With this in mind, I would like to tell you the story of perhaps one of the worst scientists to have ever lived. Thomas Midgley Jr. was an ivy league graduate (thanks, Cornell) and mechanical engineer who, despite his training in that specific area, chose to focus in commercial applications of chemistry.

Photo credit: chemcases.com

Five years after graduating from school in 1911, Midgley began work at Dayton Metal Laboratories (sometimes referred to as Dayton Research Laboratories), which was absorbed by General Motors and turned into one of its primary research facilities. Along with his mentor, he had discovered that a combination of lead and sodium when added to chloroethane like so…

4 NaPb + 4 CH₃CH₂Cl –> (CH₃CH₂)₄Pb + 4 NaCl + 3 Pb

…when added to standard gasoline would reduce a phenomenon known as engine knock which was apparently plaguing early motorists.

(My apologies for the chemistry.)

The additive is known as tetra-ethyl lead, sometimes referred to as TEL. It’s what years ago made gasoline “leaded.” Most people know that leaded fuel is bad, but not exactly to what degree. Midgley himeslf in 1923 had to stop all work in his lab and spend some time in Miami for some R&R due to severe lung issues associated with the dangers of working with lead. FYI, here are the effects of lead poisoning according to Wikipedia:

• Excess lethargy, abdominal pain, ^[11] headache.
• Gastrointestinal problems, such as constipation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, or weight loss, which are common in acute poisoning.
• Neuropathy, such as muscle pain, weakness, tremors, twitches, spasms, or cramps.
• Encephalopathy, which, in extreme circumstances, is characterised by raised intracranial pressure, seizures, comas, or even death.
• Nephropathy, which occurs because the kidneys are the main route of removal of lead from the body. Acute lead poisoning may lead to development of Fanconi syndrome. Chronic lead exposure can lead to a slowly progressive interstitial nephritis. Chronic interstitial nephritis can also develop following an earlier acute lead exposure. Long-term exposure at levels lower than those that cause lead nephropathy have also been reported as nephrotoxic in patients from developed countries that had chronic kidney disease or were at-risk because of hypertension or diabetes mellitus. ^[16]
• Behavioural changes, such as inability to concentrate, hyperactivity, irritability, aggressiveness, mood swings, or insomnia.
• Cognitive problems, such as memory loss.
• Other associated effects, such as metal taste in the mouth, chest pain, anemia, impotence, and other reproductive problems.

An advertisement for Ethyl which appeared in the March, 1932 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Click to enlarge.

The dangers of working with lead made the entire manufacturing process outrageously hazardous. By 1924, General Motors, Standard Oil (which today is more or less ExxonMobil), and DuPont had created the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to sell leaded gasoline. Ten factory employees would die of lead poisoning between 1923 and 1924.

Ethyl Corporation headquarters in Virginia (via Flickr)

The company built a new factory in New Jersey (surprise!), but within two months five more employees suffered terrible lead-related brain injuries and eventually death. Remarkably, the company responded to this by stating things along the lines of, “These men went insane because they worked too hard.”

All of these deaths were not great PR for the company or for Midgley, so in a press conference, he poured the straight stuff, TEL, over his hands and then breathed it in for one minute, claiming he could do it every day without harm.

The State of New Jersey shut down the factory several days later and banned the production of TEL without permission by the state.

Midgley required one year of recovery from the publicity stunt.

Leaded gasoline is one of the most significant contributors to atmospheric lead and today, Americans have over 600 times more lead in their blood than those who lived prior to TEL’s introduction. It was banned in the US in 1986, though somehow is still used overseas even today.

Remarkably, Midgley had been made vice president of the Ethyl Corporation since its formation. He was relieved of this position, but remained a GM employee.

His story does not end here though.

In the 1930s, refrigeration technologies were not that great. In fact, refrigerators often used a toxic and combustible combination of gases that had an unfortunate tendency of killing or otherwise severely injuring unsuspecting users. From 1919 to 1980, General Motors also owned Frigidaire, the appliance brand. After the TEL debacle, GM charged Midgley with discovering a safe chemical for use in Frigidaire refrigerators and freezers.

