10 Experiments that Almost Killed Millions of People

- During the search for scientific advancements,
sometimes risks need to be taken,
some larger than others.
(dramatic music)
Every developed nation is constantly trying
to push the boundaries of scientific exploration,
and while often that can lead to discoveries
that can help millions of people,
sometimes those same millions were close to death
and didn't even know it.
And some of those experiments are still ongoing today.
Here are 10 experiments that almost killed millions.
Number one is Starfish Prime.
Starfish Prime was the codename
for a high altitude nuclear bomb test
that the United States Military and Atomic Energy Commission
conducted on July 9th, 1962.
During the experiment a 1.4 megaton nuclear warhead
was launched over the Pacific Ocean,
reaching over 249 miles above sea level
before it was detonated in space.
The resulting explosion caused an unexpected
massive electromagnetic pulse
that hit the Hawaiian Islands,
which was almost 900 miles away.
The pulse damaged phone lines
and knocked out over 300 street lights across the state.
But more importantly the nuke damaged
the Earth's magnetic field,
which protects us all from solar winds and radiation waves.
Radiation from the bomb itself settled
and created a ring around the Earth
that severely damaged and interfered
with a number of satellites floating around it
for the next five years.
If it had destroyed or severely altered
the magnetic field any further,
it could've caused countless deaths
from the harmful radiation of space.
Number two are tectonic weapons.
While the United States
were trying to blow a big hole in the sky,
a bunch of Russian military scientists were hard at work
focusing their nuclear exploding capabilities
a little closer to home,
or rather right under home.
They began testing underground with their new inventions
called tectonic weapons.
These bombs were supposedly tested
in several programs between 1987 and 1992,
codenamed Mercury and Volcano.
The aim of these tests were to manipulate
the electromagnetism of the Earth's tectonic plates.
Theoretically this meant
that they could cause earthquakes at will,
a truly devastating weapon if perfected.
In other words the enemy would not have even known
that they were attacked.
Essentially, it would have looked
just like a natural disaster.
It doesn't need to be explained why
exploding nukes underground would be bad for everyone,
considering the release of radiation
as well as the impact of messing with the tectonic plates
that we all live on top of.
However, luckily according to Russia
the idea was canceled,
although there are whispers that it was only postponed.
Number three is the Kola Superdeep Borehole.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole
was the brainchild of Soviet scientists
who wanted to drill as far down
into the Earth's crust as they possibly could.
The project began in the Kola district
of the Soviet Union on May 24th, 1970,
and halted in 1992 due to an inability to drill deeper
through the ground temperatures
of up to 356 degrees Fahrenheit.
Though the hole was only nine inches wide
and reached 7.5 miles into the ground,
some researchers thought it may have had
a major impact on the tectonic plates around it.
Hypothetically, burrowing so deep into the crust
could cause a release of pressure
that built up under miles of solid rock.
This pressure had the potential
to cause a shift in the tectonic plates,
causing a massive earthquake, or even worse,
mass volcanic eruptions.
Number four are bubonic plague weapons.
The bubonic plague, or Black Plague,
has literally plagued the Earth for centuries
killing millions upon millions of people.
During the Cold War, Russia was placed
in a pretty damaging situation
when their top secret project to utilize the plague
as means of attack was brought to light.
One of their top biologists, Vladimir Pasechnik,
defected to the United Kingdom in 1989
and brought the secrets
of the Soviet biological warfare research programs with him.
Not only were the Russians using the plague,
they made it resistant to antibiotics
and developed a warhead for it
to be launched into enemy territory.
If this biological weaponry had ever been actually used,
it could've wiped out more than half the population
of the Earth, just like it did back in the 14th century.
Number five is the Trinity Nuclear Test.
Trinity was the codename for the very first
nuclear bomb test explosion
that occurred on July 16th, 1945
in the Jornada del Muerto desert
just outside of Socorro, New Mexico.
Since a nuclear bomb had never been tested before,
there were many theories as just to what would happen.
Two scientists who worked on the bomb,
Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller,
theorized that the bomb's explosion
would cause an explosive reaction
within the nitrogen in the Earth's atmosphere.
This reaction would literally set the air on fire
and could destroy pretty much everything on the planet.
In a move that was actually a precursor
to switching on the Hadron Collider
in order to find out if they were correct or not,
they simply just detonated the bomb.
They literally experimented using a pass or fail result
to determine if it would've destroyed all life on Earth.
Luck for us this did not happen.
Number six is Project Seal.
It turns out even the Kiwis have contributed
to the creation of weapons of mass destruction.
While the United States of America
