chemical experiments gone wrong

14 Experiments Gone Wrong

From psychological studies that would never pass ethical muster in the present day to disastrous new product launches, here are some experiments gone horrifically wrong, adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube.

1. Winthrop Kellogg's Ape Experiment

In the early 1930s, comparative psychologist Winthrop Kellogg and his wife welcomed a healthy baby boy they named Donald. The psychologist had grown interested in those stories of children who were raised feral—but he didn’t send Donald to be raised by wolves. He did the opposite: He managed to get his hands on a similar-aged baby chimp named Gua and raised her alongside Donald.

Gua initially did better than Donald in tests that included things like memory, scribbling, strength, dexterity, reflexes, problem-solving, climbing, language comprehension, and more. But she eventually plateaued, and it became evident that no amount of equal treatment was going to make her behave more like a human (for example, she was never going to be able to speak English).

But when the Kelloggs ended the experiment, they did so abruptly and without much explanation, which is contrary to the meticulous records they otherwise took throughout the course of the study. While Gua wasn’t showing any signs of picking up English, Donald had started to imitate the vocalizations of his sister from another species—so it’s not hard to speculate why the Kelloggs called it quits.

2. The Stanford Prison Experiment

You may have heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment, a social psychology study gone awry in 1971. The point of the experiment, which was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, was to measure the effect of role-playing and social expectations. Lead researcher Philip Zimbardo had predicted that situations and circumstances dictate how a person acts, not their personalities.

To start, 24 young men were assigned the roles of prison guard or prison inmate, with some held back as alternates. Each was paid $15 per day for his participation in the study, which was supposed to last two weeks. The prisoners were “arrested,” taken to a fake prison in the basement of a school building, then made to wear a dress-like prison uniform with chains around their right ankle.

By the second day, the faux prisoners had revolted. Over the next few days, some of the prisoners were so traumatized that they were pulled out. The experiment was disbanded on day six, after an outside observer witnessed the upsetting events taking place and sounded the alarm.

Many modern-day researchers don’t believe the experiment can be replicated because it doesn’t meet today’s research ethics standards—namely, informed consent. After all, it’s hard to give fully informed consent when there’s no way to predict how events could unfold. Beyond that, some psychologists doubt the core findings of the experiment and claim that the cruelty didn’t emerge organically, but was instead influenced by Zimbardo nudging the experiment in that direction. Zimbardo, however, has defended his results and stated that these criticisms are misrepresenting his study and the experiences of the people in it.

3. Franz Reichelt's Aviator Suit

If there's anything to be said for Franz Reichelt, it's that he had supreme confidence in his own invention. In the early 1900s, Reichelt crafted a parachute from 320 square feet of fabric, all of which folded up into a wearable aviator suit . He had conducted several parachute tests using dummies, which all failed. He pinned the blame on the buildings, saying that they simply weren’t tall enough.

In 1912, Reichelt planned to test his latest version by flinging a dummy from the Eiffel Tower. But when he arrived at the famous landmark, the inventor surprised the waiting crowd by strapping on the parachute suit himself and taking the leap. The parachute didn’t open, however, and Reichelt became a victim of his own invention. (An autopsy reportedly determined that he died of a heart attack on the way down.)

4. McDonald's Bubblegum-Flavored Broccoli

In 2014, McDonald's concluded that they needed to offer more nutritious options for children—which led one mad scientist in Ronald’s test kitchen to come up with bubble gum-flavored broccoli. Luckily for all of us, this horrifying experiment never made it to a Happy Meal near you.

5. William Perkin's Mauve-lous Mistake

In 1856, chemist William Perkin   was experimenting with ways to manufacture a synthetic version of quinine, a tonic water ingredient that also happens to treat malaria. At the time, dyes were only made from things like plant material and insects—but when Perkin was mixing up his latest quinine concoction, he accidentally produced an oily sludge that left a lovely shade of light purple residue. He had unwittingly discovered a way to produce mauve. The color was a smash hit, especially after Queen Victoria donned it for her daughter’s 1858 wedding. 

6. The Michelson-Morley Experiment

Another happy failure is the Michelson-Morley Experiment. The experiment was supposed to detect ether , a substance that carried light waves, according to some scientists. The working theory at the time, in the late 1800s, was that ether was motionless, so the motion of Earth through space would alter the speed of light depending on what direction you were facing.

This was popularly known as “ether wind.” To test the ether wind theory, scientist Albert Michelson invented a device that could theoretically measure changes to the speed of light, thus detecting the supposed ether wind. The device was perfectly accurate, but it didn’t detect any changes in the speed of light. What Michelson and his collaborator Edward Morley discovered—or rather, didn’t discover—eventually led to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, and the realization that the speed of light is a universal constant, and there is no absolute space or absolute time.

7. The Cleveland Indians' 10-Cent Beer Night

In 1974, the Cleveland Indians tinkered with a new promotion to increase game attendance—giving fans the opportunity to purchase an unlimited amount of beer for 10 cents a cup , which wasn't the best idea. The game against the Texas Rangers was an eventful one: memorable events of the evening included a woman running into the Indians’ on-deck circle and flashing the umpire; a naked fan running onto the field and sliding into second base; and a father and son who ran onto the outfield and mooned the bleacher section.

Things took a violent turn when fans launched fireworks into the Rangers’ dugout, and the whole thing eventually turned into an all-out riot, fans against players on both teams. Players were hit with folding chairs, there were numerous fist fights, and some players were injured when they were pelted with rocks. After that, the Cleveland Indians kept 10 cent beer nights, but limited the promotion to two drinks per person.

8. Stubbins Ffirth's Yellow Fever Experiment

Stubbins Ffirth was a medical student who believed that yellow fever wasn’t contagious. To prove it, he tried some awful experiments on himself at the turn of the 19th century.

Ffirth cooked vomit from yellow fever patients on his stove and breathed in the vapors. He dropped the vomit into his eye, into an incision he had made in his left arm, and put drops of a patient’s blood serum into his left leg. Eventually, he was basically drinking shots of black vomit—straight. (He described the taste as “Very slightly acid.”)

How did he Ffirth manage to ingest all of this without falling ill? Well, we now know that Yellow Fever is spread by mosquitoes. So maybe Ffirth was vindicated? Is this just a disgusting experiment gone right ?

Not exactly. We also know now that yellow fever can be spread from human to human through direct bloodstream contact, and Ffirth was deliberately introducing samples to his bloodstream. So how’d he avoid contracting the virus? It’s been proposed that he may have had an immunity from an unrecorded bout of yellow fever earlier in life. Or maybe he just got extremely lucky and the samples he used were virus-free. Either way, if you’re chugging vomit and cutting open your arm to introduce a potentially lethal virus, it’s fair to say that something has gone wrong.

9. Biosphere 2

In the early ‘90s, eight scientists sealed themselves into a 3.14-acre structure in Arizona. The highly-publicized, $200-million experiment was known as Biosphere 2, and according to one of the scientists involved, its goals included “education, eco-technology development and learning how well our eco-laboratory worked.” But the scientists ran into a number of problems that required outside interference in order to continue the experiment, including a lack of sunlight that affected crops, a cockroach infestation, an injured crew member who had to temporarily leave for treatment, and insufficient oxygen.