Along with his mentor from Dayton Research who worked with him on TEL, Charles Kettering (the same Kettering of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York), the two set to work on what was to become dichlorodifluoromethane. I’ll space that out for you so you can actually read that: di chloro di fluoro methane. Because chemistry is just full of really long naming protocols, the duo gave the compound the name … Freon, the first chlorinated fluorocarbon, or CFC.

That’s right, the same guy who came up with leaded gasoline also created CFCs, you know, those things that are supposed to be destroying the ozone layer and all that. Talk about the sequel being better than the original. CFCs were banned in the US 64 years after they were developed, in 1994, but given their chemical properties will likely still remain in the atmosphere for quite a number of decades.

For having improved the quality of life so much, Midgley was the recipient of a number of prestigious accolades, including the Priestly Medal, the highest honor from the American Chemical Society, two honorary degrees, induction into the National Academy of Sciences. In 1944, he was named president of the American Chemical Society.

While Midglely was probably not completely aware of the destruction that his creations would wreak upon the earth, his life would end in a glorious amount of karmic irony.

He contracted highly disabling polio at the age of 51 in 1940. Being an inventive sort, Midgley built a rigging of pulleys and ropes which would raise and turn him over in his bed. On November 2, 1944 while trying to use the contraption, he had become entangled in the ropes and was strangled to death.

I think that story wraps itself up quite nicely. It was condensed in a video made for the Live Earth concert events in 2007 in this video:

Relieving stress in the office

A series of stupid stunts

Andrew Zimmern. Enough said. (Possibly NSFW)

And a general round-up of stupid to last at least a week

Gaurab Chakrabarti is rational.

I’ve picked up a very peculiar habit of late. That is, I find myself spending an hour a day searching for patents on Google Patent Search. A little weird, yes. But not nearly as strange as some of the ideas people actually patent. As such, I’ve decided to devote a weekly post on strange patents that make you ask why (or why not . . .). Today’s patent is the non-lethal cock fighting system. A combination of the humane treatment of animals and a shroom trip, this patent is sure to be big in Cuba.

The main claim of the patent is the creation of sparring gloves for chicken feet. Yes. Sparring gloves for chickens. But the inventor takes it one step further by adding a blow counter that measures the number of blows each chicken cocks out and the force with which they cock it out . I think this could really revolutionize they way we conduct our cock fights, adding a level of technological grace to our blood thirsty urges.  Happy Fourth of July America.

Gaurab Chakrabarti does not get into cock fights.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Jerry Springer’s show was actually less about marital problems between cousins and somewhat of a legitimate forum for discussion.

Jerry probably deserves his own post, but for now, I have this little gem for you from the early 90s.  You probably know enough about Jerry Springer, but you may not know enough about a guest featured on this particular show, GG Allin.

GG Allin was one of most likely the world’s most vile, mentally unstable, angriest, and offensive musician to have walked the earth. Here are some choice snippets from his Wikipedia page. I would read it all because it’s ironically hilarious in that “holy crap, this person actually lived” sort of way and it’s good set-up for the video.

Kevin Michael “GG” Allin (August 29, 1956 – June 28, 1993) was an American punk rock singer-songwriter who performed and recorded with many punk-rock groups during his career.

Allin is best remembered for his notorious live performances that typically featured wildly transgressive acts such as Allin defecating and urinating onstage, rolling in feces and often consuming excrement, committing self-injury, performing naked, and committing violent actions toward the audience—often doing many of these things simultaneously.

His politically incorrect lyrics, which often covered subjects such as misogyny, pedophilia and racism, deeply divided opinions of him within the highly politicized punk community. Though he had a devoted cult following, Allin’s music has received mostly negative reviews from critics.

GG was born as Jesus Christ Allin at Weeks Memorial Hospital in Lancaster, New Hampshire. He was given this messianic name because his father, Merle Colby Allin, Sr., told his young wife, Arleta Gunther, that Jesus Christ Himself had visited him and told him that his newborn son would be a great and all powerful man in the vein of the Messiah.