was busy creating the atomic bomb during World War II,
New Zealand was working on their own devastating weapon
that could've let them harness the power of water.
Project Seal was the codename
for the small country's experiments
into weaponizing the ocean itself.
Backed by the US, the goal was to use
high yield explosives under water
to create giant tsunamis capable of
destroying ships and submarines,
and basically obliterating any coastal towns and bases
of the target country.
Between 1944 and 1945,
New Zealand detonated around 3,700 bombs underwater
in tests to create a tsunami.
The bomb tests were unsuccessful
in pushing the explosive force in a horizontal manner,
and failed to create any actual tsunamis.
However, had New Zealand succeeded in these experiments,
it would've revolutionized weapons of mass destruction.
Number seven is oil eating bacteria.
Oil spills are devastating to the environment,
affecting not only sea life,
but in a way all life on this planet.
Entire ecosystems have fallen to toxic oil
being introduced into them.
But what happens when the solution to the problem
winds up doing nearly just as much damage?
In 1971 American microbiologist
Professor Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty
genetically engineered a form of bacteria
that could consume oil faster
than any other bacteria before it.
This scientific breakthrough
was patented and hailed as a new
and efficient method of cleaning up oil spills.
However, concerns were raised about just how powerful
and efficient this new super-bacteria was.
The oil-eating species it was engineered from
would tend to compete with each other
rather than constantly consuming the oil,
which led to less efficiency.
The new super-bacteria had the best traits
of all these bacteria,
and it came to light that it would out-compete
any other bacteria that it came into contact with.
Like evil little nanomachines,
its introduction could've brought about
the collapses of entire ecosystems,
which in turn could drastically alter life as we know it,
and even end the lives of many species,
potentially even humans.
Number eight is the Large Hadron Collider.
The Large Hadron Collider,
an underground 17 mile long particle accelerator,
located between France and Switzerland,
was used in 2012 to discover the Higgs-Bosun particle.
The Higgs-Bosun, or the God particle,
is an elusive particle that gives objects their mass.
In order to find it, scientists used the LHC
to accelerate particles and crash them together
at the speed of light.
In doing so, they created a tiny
but extremely powerful surge of energy,
which some believe could spawn some super dark
alternate discoveries.
Theories in this category include
accidentally creating a black hole
that devours the entire planet,
or the creation of a strange matter particle
that could almost instantly convert
the entire mass of the Earth into a hot ball of death.
Though an executive committee
decided that the risk was minimal
due to similar events happening naturally in the universe,
there was no way of being certain
of the experiment's safety.
Number nine is weaponized fungus.
Rice crops are a critical food supply
when you consider that they feed not only armies,
but hundreds of millions of citizens worldwide every day.
A certain fungus called magnaporthe grisea
infects and kills rice crops,
causing some pretty dire issues
in the countries that depend on them the most.
The fungus spreads itself
by releasing thousands of tiny spores
from infected plants,
and had devastated rice crops in 85 countries,
including the United States.
America has in the past toyed with a spray-on version
of the fungus
in preparation for any scenario
in which they would possibly want to starve their enemies.
And not only that, but the fungus affects essential crops
like wheat, barley, and rye.
So ultimately they would've probably starved
everyone that depends on bread.
Let's be thankful that they never used it.
And number 10 is the quantum Zeno effect.
This next experiment is actually still ongoing,
which is pretty scary,
and can be pretty tricky to understand
since it involves quantum mechanics.
If you've ever heard the expression,
"A watched pot never boils,"
that pretty much essentially sums up the Zeno effect,
or the Turing paradox, as it's called.
Continuously observing or measuring particles
causes them to never change,
like they're in a never-ending loop
as long as you're looking at them.
One theory by Professor Lawrence Krauss
states that observing dark matter in space
actually causes it to decay faster.
Dark matter is what makes up
84.5% of the entire universe,
and scientists have been extremely curious about it
ever since the 1990s.
Apparently if we observe it long enough
it can actually become unstable and collapse,
causing a chain reaction that would bring about
the end of the universe.
So, those were 10 experiments
that almost killed millions of people.
But I want to know from you,
do you think that we will one day accidentally
cause an accident from this research?
Leave your comments below,
because I'll be looking through them,
and I'm going to pin the best one to the top.
But as always, thank you very much for coming by today.
Remember to come back tomorrow,
and every weekday at exactly 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
because I'll have a brand new video for you.
I'll see you then.

10 Experiments that Almost Killed Millions of People

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