who try to drink my scotch...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:57, 1 reply)

Milky Milky
A workmate found a carton of rather old, very smelly rotten milk in the staffroom fridge.
As random co-workers came in, we would hold the carton up to our faces and pretend to smell it (holding breath and mouth clamped tightly shut) and then mutter something about being unable to tell if the milk had strawberry or raspberry flavouring added.
The coworkers would then hold it up and take a big sniff.
The results were lots of people gagging and shouting, 1 person having to go out for fresh air, 1 person running to the bogs for a quick spew, one mechanic dipping his finger in to taste it (eew) and the poor till girl spewing massively, explosively on the spot and having to be sent home in a taxi with tears still streaming down here face (oops)

still, an interesting spread of results, although it was more of a prank than science.
(dave likes cheese, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:53, 2 replies)

I plucked out every hair on my face
It started with my upper lip - I got tired of shaving that bit, so I took a pair of tweezers and, while watching some movie or whatever, plucked out every little hair. It was quite painful - the worst ones are right near the nostrils.

Then I started doing the rest of my face. It takes a long time, and can be painful (near the nostrils and around the jaw line are the worst). It seemed to get less painful after my second go.

It's neat having a smooth face, and one that remains smooth for days without having to do anything. But it's easy to start idly touching your face, thinking, "Ooh, that's a lovely hair to pluck", and giving yourself a spotty complexion from all the face-pawing and tweezer-gouging. It would probably be quicker if someone else was doing the plucking.

It only lasts a couple of weeks before hairs start coming back, and if you stop doing it it becomes painful again.

I'd happily do it again if the hairs would stop growing for a year... but twice a month isn't worth it.
(Dusty Pigeon, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:36, 2 replies)

Buttered Cats
Bread always lands butter side down, and cats always land on their feet. We all know this. What we didn't know, and what I was curious to find out, was what would happen if you selotaped some bread to a cat's back (butter side up) and threw the cat from a good height. Would butter side or feet win?

Turns out the cat lands on its feet then spends three blissful hours licking butter off its fur.
(DiscoStew, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:35, 1 reply)

Can you make your cock disappear?
It turns out you can... just pinch the end of your foreskin and kind of work your way down it pushing your willie inside your scrotum. It makes for an intersting party trick. Don't show your missus though or she'll never want to touch it again.
(Ktulu O'Ryleh float like a turd, sting like chlamydia, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 21:05, 5 replies)

Tazer
My mate Col did an excellent experiment whilst we were in high school. He decided to experiment in "what weapons could be made out of household goods?".

End result? 1 Pike, 1 flamethrower with an effective range of 1.5 metres and best of all, 1 Tazer. Powerful enough to send a 2p coin flying somewhat. Thankfully never tested on anything living; this thing looked vicious! Attached to the capacitor of a disposable camera flash circuit board was 2 1ft long rods with scalpel blades soldered onto the end.

My dear old Dad used to always describe him as an eccentric millionnaire but without the money. Now he just says he's a nutter. Classic!
(Stephen5555 is posting on, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:43, Reply)

[Biology] Pubic hair
Aged 14, I once got bored and shaved off half my pubes just to see what would happen. The outcome was that after a few weeks, the shaved side grew back to look just like the unshaved side.

Conclusion: Pubes only grow to a certain length and then stop.

^Next...

( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:31, 4 replies)

Scalectrics into the mains.
Not me but a friend. But at the age of 13, he decided he might get his scalectric cars running faster if he just wired the track up straight into a plug socket.

The result? Apparantly the car shot off the track and smashed against the wall, and then the track started levitating off the floor.

I dont believe him. For a start he's still alive :)
(Miggyman, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:30, 3 replies)

Those two fingers
The last two on each hand. The ring finger and the little finger.

You don't need them. Think about it, what tasks do you take part in that actually require those two fingers? I can't think of any.

To prove this point I decided to cellotape those fingers to the palm of my hands, to discourage me from using them throughout the day. I got about an hour into it before I was washing my hair and realised it was a bit difficult, and ripped the cellotape off.

I still think this is a valid point though. Even though it was difficult washing my hair with only 4 fingers and 2 thumbs, it wasn't impossible. Those fingers are pointless.
( Lollylegs lite, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:26, 12 replies)

Putting the ex's together.
Oooh the sinister side of me is going to come out now. But sometimes its just fun to play a social "what if?"