As a young child, his older brother Merle Allin, Jr. was unable to pronounce “Jesus” properly and kept calling him “Jeje”, which became “GG”. The family lived in a log cabin with no water or electricity. Allin’s father, who forbade all conversation in the home after dark, was a religious fanatic and an antisocial man, and was allegedly violent towards his wife and children, though GG himself never used this as an excuse for any of his own eccentricities. At age 12, Allin had contracted Lyme disease and claimed to have never fully recovered from the effects of having the disease at such a young age.

GG was considered an outcast from junior high school onwards, being placed in special ed classes and having to repeat the third grade. He was known to rebel by showing up to school dressed in drag (his 10th grade school picture depicts him this way), which he said was inspired by the New York Dolls. When asked about his childhood, GG has been quoted as saying “Very chaotic. Full of chances and dangers. We sold drugs, stole, broke into houses, cars, etc. Did whatever we wanted to for the most part – including all the bands we played in. People even hated us back then.”

By the mid to late 1980s, Allin was addicted to heroin and alcohol and general abused any intoxicants provided to him, sometimes taking pills without even asking what they were. He was poorly groomed and rarely cleaned himself. At this point, Allin also began eating laxatives before performances – as defecation was becoming a regular stage act. Allin described himself as “the last true rock and roller.” By this, he meant that rock and roll music itself had started as an embodiment of danger, anti-authoritarianism, rebelliousness but had become largely taken over by corporations and business concerns. Allin’s music and performances were thus meant to return rock and roll to what he saw as its roots, reclaiming it from the corporate system.

By this point, Allin’s performances, which often resulted in considerable damage to venues and sound equipment, were regularly stopped after only a few songs by police or venue owners. Allin was charged with assault and battery or indecent exposure a number of times. His constant touring was only stopped by jail time or by long hospital stays for broken bones, blood poisoning, and other physical trauma.

Another attraction to Allin performances was his continual threats of suicide. In 1988, Allin wrote to Maximum RocknRoll stating that he would commit suicide on stage on Halloween 1989. However, he was in jail when that day came. He continued his threat each following year but ended up imprisoned each following Halloween. When asked why he does not follow through with his threats, or sometimes his on-stage defecations, Allin stated, “With GG, you don’t get what you expect—you get what you deserve.” He also stated that suicide should only be done when one had reached their peak, meeting the afterlife at their strongest point and not at their weakest.

Despite threats of an onstage suicide, Allin died of an accidental heroin overdose in New York City on June 28, 1993, in the Manhattan apartment of John Handley Hurt and Dwanna Yount only six days after leaving prison (and three days after attending the premire of the documentary [of his life] Hated, whose director gives an account of Allin’s attendance in Bizarre magazine). He was found lying in his apartment on the night of the 29th but he actually died overnight in his sleep on the 28th. He was 36 years old. His last show was at a small club called The Gas Station in New York City. Video footage of the soundcheck, concert, and aftermath is appended to the DVD release of Hated. In his last show the power went out during the second song, after which he trashed the venue and walked the streets of New York naked and covered in blood and feces, surrounded by fans whom he openly embraced. On VH1’s Freakiest Concert Moments, Allin’s final show ranked at number four.

After arriving at his friends’ apartment, some party-goers posed for photos with Allin, not knowing that he was already dead. The next morning, some noticed that Allin still lay motionless in the same place where they had left him, and called for an ambulance. Allin was pronounced dead at the scene.

At his funeral, Allin’s bloated, discolored corpse was dressed in his black leather jacket and trademark jock strap. He had a bottle of Jim Beam beside him in his casket, per his wishes (openly stated in his self-penned acoustic country ballad, “When I Die”). As part of his brother’s request, the mortician was instructed not to wash the corpse (which smelled strongly of feces), or apply any makeup. The funeral became a wild party. Friends posed with the corpse, placing drugs and whiskey into its mouth. As the funeral ended, his brother put a pair of headphones on Allin. The headphones were plugged into a portable cassette player, in which was loaded a copy of The Suicide Sessions. The video of his funeral is widely available for purchase, and is an extra feature on the Hated DVD and some bootleg VHS tapes.

Now wasn’t that just lovely? Just imagine Thanksgiving dinner at the Allin house.