In recent years, however, the success of Biosphere 2 has been re-evaluated , with some scientists believing that the base message—that humans can live in harmony with our biosphere—was a win in and of itself. And even if the vast investment was viewed as a mistake, the underlying idea remains solid: Similar experiments have been recently conducted to see if we can sustain human life on Mars.

10. The New Ball

Although basketball was originally played with soccer balls, a leather ball has been used since Spalding began manufacturing sport-specific balls in 1894. The basketball has been tweaked here and there over the years, but the modifications apparently went too far when the NBA experimented with a microfiber ball in 2006. “The New Ball,” as it was commonly known, was cheaper to make and was supposed to have the feel of a broken-in basketball right from the start.

Sounds good in theory, but players absolutely hated it. Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, and Dirk Nowitzki complained about the ball to the press. One issue was that the ball apparently became much more slippery than a traditional leather ball when it was wet, which happened frequently when sweaty basketball players were constantly handling it. Some players even reported that their hands were getting cut due to the increased friction of the microfiber surface.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban also commissioned a study from the physics department at the University of Texas at Austin, which found that the ball bounced 5 to 8 percent lower than a traditional leather ball and bounced up to 30 percent more erratically. Feeling deflated, the NBA officially announced they were pulling the ball from play on December 11, 2006—less than three months after its debut in a game.

11. Henry A. Murray's Psychological Experiments

It’s probably safe to say that an experiment falls into the “gone wrong” category when it may have been responsible for producing the Unabomber. As an undergrad at Harvard in the late 1950s and early '60s, Ted Kaczynski participated in a three-year-long study run by Henry A. Murray that explored the effects of stress on the human psyche. After being asked to submit an essay about their worldview and personal philosophies, Kaczynski and 21 other students were interrogated under bright lights, wired to electrodes, and completely torn down for their beliefs. The techniques were intended to “break” enemy agents during the Cold War—and the students were never completely informed about the nature of the study. In short, the man who would eventually kill three people and injure over 20 more with his homemade bombs was subjected to repeated psychological torture.

Kaczynski later described this as the worst experience of his life; still, we can’t assume the study was solely responsible for sending him down the destructive and murderous path he eventually followed. But at the very least, the study is now considered highly unethical and likely wouldn’t pass current ethics standards for research.

12. Wilhelm Reich's Cloudbusters

Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich managed to draw a straight line from human orgasms to the weather to alien invasion. Influenced by Sigmund Freud ’s work on the human libido, Reich extended the concept to propose a kind of widespread energy he called orgone. To give you an idea of how scientifically sound Reich’s concept was, orgone has been compared to the Force in Star Wars . This energy was supposedly responsible for everything from the weather to why the sky is blue. Reich believed orgasms were a discharge of orgone, and that through the manipulation of this energy you could treat neuroses and even cancer.

As bizarre as this all sounds, Reich went even further in the late 1950s, when he became convinced that aliens were spraying the earth with a specific type of radiation to prevent us from using this powerful energy. In order to save the world, he and his son built Cloudbusters, a row of tubes attached to hoses immersed in water and aimed at the sky. The water, they believed, would absorb the radiation.

Did the experiment work? We don’t know for sure, but the FDA didn’t think so. They ordered Reich's various machines and apparatus destroyed, and had him jailed for trying to smuggle them out of state.

13. Duncan MacDougall's Soul Experiments

In 1901, Duncan MacDougall conducted experiments on extremely recently deceased people—and dogs—to see if their body weight changed immediately after death. A decrease in weight, he theorized, would be indicative of a physical soul leaving the body. To test this theory, he weighed six people before and after their deaths, and concluded that there was a weight difference anywhere from half to one and a half ounces (somewhere between one and three compact discs). He repeated the experiment on dogs and found no difference—and therefore, by MacDougall’s reasoning, dogs have no souls.

Other scientists have been critical of this experiment from day one, citing issues like small sample size and imprecise methods of measurement.

14. New Coke

April 23, 1985, was a day that will live in marketing infamy. And that’s how Coke describes the failed experiment that was New Coke . On that day, the Coca-Cola Company debuted a new version of their popular soft drink made from a new and supposedly improved formula. It was the first major change to the product in nearly a century, and it was one that was supported by overwhelmingly positive reviews in taste tests and focus groups.

But once New Coke actually hit the shelves, fans were absolutely outraged. While the taste tests accounted for the actual flavor of the new formula, it couldn’t account for the emotional ties consumers had to the brand history. Fans started hoarding “old” Coke, and complaints poured in to the tune of 1500 calls a day. CEO Roberto Goizueta even received a letter addressed to “Chief Dodo, The Coca-Cola Company.”

The message was received loud and clear. Coke announced the return of Old Coke in July, dubbing it Coca-Cola Classic—and they never experimented with the formula again. Or if they did, they kept it to themselves, and we’re none the wiser.

More than 160 students, teachers nationwide hurt in science experiments gone wrong

by JOCE STERMAN, ALEX BRAUER and ANDREA NEJMAN, Sinclair Broadcast Group

WASHINGTON (SBG) — As many students return to in-person learning, experts are warning about a danger they could face in the classroom: not COVID-19 , but a phenomenon known as flame jetting. It's already injured dozens of students and teachers across the nation in classroom science experiments gone terribly wrong.

Spotlight on America got a firsthand look at the phenomenon known as flame jetting from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives , going behind the scenes at the agency's Fire Research Laboratory in Maryland. As trained and equipped representatives from the ATF demonstrated, the phenomenon can turn a flammable liquid inside a container into a flame thrower, creating a wall of fire that shoots forward with an intense force, torching anything in its path.

According to Jonathan Butta with the ATF, it can happen when alcohols, especially methanol, are used in demonstrations involving an open flame. While the idea is to liven up classroom experiments and give a real-life application to a chemical concept, the results can be tragic. Butta explained, "It essentially turns a typical flammable liquid container into a flamethrower."

"We actually see the flame front propagate up the stream of flammable liquid into that container and expand those vapors and shoot those liquid droplets out with it," said Jonathan Butta with the ATF.

Dozens of students across the country have actually seen flame jetting in action, with tragic consequences. W.T. Woodson High School in Virginia is just one example.

In 2015, a demonstration known as the "Rainbow Experiment" designed to show how burning different salts results in different colors, went wrong at the school. Experts say flame jetting occurred during the experiment, with the tragic outcome detailed in stunning photos . The incident left a classroom at Woodson High School charred and five students injured, including two who had to be airlifted to the hospital with serious burns. Just weeks after the incident, Nick Dache exclusively told our affiliate WJLA , "I think the whole thing was just a freak accident."

Dache actually stepped in to assist one of the students who was burned during the incident. As the young woman ran out of the classroom still on fire, Dache explained he chased her down and used his hands to scuff out the flames on her shirt.

"It almost looked like a blanket. Someone else described it as a fireball," student Nick Dache said of the aftermath of the Rainbow Experiment gone wrong in 2015. "I don't think that's completely accurate because that seems more violent. It got very widespread but it didn't seem super concentrated."

A similar flame jetting incident happened in Ohio in 2006, when student Calais Weber Biery was burned over 40 percent of her body during an experiment in her school's chemistry lab. She's featured in a 2013 Youtube video produced by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board called "After the Rainbow." The video, the organization said, was created in an effort to help prevent classroom accidents in chemistry labs.