Many years ago I was with a girl, and things wern't working out. She had become rather overweight and she lived quite far away. Suffice to say, I just had had enough of the relationship. It didnt help that I had become rather friendly with a local blonde either.

Anyway despite ending it with the other girl, we still remained good friends and all was amicable.
The old girlfriend was obviously not over me and just wanted to see me. Whereas the new one was willing to do anything I wanted to get me more in her favour. So what did I do? Well I thought itd be an interesting experiment to see if the two girls got on.
So one day we jumped in the car and drove two hours to my old girlfriends place for a lovely visit.

Oooooooh! Well that was fun. They were being "polite" to each other. But you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. They kinda just tolerated each others presence. We went out and did a few things, went for a walk, went to the pub.

Old girlfriend didnt have much money so decided to make us some food for dinner rather than us go out. But of course the new girlfriend said she didnt like the food that she had prepared.. Thats when all hell broke loose.

The tendan snapped. The old girlfriend just went mental and started throwing food everywhere called the new girlfriend a bitch. Which then caused the new girlfriend to start shouting "no one calls me that!" and err. well yeah.. we had to leave :)

Anyway they both appologised to each other and actually did get on reasonablly well after that, so all good in the end.

I never got a three-some though :(
(Miggyman, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:24, 2 replies)

This question was made for me
Although I like to think there was some point to all my experiments. I have always taken the scientific approach. Here are a few of the more memorable ones

5 years of age or so: how far can you lean out of the top bunk of the bunk beds without falling out? Concussion, and big carpet burn up my forehead. And my mum came up to see what all the noise was

6-7 years old: Does Father Christmas exist? I devised a clever experiment involving putting what I 'wanted' in a letter up the chimney (control group) and telling my parents that I'd put something else, what present did I get? Don't know why I'm including this as it wasn't pointless, I thought I was pretty clever at the time. Although not so much when I got a smacking for revealing the results to my two younger sisters.

8ish: Can you make a hang glider out of a partially inflated air mattress and some string, and sail gracefully across the room from aforementioned top bunk? Nope, but you can smash two of your (fortunately milk) teeth out on the chest of drawers.

11 or so: stole a relay board from school to connect to a BBC Micro, you wrote lines of code and could turn (12V DC) things on and off, pretty cool. But can you use it to be able to turn your bedroom lights on and off at preset times? Once again a resounding no, blew all the house electrics and set fire to the board, my carpet and nearly the whole house.

First year of high school: how hot is a Bunsen burner? Hotter than a standard mercury thermometer can measure, but the glass end of the thermometer pinging across the room is qute satisfying. As is getting the afternoon off school when they had to evacuate the science block to safely clean up the mercury.

Quite soon after: what happens if you pour ethanol over all the chemistry lab workbenches and set it alight? A massive bollocking, 3 months 'on report' and a several hundred pound bill for new textbooks, which took a while to pay off doing a paper round.

14ish: Riding a BMX (tied to a tree with string so it could be recovered) off approx 20' rock cliff into a river to pull some mad stunts. Attempt 1: nearly castrated myself due to string being too short. Attempt 2: nearly castrated myself again due to landing on bike in quite shallow part of river

I'll add more later when I think of them
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 19:00, 1 reply)

For my psychology degree...
...we had to do a final year project worth a large percentage of our final degree mark. My experiment, entitled "Emotion and ego-depletion: Self-regulatory resource and the exaggeration and suppression of anger." aimed to see whether controlling emotions (specifically anger) had a deleterious effect on other cognitive functions.

This involved a year's worth of planning the experiment, creating the manipulation conditions, literature reviews, meetings with my tutor (the excellently named 'Doctor Ulrich von Hecker'), test runs before I even started my experiment proper. The experiment itself involved 25 hours of sitting in a cupboard-sized room asking unwashed, hungover first years to listen to recorded message telling them how rubbish psychology is (in order to try and make them angry)and then measuring their performance on a few carefully designed tests of self-regulation. Apparently the ethics board thought this was all dubious, and so I had to then play these freshers Bill Withers' 'Lovely Day' in order to ensure that they left in a more positive frame of mind...Finally I had to statistically analyse my results and write 10k words on the whole study, pay £20 to have it bound, and try not to kill myself out of deadline-stress.