Anyway, with this in mind, I now present the semi-legendary eposide of Jerry Springer featuring GG Allin as his main guest.

Let’s say you’re an astronaut and things aren’t going your way. You and 7 others on the space shuttle are in imminent danger and you gotta get out of there. (… and by “there,” I mean still within the Earth’s atmosphere.) How would you do it?

Believe it or not there are two necessarily outrageous ways for astronauts to ditch their craft and head back to solid ground.

The first case happens if something goes awry while you’re still on the launch pad. How would you get from inside the shuttle to the ground, far enough away so that you don’t get blown into bite-sized chunks by the millions of pounds of rocket fuel surrounding you? Go ahead. Take 30 seconds and guess. Unless you already know, you’re not going to figure out how NASA does it.

• First, you need to unhook yourself from the 80+ pounds of stuff that’s in your spacesuit and head for the exit hatch.
• Next, run out onto the platform you walked into the shuttle on (You can see it in the picture above)
• There’s an elevator you took to bring you to the level you’re at. Walk behind it.
• You’ll see a number of large wicker baskets with their rims at floor level. These baskets are attached to a steel cable which runs from the platform you’re on (189 feet in the air) diagonally to the ground. It isn’t the world’s biggest zip line (that’s in Sun City, South Africa), but it might be the most expensive.
• Get into one of those baskets. Oh, and make sure you get in backwards.
• Pull the release cord and travel really fast into a pre-assembled pile of sandbags to cushion your fall.
• The basket should actually fly through a carefully placed opening in the sandbags, leaving you next to a very armored bunker.
• Get inside and close the door so you don’t get hit by flaming pieces of space shuttle.
• Now you have two options. You can wait in the bunker, or…
• …In case of emergencies, NASA keeps four M113 Armored Personnel Carriers from the 1960s at the back entrance of the bunker. They are purposely fully-fueled with their engines running and keys in the ignition so that fleeing astronauts can just hop in and get out of there if they need to. They look like this:
• There are no drivers waiting for you in those vehicles. Grab the controls and put the pedal to the floor…if you know how.

NASA has this whole procedure set up and ready to go with every space shuttle launch. There’s actually some video of this procedure being executed in a training exercise here.

There’s another scenario that may require a bailout. If for whatever reason you’re in the shuttle and can’t land, you and your crew still have an escape. Are there ejection seats? Maybe a secure escape pod like in Air Force One (the movie)? Nah. That’s too simple.

Luckily, on board with you is ICES, or the Inflight Crew Escape System. Fancy name, not so fancy otherwise. Basically, it’s a system that coordinates blowing out an exit panel so you can leave through it. And by “leave,” I mean hooking yourself up to an 8.75 foot long pole that sticks out the side of the shuttle, then letting go of it and falling 10,000 feet to safety at 230 miles an hour.

The pole actually serves a relatively important purpose. When you’re flying as fast as you are up there, it’s critical that when you jump out that you head in the right direction. The reason astronauts are strapped to the pole as they fall down it is to make sure that fall in that right direction.

As all this is going on, the shuttle is actually flying itself to make sure the craft stays level for the 90 seconds it takes for everyone to bail. I’m summarizing the procedure to a ridiculous extent — you can read the full official procedure from NASA (it’s long and detailed = boring) right here.

Bonus!

For one reason or another, the danger surrounding Niagara Falls is attractive to daredevils. Perhaps one of the more memorable events to occur on the falls took place in 1990 and starred David Copperfield:

(The entire special can be viewed here.)

Obviously this clip was just one part of a multimillion dollar primteimte TV special.

Now get this. Fast forward to October 1st, 1995.  A wannabe stuntman by the name of Robert Overcracker tries to hit two birds with one stone. As a way to catapult himself into the stunt industry as well as raise money for the homeless, Mr. Overcracker arranged a stunt where he would ride a jetski off of the falls and safely land via a rocket-propelled parachute.

This, of course is not a particularly smart idea. As it turned out, that rocket powered parachute failed to open, sending Mr. Overcracker over the edge, his body never to be recovered, and raised more awareness for parachutes than for the homeless.