"I remember thinking, 'I'm on fire, oh my gosh, I'm on fire,'" student Calais Weber Biery recalled in a Youtube video about the dangers of the Rainbow Experiment. "It's tragic and it shouldn't happen."

Spotlight on America has learned those two incidents are far from isolated. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Chemical Education , an arm of the American Chemical Society , found 164 children and teachers have been injured in classroom demonstrations using flammable solvents since 1988. Additionally, we discovered at least three additional incidents last year alone. Experiments where students and teachers have been injured have happened in the following states:

• North Carolina
• Pennsylvania

The real number of classroom accidents could actually be much higher because Spotlight on America has learned there's no requirement to report accidents to the US Chemical Safety Board , which along with the ACS, has done tremendous outreach, trying to improve experiment safety. In 2015, Kristen Kulinowski, a former member of the USCSB, talked with our affiliate WJLA about the number of accidents in classroom labs, calling them a significant problem. She said, "All of these incidents could have been prevented."

Courts in at least four states including Georgia, Florida, New York and Ohio have agreed, handing over millions in cases filed by students injured in fiery classroom experiments. In one of those cases , nearly $60 million was awarded to a high school student in New York who was badly burned and left with permanent scarring on much of his body as a result of an experiment gone wrong. The award was appealed but just this summer a judge upheld the jury's decision.

For years, some safety advocates have called for banning experiments involving flammable solvents and open flames altogether, while others have lobbied for mandating specific safety protocols to protect students in the classroom. For its part, the ACS has dedicated an entire section of its website to provide resources for educators on how to safely conduct demonstrations and experiments in the classroom. Their efforts even include showing teachers a safe, alternative way to conduct the Rainbow Experiment without putting students at risk.

A student burned his eye in a University of Utah lab. The U. knew about dangers beforehand, an audit finds, but didn’t take action.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah chemical engineering students Shaylee Larson, center, and Kevin Ngo work with Chemical Engineering Associate Professor (Lecturer) Tony Butterfield in the Meldrum Innovation Lab on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, on an experiment involving turning algae into biofuel. A critical lab audit came out about the University of Utah.

The student was working on an experiment with sodium hydroxide — a solution that can melt a soda can in seconds and dissolve a chicken wing to the bone.

The chemical compound, known as lye, is perfect for research because it’s so corrosive. But that also makes it dangerous to handle. As the student carried a beaker across the lab at the University of Utah, some of it splashed and landed in his eye.

Covering his face with one hand, he ran around the room looking for an emergency eyewash. There wasn’t one. So he dodged down hallway after hallway in the science building. Thirty seconds later, he was able to flush his face with water. But his cornea had already been severely burned.

Two months before that July 2017 accident, the lab was inspected and found to have nine major deficiencies, including the missing eyewash, no chemical hygiene plan, no safety instructions, improper chemical labels and no spill kit. A year after, those issues were still not resolved.

In fact, they were not addressed until August 2018, after another student was burned on his legs and feet.

Those injuries — and a handful of others — are documented in a new state audit released Tuesday. The report condemns U. administrators and the school’s health and safety team for allowing a hazardous lab environment across all science departments.

Auditors said the U. has known about serious deficiencies for years. It hired a consultant in 2017 to review its research practices. But it never put into place the recommendations to reduce risks, such as requiring staff to wear protective lab coats and restricting the volume of caustic chemicals that students can use. Since then, similar accidents have repeated nearly every year.

And if the state’s flagship research institution continues to ignore the issues and delay fixes, the audit said, it’s at risk for much worse injuries, maybe deaths.

“Any given one of them could be very serious or unfortunate,” said Brian Dean, audit manager for the Office of the Utah Legislative Auditor General. “Ultimately, this system is broken. The department that is required to [oversee] this isn’t tracking the problems.”

The audit comes after a trio of high-profile tragedies at other research universities in the country; it was requested by state lawmakers who feared similar events could happen at the U. In 2008, a researcher at UCLA died after she spilled a chemical on her torso and the highly reactive liquid caught fire. In 2010, a graduate student at Texas Tech University lost three fingers from a chemical burn. In 2016, a lab assistant at the University of Hawaii had her arm amputated after an explosion.

In all three of those cases, like at the University of Utah, the schools knew about lab shortcomings beforehand and had failed to address them, the audit states.

Dean said the U. still has time to course-correct.

In a written response to the audit, U. President Ruth Watkins agreed with its findings. Ultimately, the report concludes that, as president since early 2018, she is responsible for ensuring the school’s labs are safe. She said the U. has started adding and replacing fume hoods and emergency washes in its labs.

“The findings of this audit are of such importance," she noted, “that the university administration has already begun implementing changes to most effectively address the challenges and opportunities that were identified.”

Watkins also said administrators will work to communicate better with the U.’s Department of Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety, which reviews the labs on campus each year. The audit dinged both for not coordinating. Staff members at Health and Safety weren’t reporting the deficiencies to top leaders at the school and the school’s leaders weren’t asking for more information in annual presentations. Because of that breakdown, no necessary changes were being addressed.

As part of the fixes, the computer system for tracking research deficiencies will be updated so that it’s easier to see which labs have issues and which ones aren’t improving. Right now, there is no central platform for that data.

The school will report back to the Legislature in October. It currently points to its new Meldrum Innovation Lab in the College of Engineering as a model for safety. Students must complete a safety course to work in there.

The audit looked specifically at lab inspections between 2016 and 2018. When Health and Safety identified a problem one year, it persisted the next year in the same lab 49 percent of the time, auditors found. Half of all labs had one major deficiency. And the safety reviewers rarely stressed any urgency to fix them and never followed up.

Andrew Weyrich, the recently named vice president for research at the U., spoke to members of the legislative audit subcommittee Tuesday about how the school is restructuring the chain of command so those gaps won’t happen.

“The university in the past has looked and cataloged some of the deficiencies,” he acknowledged. “But we do need to change the culture. We have a lot of labs that are great, but we have work to do.”

The biggest problems highlighted in the audit were researchers not completing annual safety training and not updating their chemical spill protocols. Other issues included those working with blood-borne pathogens not having the hepatitis B vaccine and those working with animals not filling out health questionnaires.

Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City, said those issues greatly concern her because the safety of students and staff are on the line. “There need to be policies in place that everyone follows," she noted.

Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, looked at the U.'s staff sitting in front of the audit subcommittee and added: “You better get this fixed.”

In a 2016 survey by the school, several researchers wrote about the dangerous environment in the science departments. One said there was a “laissez faire” attitude toward safety. Another noted that “there appears to be no verification and no repercussions here.”

A third wrote: “With the open environment of many labs on campus, I am concerned that just a few that do not follow safety procedures can expose many people to infectious material.”

Many people working in the labs don’t wear protective equipment.

In 2017, just 12 percent reported wearing lab coats and 16 percent said they put on goggles. Those are both dips from the previous year. The audit calls that “clearly unacceptable.”

In February 2018, a U. researcher was showing students an experiment at the front of a lab. The chemical she was using was highly reactive with air and caught on fire after she accidentally spilled it. She was wearing a lab coat — which protected her torso — but didn’t have on the proper gloves and her hands were covered with burns and blisters.

She was using the same chemical that killed the UCLA researcher in 2008.

“That coat protected the researcher’s body,” said Tim Bereece, the audit’s supervisor. “It could have been so much worse. … Coats are required when you’re working in the labs. Their use at the U. is very low.”

