Take us back to the good old days when the air was clean, the grass was green and the milk was pure and unadulterated. Straight from the cow, gallons of creamy goodness for all to drink. But while Granny’s farm may have been fine, milk wasn’t always some magical pure product. In fact, there was a time when milk was goddamn disgusting. Let’s go back to the 1800s when there were hundreds of whiskey distilleries in New York State. Some lunatic had the great idea to feed the leftover rank grain goop to the cows. Weirdly, they noticed that this increased their milk production. Thus began the distillery dairies.

Humans have always been fascinated by the unexplained. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and, one of the most intriguing unknowns that has captured our imagination for centuries, the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Washington lobbyists Steve Bassett and John Podesta are advocating for the disclosure of government information on unexplained phenomena that could prove the existence of intelligent life outside Earth. This raises the question, what the heck has the government been hiding? Usually, they’re so transparent!

In the early 20th century, lithium was seen as a bit of a "cure-all". It was even in the original 7-Up recipe! But when it comes to using lithium to treat bipolar, the credit must go to Dr John Cade. Born in country Victoria in 1912, as a young boy, Cade actually lived in a number of asylums. His father was a doctor working in the Mental Hygiene Department so the whole family lived on campus.

Administered by the seaman librarian every Sunday morning, the library (a red wooden crate filled with books) would be opened for the sailors to peruse and borrow. But could books really turn these rascally seamen into upright citizens?

Have you seen the anime short film, Stink Bomb? A flu-ridden lab technician’s body omits vapours that are lethal to everyone around him. Turns out that Stink Bomb was actually based on a true story. Say WHAT?

We all love a good race. The competition, the rivalry, the winner revelling in their victory at the finish line. But some races don’t have a clear winner. In fact, some destinations aren’t all that clear either.

Since 1923, if not earlier, scientists have excluded female animals in trials, even when studying effects on issues that only affect women. The argument was “fluctuating hormones would render the results uninterpretable”. But wait, what about the male mice who, when housed together, establish a dominance hierarchy boosting testosterone levels of the alphas to 5 times that of the betas? Clearly, science hasn’t removed itself from the patriarchy.

There are some things we know not to do. Crossing the road without looking, not wearing a seatbelt…and looking at the sun. But some people throughout history have rallied against this fundamental human law. One of them is an orange quack who ruled America for a brief, nightmarish period of time. Another is an eyeball guy (an actual ophthalmologist) William Horatio Bates, born in 1860. But did this guy start out as a rule-breaking, sun-staring charlatan?

Indiana Jones is a cool guy. An archaeologist, an adventurer who tore shit up, stumbled his way through tunnels and over invisible bridges to uncover priceless ancient artefacts. But that’s Hollywood. In real life, ancient discoveries happen in far less exciting ways…Or do they?

For centuries, religious relics have been the only means by which devout followers could interact with the divine. Let us journey into some of the gross holy relics. The bones of saints, the milk of the virgin Mary, perhaps a little finger of St Thomas. What about something even more precious? Like Jesus Christ’s foreskin.

Some of the best things in life were never meant to be. Just think of your favourite food, breed of dog or childhood toy - some of these were the result of accidents and batshit crazy experiments. The good old-fashioned slinky was accidental, superficially bland and, yes, a little bit dangerous.

 The whole of science is stuffed full of delicious stories, and we really want to tell you every damn one of them. But we know our little human brains can’t absorb too much at one time. So today we’re introducing our new line of Wholesome SnacksTM, where we bring you a selection of new and tasty tales that have been consumed, concentrated and reconstituted just for you. Get your bib out because, in today’s snack pack, we’ve got some real doozies for you.

The weekend is a sacred thing. We live for it, we get our rest from it, but the two-day weekend as we know it has only been around for about a hundred years. The history of the work cycle across the globe is actually quite varied and at times, it gets pretty wacky.

Let’s go back to the 1960s. A time of Richard Nixon, moon obsession, hippies, the Vietnam war and… no ethics committees. Introducing Robert Allan Humphreys, a man of many disguises, a never-ending pursuit of knowledge and very questionable researching methods.

New York inventor life in the mechanical age was riveting! But there was one problem. The traffic… was horrendous. The hustle and bustle of Manhattan had become unbearable. So Alfred Beach was determined to find a solution. Eureka... A New York Pneumatic Subway!

How far would you go to get to the truth, or perhaps more pertinently, to the bottom of things? William Beaumont was one dedicated scientist. Some might say ethically… ambiguous, but hey, he was born in 1785, so, old school. Later becoming known as the Father of Gastric Physiology, Beaumont did whatever he had to do in order to understand the juicy details of the digestive system. But did he go too far?

Charles Vance Millar was the greatest troll ever. Born in Aylmer, Ontario in 1854, Charles was a fan of practical jokes. Some might have described him as a cantankerous man, capricious and out to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. Following his death, Millar’s money was to go to the mother who gave birth to the greatest number of children in the ten years after his death. And so the race began.

Are you asked to sit in on arduous meetings with no real consequence when you’ve got deadlines coming out of your ears? Maybe that’s just office politics. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a deliberate ploy against you, decades-long in the making with deep roots in espionage and sabotage.

What happens when you try to domesticate a fox? And, perhaps the most important question science has posed - can you manufacture cuteness?

We all know that sugar is bad for our teeth. But... how did we come to know that? It’s fairly common to see a healthy set of pearly whites now, but scroll back just a few decades, this wasn’t the case.