Miraculously, an Egyptian tourist snapped this incredible photo of the events:

Interestingly enough, Mr. Overcracker could have qualified for life insurance payout as a result of this ridiculous stunt too! I’m not sure whther or not he actually received anything, but hot damn, what a way to go.

I can never remember if the correct version of the quote is “life imitates art” or “art imitates life.” Either way, we’ve got a case of one of those.

A few years ago, the Canadian duo of Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz introduced the world to Kenny vs. Spenny. For those of you unfamiliar with this incredible series, these guys basically challenge each other to outrageous feats (“Who can eat the most meat?” “Who can commit the most crime?” “Who can drink more beer?” etc…). Well, the “evil” half of Kenny vs. Spenny, Kenny Hotz, has a new show on FX that’s pretty interesting.

It’s called, of all things, “Testees,” and it’s about two best friends, Ron and Peter, who work for Testico, some sort of scientific research company, as human guinea pigs. The show chronicles the duo’s lives as they cope with ridiculous side effects of scientific experimentations. It’s pretty fun to watch and available for free at Hulu.

I’m only a few episodes in, but I’ll probably watch some more. Kenny actually makes an appearance in the pilot, and Steve Markle, the actor who plays Peter, bears an uncanny resemblance to Spencer Rice.

Unrelated to this, Kenny Hotz has the most over the top, egomanical website I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing.

“Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day…”

To most of us, this is a victory in and of itself. Free Krispy Kreme, THAT’S awesome. Except, not quite so much to the American Life League, a pro-life organization whose slogan is “From creation to natural death” (catchy, isn’t it?). The next day, the group released a press statement entitled “KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS”. No joke. Talk about oversensitivity.

Click on the title of a show to see clips and full-length episodes.

Home Purchasing Club

Ever wish you could watch a parody of QVC? The answer to that question probably says a lot about your personality. If it’s “yes,” then you might want to check out Home Purchasing Club. The series does a masterful job of combining the intriguing with the cheesy in clip after clip. There also some great cameos by David Koechner, Diedrich Bader, and more.

Dice Undisputed

Andrew Dice Clay is a professional comedian and ass. Not in an offensive way, I’m sure he’d describe himself like that too. Need proof? This clip right here is from an awards show where Dice, as he goes by, was supposed to … well, present awards. He did a LOT more than just that:

You may also have seen this legendary clip from an appearance he made on CNN:

Dice Undisputed didn’t perform all that well in the ratings, but who would have guessed? I would have thought this guy would have “reality gold” written all over him. See some of the clips from his show and decide for yourself.

Free Radio

This show is incredible. It’s like The Office meets 30 Rock, except instead of a paper company or a successful sketch comedy show, Free Radio tells the story of the employees at KBOM, a radio station which receives a massive boost in popularity after a highly incompetent and inadvertently offensive intern lands a spot on-air as a DJ. There are tons of special guest appearances– Tony Shalub, Perez Hilton, Bob Saget, Kiefer Sutherland and these guys:

VH1 has the whole first season avaiable to watch for free right here.

The Springer Hustle

This show combines two of my favorite types of television: behind-the-scenes documentaries and Jerry Springer. This miniseries is available in full from VH1 for free to watch and I highly suggest watching it. There’s a lot of work that goes into producing just one episode of Jerry, most of which is pretty interesting and entertaining to see.

The World Series of Pop Culture

There aren’t that many any game shows on VH1, at least not anymore. But for a short time, VH1 graced us with The World Series of Pop Culture, hosted by Pat Kiernan. It’s actually pretty well done and worth a view if it’s your sort of thing. Here’s the opening from the first episode:

“This is one of those inventions, like the wheel or the incandescent light bulb, that will forever change the landscape of our culture.”

and

“So far, I have put it on a burger, a hot hog and, this morning, a Jalapeno bagel. It’s God’s gift to deliciousness!”

What could it possibly be besides BACONNAISE.

That’s right. Bacon + Mayonnaise. Baconnaise. From the J&D’s people who brought us BACON SALT: for those of us who want heart disease just *that* much faster. No joke, their company’s slogan is “EVERYTHING SHOULD TASTE LIKE BACON.”

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