The auditors implored the school to take precautions now before a more serious incident or a lawsuit. Students and staff working in labs often use chemicals that are hazardous, cancer-causing, flammable and corrosive.

Bereece added: “They know about this. But action hasn’t been taken.”

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Third-grade science experiment gone wrong sends 18 students, teacher to Tennessee hospital

A science experiment gone wrong at a Tennessee elementary school sent 18 students and a teacher to the hospital on Friday, officials said.

The third-graders at Vena Stuart Elementary in Gallatin were conducting science experiments with an outside presenter and several said they began feeling sick after an experiment with dry ice, news outlets reported, citing a statement from Sumner County Schools.

• Read more of the latest international headlines
• Top science and technology headlines, all in one place

Several children became nauseous and school administrators called emergency responders, who transported the students and teacher as a precaution, Sumner County Schools' Director Scott Langford said in a video posted to social media.

The school statement said everyone transported was in good condition and Langford said they were all released later in the day.

Fire crews also assessed and ventilated the room where the experiment took place.

Langford said officials were thankful for the quick response from school administration and first responders.

“They acted quickly and our students are safe,” he said. 

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Science News

These are science’s top 10 erroneous results.

Mistakes from the past demonstrate the reliability of science

By Tom Siegfried

Contributing Correspondent

November 10, 2020 at 6:00 am

Astronomers viewing supernova 1987A, pictured here, thought they saw a signal from a rapidly spinning neutron star too bizarre to comprehend. But the signal turned out to come from a quirk in the electronics of a camera used to aim the telescope.

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To err is human, which is really not a very good excuse.

And to err as a scientist is worse, of course, because depending on science is supposed to be the best way for people to make sure they’re right. But since scientists are human (most of them, anyway), even science is never free from error. In fact, mistakes are fairly common in science, and most scientists tell you they wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s because making mistakes is often the best path to progress. An erroneous experiment may inspire further experiments that not only correct the original error, but also identify new previously unsuspected truths.

Still, sometimes science’s errors can be rather embarrassing. Recently much hype accompanied a scientific report about the possibility of life on Venus. But instant replay review has now raised some serious concerns about that report’s conclusion. Evidence for the gas phosphine, a chemical that supposedly could be created only by life (either microbes or well-trained human chemists), has started to look a little shaky. ( See the story by well-trained Science News reporter Lisa Grossman.)

While the final verdict on phosphine remains to be rendered, it’s a good time to recall some of science’s other famous errors. We’re not talking about fraud here, or just bad ideas that were worth floating but flopped instead, or initial false positives due to statistical randomness. Rather, let’s just list the Top 10 erroneous scientific conclusions that got a lot of attention before ultimately getting refuted. (With one exception, there will be no names, for the purpose here is not to shame.)

10.  A weird form of life

A report in 2010 claimed that a weird form of life incorporates arsenic in place of phosphorus in biological molecules. This one sounded rather suspicious, but the evidence, at first glance, looked pretty good. Not so good at second glance , though. And arsenic-based life never made it into the textbooks.

9. A weird form of water

In the 1960s, Soviet scientists contended that they had produced a new form of water. Ordinary water flushed through narrow tubes became denser and thicker, boiled at higher than normal temperatures and froze at much lower temperatures than usual. It seemed that the water molecules must have been coagulating in some way to produce “polywater.” By the end of the 1960s chemists around the world had begun vigorously pursuing polywater experiments. Soon those experiments showed that polywater’s properties came about from the presence of impurities in ordinary water.

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8. Neutrinos, faster than light

Neutrinos are weird little flyweight subatomic particles that zip through space faster than Usain Bolt on PEDs. But not as fast as scientists claimed in 2011, when they timed how long it took neutrinos to fly from the CERN atom smasher near Geneva to a detector in Italy. Initial reports found that the neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds sooner than a beam of light would. Faster-than-light neutrinos grabbed some headlines, evoked disbelief from most physicists and induced Einstein to turn over in his grave. But sanity was restored in 2012 , when the research team realized that a loose electrical cable knocked the experiment’s clocks out of sync, explaining the error.

7. Gravitational waves from the early universe

All space is pervaded by microwave radiation, the leftover glow from the Big Bang that kicked the universe into action 13.8 billion years ago. A popular theory explaining details of the early universe —  called inflation — predicts the presence of blips in the microwave radiation caused by primordial gravitational waves from the earliest epochs of the universe.

In 2014, scientists reported finding precisely the signal expected, simultaneously verifying the existence of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity and providing strong evidence favoring inflation. Suspiciously, though, the reported signal was much stronger than expected for most versions of inflation theory. Sure enough, the team’s analysis had not properly accounted for dust in space that skewed the data. Primordial gravitational waves remain undiscovered, though their more recent cousins, produced in cataclysmic events like black hole collisions, have been repeatedly detected in recent years .

6. A one-galaxy universe

In the early 20th century, astronomers vigorously disagreed on the distance from Earth of fuzzy cloudlike blobs shaped something like whirlpools (called spiral nebulae). Most astronomers believed the spiral nebulae resided within the Milky Way galaxy, at the time believed to comprise the entire universe. But a few experts insisted that the spirals were much more distant, themselves entire galaxies like the Milky Way, or “island universes.” Supposed evidence against the island universe idea came from measurements of internal motion in the spirals. It would be impossible to detect such motion if the spirals were actually way far away. But by 1924, Edwin Hubble established with certainty that at least sone of the spiral nebulae were in fact island universes, at vast distances from the Milky Way. Those measurements of internal motion were difficult to make — and they just turned out to be wrong.

5. A supernova’s superfast pulsar

Astronomers rejoiced in 1987 when a supernova appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the closest such stellar explosion to Earth in centuries. Subsequent observations sought a signal from a pulsar, a spinning neutron star that should reside in the middle of the debris from some types of supernova explosions. But the possible pulsar remained hidden until January 1989, when a rapidly repeating radio signal indicated the presence of a superspinner left over from the supernova. It emitted radio beeps nearly 2,000 times a second — much faster than anybody expected (or could explain). But after one night of steady pulsing, the pulsar disappeared. Theorists raced to devise clever theories to explain the bizarre pulsar and what happened to it. Then in early 1990, telescope operators rotated a TV camera (used for guiding the telescope) back into service, and the signal showed up again — around a different supernova remnant. So the supposed signal was actually a quirk in the guide camera’s electronics — not a message from space.

4. A planet orbiting a pulsar

In 1991, astronomers reported the best case yet for the existence of a planet around a star other than the sun. In this case, the “star” was a pulsar, a spinning neutron star about 10,000 light-years from Earth. Variations in the timing of the pulsar’s radio pulses suggested the presence of a companion planet, orbiting its parent pulsar every six months. Soon, though, the astronomers realized that they had used an imprecise value for the pulsar’s position in the sky in such a way that the signal anomaly resulted not from a planet, but from the Earth’s motion around the sun.

3. Age of Earth

In the 1700s, French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffonestimated an Earth age of about 75,000 years, while acknowledging it might be much older. And geologists of the 19th century believe it to be older still — hundreds of millions of years or more — in order to account for the observation of layer after layer of Earth’s buried history. After 1860, Charles Darwin’s new theory of evolution also implied a very old Earth, to provide time for the diversity of species to evolve. But a supposedly definite ruling against such an old Earth came from a physicist who calculated how long it would take an originally molten planet to cool. He applied an age limit of about 100 million years, and later suggested that the actual age might even be much less than that. His calculations were in error, however — not because he was bad at math, but because he didn’t know about radioactivity.