So why was this pointelss? Well I found absolutely zero effect at all- every single result was statistically insignificant and I couldn't even make out a vague pattern to my results (some of them even went in the opposite direction to what I had predicted). A year's work on an incredibly dull subject for no reason at all.


Sorry, no hummus here.
( Fishcat Difficult difficult lemon difficult., Fri 25 Jul 2008, 18:44, 2 replies)

Sleeping twice a day!
For around 2 months at university I began sleeping twice a day for around 4 hours at a time.

It actually worked incredibly well. I would get up, go to lectures, come home and sleep, get up again and go out, come home and sleep.

However, repeatedly doing this had some dangerous effects on my brain, my mind and my head. I'd frequently forget which day it was and would drift in and out of other people's lives. It's also a complete pain in the arse when you rise from your sleep at 5 in the morning, fresh as a daisy and hungry, and then have to wait for around 3 hours before you can go to the shop and get some food in.

I generally found that my productivity increased, mainly due to being awake for several hours while no-one else was. It all came to a head (and probably luckily enough) around a month before my first year exams. Waking up at 9 and rushing to get changed for a revision lecture, I stumbled the short walk over to my course building to discover all of the doors were locked and I couldn't get in. I probably should have guessed from the strangely high amount of people walking around without bags that it was in fact 9 at night.

There ended the experiment. Conclusion: Too confusing.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 18:26, 1 reply)

Don't talk to me about pointless experiments.
It brings back the PhD nightmares.
( giant_squid, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 18:18, 1 reply)

NUMB = POINTLESS
Oirish goilfriond flies over hiding a gram of chaz in her stocking toe and tells me about how ahe had read that it is best taken on the end of my knob while shagging without a condom. I think she also mumbled something about passing through the blood brain barrier more efficiently and the avoidance of looking like Danielle Westbrook at a nose-ring convention.

I am pursuaded of the idea - entirely for the sake of scientific discovery mind you, not coz I'm on for a bareback shag at long last.

Three hours later of constant churning with a numb but magnificently hard knob I verify this was an utterly pointless experiment from my point of view. Strangely she didn't agree but she always was a selfish cow.

P.S. If trying to replicate this do try to remember not to cut it up into lines with the razor after it has been sprinkled on the bell end. Otherwise length may be severally compromised - unlike here.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:41, Reply)

Another fun experiment...
Continuing with the sex theme...

I had a relationship with a woman a while back that was more a friends-with-benefits arrangement than anything else. She was divorced with one kid- a ten year old daughter- so she didn't want the complications of an actual boyfriend. So on nights when her daughter wasn't there she'd give me a call and I'd come over, look through her refrigerator and use whatever I found within to make us dinner while we drank martinis. This would be followed by all kinds of energetic sex, then a deep sleep until she rousted me out in the wee hours of the morning. (It was about as perfect a setup as I could have asked for, really. It only ended when she was in a crash and broke a vertebra and couldn't have sex for about a year, and we drifted apart.)

Anyway, she especially loved me to go down on her and get her off that way a few times. I was happy to do so of course, and she had a nice vibrator she liked me to use at the same time with a curved end to hit the g-spot.

One night as I was getting warmed up I was using my fingers inside her instead of the toy, and she was really getting into it. I had two of them in her already, and wondered: how many can I fit inside her? In went a third, and her writhing told me how it was affecting her. I added the pinky and twisted my hand around as I did so, and she gasped and bucked.

Hi ho, we're onto something here.

I applied a bit of lube to my hand, then formed my fingers into a point with my thumb tucked in the middle. I started working it in and out and twisting my hand around as I did so, and her moans got louder. I worked her with my tongue and twisted my hand again- and it disappeared inside of her.

BIG moans now, and clawing at sheets.

I was rather shocked at this point, but obviously it was working. I gently worked my hand around inside of her, and for a time I was worried about whether or not she was going to break my wrist. Then she gave a scream and clenched hard and a bit of fluid shot out across the bed, and she lay back limp and gasping. I withdrew my hand and went to wash up, and when I came back she had a dreamy smile and told me that was the most intense orgasm she'd ever had.