Radioactive decay of elements in the Earth added a lot of heat into the mix, prolonging the cooling time. Eventually estimates of the Earth’s age based on rates of radioactive decay ( especially in meteorites that formed around the same time as the Earth) provided the correct current age estimate of 4.5 billion years or so.

2. Age of the universe

When astronomers first discovered that the universe was expanding, at the end of the 1920s, it was natural to ask how long it had been expanding. By measuring the current expansion rate and extrapolating backward, they found that the universe must be less than 2 billion years old. Yet radioactivity measurements had already established the Earth to be much older, and it was very doubtful (as in impossibly ridiculous) that the universe could be younger than the Earth. Those early calculations of the universe’s expansion, however, had been based on distance measurements relying on Cepheid variable stars.

Astronomers calculated the Cepheids’ distances based on how rapidly their brightness fluctuated, which in turn depended on their intrinsic brightness. Comparing intrinsic brightness to apparent brightness provided a Cepheid’s distance, just as you can gauge the distance of a lightbulb if you know its wattage (oh yes, and what kind of lightbulb it is). It turned out, though, that just like lightbulbs, there is more than one kind of Cepheid variable , contaminating the expansion rate calculations. Nowadays converging methods give an age of the universe of 13.8 billion years, making the Earth a relative newcomer to the cosmos.

1. Earth in the middle

OK, we’re going to name and blame Aristotle for this one. He wasn’t the first to say that the Earth occupies the center of the universe, but he was the most dogmatic about it, and believed he had established it to be incontrovertibly true — by using logic. He insisted that the Earth must be in the middle because earth (the element) always sought to move toward its “natural place,” the center of the cosmos. Even though Aristotle invented formal logic, he apparently did not notice a certain amount of circularity in his argument. It took a while, but in 1543 Copernicus made a strong case for Aristotle being mistaken. And then in 1610 Galileo’s observation that Venus went through a full set of phases sealed the case for a sun-centered solar system.

Now, it would be nice if there were a lesson in this list of errors that might help scientists do better in the future. But the whole history of science shows that such errors are actually unavoidable. There is a lesson, though, based on what the mistakes on this list have in common: They’re all on a list of errors now known to be errors. Science, unlike certain political philosophies and personality cults, corrects its mistakes. That’s the lesson, and that’s why respecting science is so important to avoiding errors in other realms of life.

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What I learned from my lab accident

Researchers should feel empowered to improve safety culture before accidents happen, by francesca lorandi, special to c&en, june 17, 2022 | a version of this story appeared in volume 100, issue 22.

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In February of this year, I was injured in an accident in a chemistry laboratory. I had set up an experiment that involved the separate use of hydrogen and oxygen gases fed into a glove box from compressed cylinders located in the lab. Though this was a well-established experimental procedure in my research group, something caused an explosion. The specific cause of the accident is still under investigation.

When the explosion occurred, the experiment had been paused for a few hours, and I was standing by the glove box. I spent 7 days in the hospital undergoing surgery for wounds on my face and neck and getting splints and implants for dental trauma. A neck fracture meant I had to wear a brace for 2 months. There are also invisible consequences that I’m still discovering day by day. I’m not confronting them on my own: I ask for help or talk to my partner, family, mentors, friends, and colleagues.

Related: Comment: What does empowerment of safety leaders in graduate research look like?

The accident triggered extensive discussions at my institution about safety measures in all the departments that conduct potentially hazardous experiments. Department heads and safety services are implementing changes. Importantly, these changes are aimed at germinating a culture of safety rather than just implementing stricter regulations and promising compliance.

Other institutions should not wait for a severe accident to happen before taking similar action. Regulations must not be written in blood; we already have the tools to prevent accidents from happening.

My colleagues and I often perceive any safety-related matter as subtracting precious time from our research—and forget that being able to assess risks associated with substances and procedures is an integral part of our job. The procedure I was performing was clearly hazardous, but no one had ever captured it in a standard operating procedure (SOP) with a dedicated risk assessment. It is hard to say whether an SOP would have helped prevent this accident. But it could have made my colleagues and me more aware of the possible risks and increased our understanding of the experiment and chemistry behind it.

Related: Reactions: Peer keeping should accompany near-miss reporting

Inspections are another measure that can make labs safer. I spent over 3 years as a postdoc in the US before returning to Italy, my home country, in the summer of 2021. At my US institution, the environmental health and safety team conducted periodic inspections. To be ready, our research group established lab cleaning days, which were followed by internal inspections conducted by researchers designated as safety officers. We discussed every issue during group meetings. It was clear that the purpose of both types of inspections was not punishment but prevention and education.

Unfortunately, such inspections, along with hazard-specific safety training, are less common at institutions outside the US. Many researchers and academic staff simply do not know where to find information about specific risks, mitigation procedures, or best practices. As always in our job, a bit of literature search can help! Plenty of useful resources are out there, starting with ACS Chemical Health & Safety (although I admit that I had never read it before my accident). Accident and near-miss reports, lists of practices, and recommendations complemented by surveys and statistics are available for us to read and implement. Lab leaders should also encourage us to share our own experiences to help the community at large.

Related: How to create a supportive mental health environment in your lab

Principal investigators are not the only people who can act on safety issues. Students and young researchers are the most vulnerable and therefore must be directly involved in lab-safety management. For example, assigning a student the role of safety officer gives them a sense of responsibility that helps overcome the fear of reporting small accidents and hazardous or negligent behaviors. Some departments have instituted safety teams led by student researchers , the main objective being to foster effective safety communication and strengthen the safety culture within the institution. Such teams can be amazing opportunities for young researchers to make sure their voices are heard.

Researchers at any career stage must constantly strive for improved safety practices and culture. They must oppose positions that are a threat to safety, such as, “It was done this way for years and nothing happened” or “That stuff is not so bad; you just need to know how to handle it.” And institutional and departmental leaders need to ensure researchers have support and resources they can rely on to work safely.

Francesca Lorandi is a researcher developing materials for energy-storage devices at the University of Padova’s Department of Industrial Engineering. The views expressed here are hers, not those of the university.

Do you have a story you want to share with the chemistry community? Send a submission of about 800 words to cenopinion@acs.org .

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8 Stories of Lab Safety Gone Wrong

Laboratories are hazardous places. Handling dangerous chemicals and performing experiments puts scientists and their colleagues at risk of injury or even death. Lab safety has come a long way over the years and common-sense safety requirements minimize risks to lab users, even so accidents do still happen. We spoke with a number of scientific groups to hear their stories of scientists tempting fate and narrowly escaping the jaws of death, and we present the top 8 in this list. 1. Smoking Whilst Handling Ether

An anonymous submission, "During my time as an ERASMUS student in Portugal I was amazed by the lack of safety precautions in the chemistry lab I was working in. In particular, there was one PhD student who enjoyed smoking in the lab. I watched part in amazement, part in horror as, smoking whilst working with ether, he set himself on fire. He was quickly extinguished, only to reignite a further three times. Luckily, he escaped unscathed and smoking in the lab was quietly banned shortly after." 2. Methylated Spirits Vs Bunsen Burner

Caroline Nash, Biomedical Scientist at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, UK,  tells us, “A chap in our lab spilled methylated spirits near a Bunsen burner, so it naturally caught fire. He threw his lab coat on the fire to put it out, which promptly caught fire as well.” 3. Blast Blows Out Basement Lab

Mike Stephens, the recently-retired Director of Health and Safety for Medical Research Council (MRC), UK, recalls some stories from his career working within Academia, Industry and for the MRC.  “A scientist was working with Peroxy-sulphuric acid, which is a highly unstable mixture made by mixing sulphuric acid and hydrogen peroxide in an ice bath. He was doing this with low volumes in a containment hood, behind a blast screen.  I’m not sure what happened exactly, but we were working in the building above and there was this almighty ‘BANG!’ which set the fire alarms off and we had to evacuate the building. The scientist and his grad student emerged from the bunker they had been working in, looking shell-shocked but unhurt. In fact, the only injury sustained from the experience happened when the scientist sat down on a low-wall and promptly jumped up in pain as he had sat on a shard of glass from a broken beer glass from the student bar next-door, cutting his buttock. Further inspection of the room, however, revealed the blast screen was peppered with debris and no doubt saved his and his student’s lives. 4. Ether Fireball Sinks Lab

Mike also told us about a not-so-bright postgraduate student that emptied the last dregs of his ether bottle down the catch-pot sink on his bench. The plumbing was such that all the sinks on the bench were connected and drained into the main drain under the sink at the end of the bench. Having emptied the ether in the catch-pot sink furthest away from the main sink at the end of the bench, the ether had moved down the entire length of the drain pipe. When another scientist in the lab lit a Bunsen and tossed their splint in the big sink to extinguish the flame, a fireball promptly erupted from the plug hole and travelled along the drain pipe, erupting from all the pot sinks sequentially, all the way up the bench.  5. Alarming Aluminum Sets Lab Ablaze

An anonymous chemist retells stories from his time as a student in the lab, “This story concerns aluminium reagents, which are very reactive particularly with water. Another student working in the lab had disposed of lithium aluminium hydride in the aluminium residues disposal tub without quenching/destroying the reagent. I had been using di-isobutyl aluminium hydride and quenched my reaction with water and filtered off the aluminium residues. I disposed of my (wet) aluminium waste without knowing there was live reagent in the waste tub. After disposing I was chatting with a colleague, next to the fumehood, and it went pop and spat out a small flame. This was in the same fumehood that contained waste solvent which is obviously highly flammable. So, we moved the tub into a separate hood, remarking upon the extraordinary heat generated in the tub. We began passing it around, showing people how hot it had become. Within minutes of placing it back and fetching some ice water to calm it down it had erupted into a fireball and consumed the fumehood, flames were licking out the bottom beneath the fumehood sash. Eight fire extinguishers later, we all learned the importance of quenching/working up and destroying reactive materials appropriately. 6. Getting Your fingers Burnt by Science

An anonymous submission tells of the trials of being a teaching assistant, "As a postgraduate helping out in undergraduate labs, it never ceased to amaze me what the scientists of tomorrow could get up to. A particular bright spark came to me to complain that his stirrer hotplate wasn’t heating so I asked him to show me. His response was to place his hand directly on the – now hot – hotplate burning himself in the progress. When I asked him 'why he did that?', he said that it didn’t get hot straightaway so thought it was broken and this was the best way to demonstrate the problem. We had to explain that touching hot things with your bare hands is not the best idea – with his hand in ice, he nodded in agreement. 7. Hectic Aseptic: Ethanol Bench Fire

Another story delivered to us anonymously is of a scientist who was smearing bacteria onto an agar plate. The plate was centered under the Bunsen burner providing the aseptic environment, to the left was a bottle of ethanol for sterilizing the scientist’s loop, and to the right a packet of Kim wipes. As the scientist picked up their loop and went to sterilize it in the ethanol they knocked the ethanol all over the bench. As they then grabbed tissues to mop up the spillage they moved their handful of tissues through the Bunsen flame on their return arc, igniting the tissue and then subsequently the ethanol, which had rapidly spread over the bench and was now pouring onto the floor. They next tried to stamp out the flames, but were wearing paper over-shoes which also caught fire, melting the scientist’s shoes.   8. Best in Class: Thermite Demonstration leads to Magnesium Fire

A story from an ex high-school science teacher who wishes to remain anonymous gives us an insight into the teaching practices of science teacher’s in the UK in the 1970’s, “I was demonstrating the thermite reaction in the lab.” Thermite, a mixture of iron (III) oxide and aluminium in powder form ignited by a large amount of heat, burns at 2,500ᵒC. “A spark landed in an open tin of magnesium powder, which should have been sealed, and subsequently caught fire. I put the tin in a sink, which turned out to be made of plastic, and so the tin burnt straight through the bottom of the sink. I tried to put the fire out with a fire blanket, as there was no bucket of sand nearby, but that also caught fire. The situation was made worse by the fact that the demo sink was by the fire exit, blocking the students’ exit from the room. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but the episode did lead to the whole school reviewing its safety procedures, an extra fire door being added to science labs, and all plastic sinks being replaced with ceramic ones and buckets of sand were included in every lab.” Do you have a lab safety story you think we should feature? Send it to [email protected]  

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When Experiments Go Wrong

Laboratory safety is a priority for all. We need to get better at sharing data on hazardous chemical reactions.

Carmen Nitsche | 07/14/2017

In February 2017, a PhD student at the University of Bristol in the UK was conducting a routine experiment. An unanticipated reaction created triacetone triperoxide – a highly explosive substance – and the emergency services were called to carry out a controlled explosion. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the incident highlights how easy it is to unintentionally create a hazardous chemical or unwanted reaction, particularly in a research institution.

A chemical reaction doesn’t have to create an explosion to be hazardous. Depending on the scale of the reaction, reagents can violently interact to shatter glassware, spew forth toxic gases or burst into flame. There are numerous books, databases and other resources available that outline reagent safety information, but what would be more beneficial is a searchable, freely available database on unintended reaction incidents and near-misses. Such practical information does exist of course – but it’s often locked in internal silos, where it is difficult to find and share even within a company, much less across organizations (nobody likes to admit when an experiment has gone horribly wrong...).

As the life sciences industry relies on experimentation to develop new products, there is no way to eliminate risks entirely. However, the same negative incidents should never happen twice. Researchers need access to previously reported dangers. To this end, The Pistoia Alliance has recently developed the Chemical Safety Library Service. The service allows the research community to submit, store and share hazardous chemical reaction information.

The library has been seeded by members of The Pistoia Alliance, with a number of incidents from their archives. Members can add and share their chemistry reaction-related incidents and learnings – and the content is free to download and integrate for use with internal informatics systems, such as electronic lab notebooks or inventory systems. These systems can also be configured to alert scientists if there is a potential known safety risk before they carry out an experiment.

Since the majority of safety information falls in the precompetitive arena, sharing this kind of experience should be straightforward. Moreover, in cases that do involve proprietary components, the Chemical Safety Library offers a function to convey these important safety learnings without revealing company intellectual property.

The Pistoia Alliance is a global not-for-profit organization that intends to help lower the barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D – and one of our key focuses is collaboration. Our library service could help increase laboratory safety, but we need the life sciences community to embrace this effort.