I repeated that experiment with her quite a few times after that.

However, should you be tempted to give it a try, be careful- make sure your fingernails are short and filed, use LOTS of lube, and don't try to force it. To date she's the only one I've ever managed to do this with, although I've tried with others. But damn, that was fun...
(Shimrod, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:38, 5 replies)

dont play frisbee
with the lid off a tin.

Ask my brother...

he cried alot.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:30, 2 replies)

I once jumped off the top of the stairs
with a plastic bag round my shoulders. as a make shift parachute. A handle over each shoulder...

needless to say - it had the wind resistant properties of a flag.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:27, Reply)

Q: Does touching the (heated) hob of a cooker
Burn your finger?

A: Yes. Involves tears and weeks of recovery.

Why has curiosity forsaken me?
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:24, 2 replies)

At work..
..they supply us with brekfasty type stuff in a little kitchen.

My experiment to see if colleagues could see thatI had mixed in some insanely hot red chilli in with the strawbery jam was very, very successful..
( Signify, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:18, Reply)

Electrictrickery
It's a wonder I didn't do serious damage to myself as a child. This was back in the 70s when parents threw you outside for the day during summer holidays and, if you returned in one piece eight hours later then everything was fine. Similarly, if it was raining, you spent your afternoons in the your bedroom 'making things', usually out of Lego.

It was on one such afternoon that I decided to do 'an experiment'. I had no idea what I wanted to prove or disprove but the 'experiment' consisted of me getting some copper wire from a building site, jamming it into a plug socket and then seeing what happened when I flicked the switch.
Nothing.
So I touched the wires.
Conclusion? Electric feels funny and makes you feel sick.
I later applied this knowledge by pulling my dad's music centre apart and touching what I later found out to be capacitors with a screwdriver. Which promptly flew out of my hand and lodged itself into a wall opposite.
Electricity be a cruel mistress...
(Ghostlight, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 17:03, 3 replies)

An experiment in national stereotyping...
In an effort to understand the truths behind certain behavioural stereotypes among various nations, I decided to use the international nature of my job to conduct an experiment: How do different nationalities respond to the floating of an air biscuit within a confined space; i.e. a lift?

The idea came to me when I myself was subjected to the malodorous passing of bum gas in an elevator I had the displeasure to be contained within. The response among the exclusively British crowd was typical. And as I joined my compatriots in an understated, frown fuelled protest at the noxious violation of our senses, a thought occurred to me: "I wonder how other nations would respond in such circumstances".

I reasoned that a group of acquaintances would be more vocal, a thought that I had confirmed upon dropping my bat in a friend filled car. And so, with the responses of each control group logged in my brain, I set about seeking opportunities to further explore my thoughts on the matter.

Unfortunately my rectum proved reluctant to perform on demand and several chances were missed, leading me to wonder whether this would be an entirely fruitless pursuit.

Then, as luck would have it, once the lift doors had slid shut at the foot of a particularly tall building one of the multinational occupants (which may or may not have been me) of the soon to be highly unpleasant lift emitted a controlled, comfortably silent but viciously deadly anal expulsion.

I'd like to say the response was a curious blend of reactions; from outright indignation through mild amusement to uncontrolled, roll about the floor hysteria. Alas I was gravely disappointed. In truth, apart from some slight sniggering that appeared to be coming from my own face, there was little beyond a very uncomfortable silence and a complete absence of eye contact.

Result: More research required.
( Moey, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 16:56, 2 replies)

Crispy Cock
Chris Peacock (old TV prsenter on 'South Today') was once admitted to Southampton General Hospital with an electric toothbrush lodged in his colon, according to my mate's mum who worked there.

We all suspected a whiff of the 'Jimmy Hills' about it, but one day old Crispy was doing an outside broadcast at Winchester Cathedral where our little coven of morons was loafing around.

'Oi, Crispy, get that toothbrush out yer arse' shouted some wag - at this point all colour drained from his pinched face and he ran - literally ran - out of the cathedral grounds.

Perhaps not an entirely pointless experiment but one her certainly lived to regret....
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 25 Jul 2008, 16:51, 1 reply)