Following the launch of the Chemical Safety Library Service in March 2017, requests for access have been overwhelming. The positive response shows just how much the industry is looking for such a resource. But looking is not enough! Ultimately, the more data the Chemical Safety Library contains, the more useful it becomes to the entire industry. We need companies to move beyond their reticence to share and to add data on hazardous chemical reactions. The process only takes a few minutes. Safety is everyone’s concern and now every researcher can embrace the responsibility and do something constructive about it.

For more information, visit www.pistoiaalliance.org/projects/chemical-safety-library/

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Carmen Nitsche is a Business Development Consultant at The Pistoia Alliance, USA.

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What Potentially Fatal Things Did You Do When You First Learned Chemistry?

by Connor Michael | Jan 2, 2019 | Lab Safety

"What potentially fatal things did you do when you first learned chemistry?" This question was recently posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo in the wake of the lab accident that killed three researchers at Jiaotong University in Beijing on December 26.

The question has provoked much reaction among research bloggers, causing some to reflect on their own near-miss stories. Here is one of the many frightening accounts:

A lot of waste liquid was produced every day from our experiments, and it was poured into the same waste liquid tank at night. Our waste liquid barrels had been placed outside the backyard for collection, opposite the flower fields accessed by others, where there are pools where some raised fish and insects. One day when during waste collection, the waste container expanded and a yellow fog began to appear at the lid. Someone shouted, "run!" Two chemistry students ran into the lab as fast as they could. I realized that if I were to run back to the lab, I would have to cross the waste container area, which would be too dangerous. There was a female student outside still shocked and motionless. I had to pull her up and we ran into the back of a simple shed and quickly closed the glass door. Just after closing the door, I heard a bang, and suddenly there was a thick yellow smoke outside. In an instant, you couldn't see the lab two meters away. In the aftermath, no one was hurt, but the flowers all died and the fish all died.

Bi THU relates:

High Temperature Muffle Furnace One day, my colleagues were using a high-temperature muffle furnace, and then turned off the stove and sat down, but the temperature of the furnace was still a few hundred degrees Celsius. At this time, I came over to use the muffle furnace, and almost touched the stove with my hand, but just in time a fellow student screamed and pushed me away.

Some of the incidents related were relatively minor, others were major. Others had the potential to cause much more harm than they actually did. Looking back, many researchers in many countries can recall similar near-miss experiences or practices that were tolerated at the time but in retrospect are completely unsafe. Over the years, the Laboratory Safety Institute has chronicled and cataloged hundreds of these lab-safety-gone-wrong stories in Learning By Accident, volumes 1-3.

Those who do experimental work hear these stories as warning messages. While doing scientific research is noble work, it is not worth your life. Let's make 2019 a safer year at the bench and away from it.

Take the first step - sign up for a lab safety course near you!

So what about you? What potentially fatal things did you do when you first learned chemistry? Tell us in the comments.

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This was published 1 year ago

‘Something had to be up’: Children in hospital as experiment goes wrong

By sarah keoghan , millie muroi and megan gorrey, save articles for later.

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Two children suffered serious burns to their faces and chests and nine others had less serious injuries when blustery winds blew a “routine” science experiment onto students at a primary school on Sydney’s northern beaches on Monday.

Police and paramedics received multiple triple zero calls about children being burnt in an incident involving hazardous materials at Manly West Public School on Griffiths Street in Balgowlah shortly after 1pm.

An air ambulance and paramedics tend to an injured person at Manly West Public School on Monday afternoon. Credit: Nine

Authorities say 11 year 5 students, all aged about 10, and one teacher suffered burns to their faces, chests, lower abdomen and legs when strong winds sprayed sodium bicarbonate and methylated spirits onto their bodies during the outdoor activity. It is believed they were conducting an experiment known as a “carbon sugar snake”.

One student, who said her friend was hurt, described the incident as “kind of scary”.

“It was just meant to be a little science experiment, but it got a bit out of hand,” she told Nine News .

Ambulance NSW acting Superintendent Philip Templeman said the students were conducting the activity outside when the wind had “blown some of the chemicals around a little bit more” than predicted.

“I’m of the understanding it’s a fairly routine science experiment that is conducted within schools, and the winds today have hampered that particular experiment and caused a bigger reaction than was expected.”

The injured students were treated at the school before being taken to a number of hospitals.

The children in a serious condition were taken to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Templeman said they were “conscious, breathing, relatively stable” but had “needed some intervention from a specialist burns unit”.

Five children were taken to Royal North Shore Hospital, while another four were at Northern Beaches Hospital. Those children were “walking and stable with relatively superficial injuries”, Templeman said.

Emergency services were on the scene at Manly West Public School on Griffiths Street after multiple students suffered burns as a result of an experiment. Credit: Nine

One male teacher was also treated for minor burns, but did not require hospital treatment.

The so-called “carbon sugar snake” science experiment typically involves ingredients such as bicarb soda, sugar and a flammable liquid to trigger chemical reactions that create a long, blackened carbon sugar “snake”.

NSW Education and Early Learning Minister Sarah Mitchell said on Monday the Department of Education, police and SafeWork NSW would investigate.

“I have spoken with the principal this afternoon to offer my support to the entire school community, and I want to particularly thank and acknowledge all the school staff who acted so quickly to provide first aid and call emergency services.”

Students at Manly West Public School gather outside the school after the explosion. Credit: Nine

Mitchell said the department would provide support to the school, including counselling for students and staff, in coming days.

Balgowlah resident Tyson Atkins, who lives about 100 metres down the road from the school, said he went to the gates after hearing police sirens and helicopters.

He said a teacher came out to tell a group who had gathered outside the school of the incident and said 11 children had been injured. The teacher said all parents of the affected classroom had already been notified.

“The teacher who addressed us said it was a science experiment that went wrong and some chemical burns were involved.”

Pupils were treated at the school before being taken to various hospitals. Credit: Nine

Atkins said two helicopters had been on the scene, as well as eight police cars, five ambulances and two fire trucks.

“Something had to be up and, knowing it’s a school nearby, I figured I should check if people are OK,” he said.

Templeman said the incident sparked a “huge response” from paramedics, who sent two medical teams, eight cars and two rescue helicopter crews to the school. He also praised school staff for handling the aftermath of the incident “particularly well”.

“These children received urgent medical treatment within minutes of this incident occurring today.”

Manly MP James Griffin said he had offered the school “every and all assistance” they needed.

“I had the privilege of visiting Manly West only two weeks ago to congratulate the students on winning the local School Public Speaking competition,” he said in a statement.

“I will work with the P&C and school leadership to ensure they get the support they need over the coming days and weeks.”

Warringah MP Zali Steggall said on social media she was shocked by the incident.

“My thoughts are with the students and staff who have been impacted, and I wish them a speedy recovery.”

A spokesperson for Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network said two children were being cared for at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and a further two students were being cared for at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick.

At 7pm on Monday, the spokesperson said the students were “all in a stable condition”.

One student being treated at Royal North Shore Hospital was also in stable condition.

Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here .

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High school evacuated after chemistry class explosion injures 17 students, 1 teacher

A science experiment turned into a dangerous chemical fire on Wednesday.

A science experiment at a magnet school in the Nashville suburbs turned into a dangerous chemical fire, injuring 17 high school students and their teacher.

The fumes were so great, administrators had to evacuate the rest of the school, according to fire officials.

The fire happened during a chemistry lab at Merrol Hyde Magnet School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just after 9 a.m. Wednesday. First responders triaged the students and their teacher at the school.

At least six patients suffered chemical burns. None of the injuries were life threatening. Eight students and the teacher were taking to the hospital with chemical burn or splash injuries, officials said Wednesday afternoon.

"They evacuated the school just like they should," Bush said. "We relocated the students. I know that’s terrifying to some of the parents at home. Your kids are safe and we’ve got the other ones transported to appropriate care facilities, for them to be taken care of."

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The fire department used large fans to clear chemical fumes from the school and was testing air quality to make sure the building was safe for re-entry.

All classes were cancelled Wednesday, but the school expects to re-open Thursday.

Authorities say they believe the fire was an accident.

"We do not feel like this was a criminal act," Bush said.

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7 Creepiest Science Experiments of All Time That Will Give You Nightmares

Scientists often run into doing crazy things in the quest of discovering something important. but some of these experiments aren’t just worthless but are unbelievably creepy..

Kashyap Vyas

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

Techfilm Studio/Wikimedia Commons  

Science is a beautiful gift to humanity. It can tell us what is true over mere assumptions by validating the theories with practical experiments. The scientific experiments have often led to important discoveries that eventually helped the mankind to live a better life. Sometimes though, scientists in their quest for knowledge end up conducting experiments that are not only unethical but equally disturbing. The world has witnessed many of such spine-chilling and weird experiments that went badly wrong and even cost lives.

Here’s a list of 7 creepiest science experiments conducted ever that’ll surely give you nightmares:

You might have heard about the inhumane experiments done by Nazis during World War II. But they were not alone.

The Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 carried out atrocities in the name of scientific experiments, some details of which are still left to be uncovered. It was until 1984 that Japan acknowledged about conducting cruel experiments on humans to prepare for germ warfare. Setup in 1938, the objective of Unit 731 was to develop biological weapons and was supported by Japanese universities and medical schools that supplied doctors and research staff to carry out such vile experiments. The unit used thousands of Chinese prisoners and Asian civilians as guinea pigs to develop killer diseases. The experiments included infecting wartime prisoners with cholera, anthrax, plague and other pathogens. Horrific still, some of the experiments involved vivisection without anesthesia and pressure chambers to identify how much a human can take before bursting. What’s creepier is that post-war American administration provided safe passage to some of those involved with Unit 731 in exchange of findings of their experiments.

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male is infamous because of the tragedy it caused to people suffering from the disease in the name of free treatment. Between 1932 and 1972, 600 men were originally enrolled for the project, consisting of 399 with latent Syphilis and 201 as control group. Monitored by Doctors of U.S. Public Health Service, these men were given only placebos such as aspirin and mineral supplements, rather than treating with penicillin which was the recommended treatment at that time. The purpose of the study was to understand the effect and spread of the disease on human body. Because of the unethical considerations by scientists, 28 participants perished from Syphilis , 100 died because of related complications and more than 40 spouses were diagnosed with the disease, passing Syphilis to 19 children at birth. President Clinton is 1997 issued his apology to the survivors and families of the victims of the study, stating “The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong… It is not only in remembering that shameful past that we can make amends and repair our nation, but it is in remembering that past that we can build a better present and a better future.”

Two Headed Dogs

Vladimir Demikhov was a successful surgeon and his studies have helped medical science to advance especially in the field of organ transplant and coronary surgery. Demikhov was the first person to perform a successful coronary artery bypass operation on a warm-blooded creature. But, behind his successful operations, there are few of his experiments that can make you feel uncomfortable. His famous two-headed dog experiment is one of them. He stitched the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy onto the neck of a German shepherd. Although the surgery was a success as both dogs could move around independent of each other, they didn’t survive very long due to tissue rejection. Demikhov created 20 such two-headed dogs, but the highest one survived only for a month. While the experiment may sound cruel, it indeed helped in pioneering organ transplants in humans.

Testicle Transplants

In one of the most disturbing experiments, Leo Stanley, the physician in charge at San Quentin Prison in California surgically transplanted the testicles of executed criminals into living inmates. Stanley felt that males who committed crimes share a common characteristic – low testosterone levels and raising it would reduce the crime rates. More than 600 inmates became the victim of Stanley’s crazy theory, and when there was a shortage of human testicles, he went on to inject liquefied animal testicles into the prisoners. Stanley claimed that the experiment was a success by citing a Caucasian prisoner who felt “energetic” after transplanting the testicle from an executed African-American convict.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, a group of researchers at Stanford University conducted an experiment to investigate the causes of conflict between prisoners and guards. 24 students were assigned the roles of prisoners and guards randomly and were put into a prison-like environment. Meant to last for two weeks, the study was abruptly ended after only six days, as it became difficult to control and maintain order. Despite being told not to use any form of violence, one in every three guards showed their tendency to abuse. Surprisingly, many of the prisoners accepted the abuses and led two of them to suffer emotional trauma. The study showed that how power of situations can influence individual’s behavior.

Zombie Dogs

Known as Experiments in the Revival of Organisms , Russian scientists Dr. Sergei Brukhoneko and Boris Levinskovsky released a video of dog heads that were kept alive by an artificial blood circulation system. Using a special heart-lung apparatus called the autojektor, the scientists showed dog heads responding to sound by wiggling their ears, blinking eyes and even licking their mouths. The experiment was repeated again by American scientists in 2005 by flushing all the blood from the dog and replacing it with oxygen and sugar-filled saline. After three hours, a blood transfusion and an electric shock the dogs were back from dead.

MKUltra is one of the most famous projects conducted by CIA to develop mind-control techniques that can be used against enemies during war. Lasted for more than a decade from 1950 to 1970, the project’s main goal was to remain ahead in the mind-control technology. But the scope widened eventually resulting into illegal drug testing on thousands of Americans. Using drugs like LSD and other chemicals along with other forms of psychological torture, the agency tried to alter brain functions and manipulate mental states of the people. The documentation related to the project was ordered to be destroyed completely, but in 1977 the Freedom of Information Act released more than 20,000 pages on the program.

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18 elementary students, 1 teacher taken to hospital after science experiment gone wrong

GALLATIN, Tenn. ( WSMV /Gray News) - Several elementary school students and a teacher were taken to the hospital after a science experiment went wrong, officials in Tennessee said Friday.

According to Sumner County EMS, 18 third graders and a teacher at Vena Stuart Elementary School were taken to hospitals after an experiment involving dry ice went wrong.

All of those hospitalized are reportedly in good condition. The majority of the students were taken to Sumner County Regional Medical Center.

The students were doing science experiments with an outside presenter, including a dry ice experiment, Sumner County Schools said in a statement. After the dry ice project, several students said they were feeling ill.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we contacted Sumner County Emergency Services to provide assistance. Eighteen students and a teacher were transported to area hospitals as a precautionary measure,” the school district said in part. “All parents of affected students have been notified by the school.”

The room where the science experiments happened “has been thoroughly assessed and ventilated by the Gallatin Fire Department,” the school district said.

A “Code Orange” was issued at about 9:30 a.m. and cleared about an hour later at the medical center, which is issued when a hazardous materials spill occurs.

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