Frank could have a point - "black sabbeth" perhaps? Anyway, I am filled with disgust on the LSD experiment!

Alberto, Tshwane, Gauteng / South Africa

I like all elephants, and think they like me too. If some scientist wants to inject an elephant with massive amounts of LSD and other drugs I ask you is this necessary? I mean, sure the scientist is adding to the general knowledge of man and that can't be a bad thing. Or is it?
How on earth could spazzing out an elephant on LSD be constructive? The after affects of killing it with downers is pretty clearly needed, for a multi ton animal, crazy on massive amounts of acid, surely poses a threat to itself as well as to the 'scientists' around it. This is, surely, an experiment that went badly wrong, and as such should not be in an editorial for weird and wacky experiments. The picture above seems to dignify the torture of a noble and intelligent animal. Are there any sicker images you can parade as 'bizarre'? Mark, you are the weakest link. Good bye.

Justin, Nr. Lincoln, UK

Saw this article mentioned on www.SubliminalMessags.Com and thought it to be very interesting!

It reminded me that I was once asked by a door to door traveling physician to take off all of my clothes and submit to a doorstep momogram test. I should have known it was a trick.

Yello Booster, Cleveland, OH

I was in an experiment once....they promised there'd be cake. Turns out the cake was a lie.

Jeff, Chicago, IL

Goodness! In my country we have recently bagan experiments in which our cattle are forced to watch the telly 24 hours per day.
The cows are sacred yes! But many of them have bagan to want to 'hog' the TV remote, and several have demanded that giant remotes, the size of a Peter Andre Johnson, be placed in their stalls so that they can stomp on it gleefully.
And they are demanding that beer and pinoqachole be added to their feed before the six o'clock news.
We may have to ban television from all the cow population soon!

Pushtab, Uttar Daspare, IN

to the nay sayer know it all.

A single man discovered h pylori, the bacteria responsible for most ulcers. No one believed him until he ingested it and got ulcer disease. Nobel prize.

A study of 10 people can EASILY prove a statistical relationship, depending on the study. If testing the effects of cyanide, for example, you really only need a control, and the subject.

Yes, we've gotten better at study design, but you have not profited from that knowledge.

Chris, gainesville, Florida

im thinking portals, too

ism, nome,

The book and article is about wacky experiments, not horrific ones. Get off your high horse, already.

PW, Anytown, USA

RE: John, New York, NY

I HOPE you mean Jazz and Pornography.

Mark, Boulder, CO

I'm simply amused that two of my favorite activities appear in a list of four intended to elicit "disgust".

John, New York, NY

3000 times the normal dose and a fistful of sedatives? Where do I sign up??? :o)

Barry, Dublin, Eire 32

The writer missed probaly the most heinous experiment of all time, outside those conducted in Nazi Germany. It was the infamous Tuskegee Experiment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_experiment
which was memorialized in a play and movie called Miss Evers' Boys. The study--of the course of syphilis--was done on poor illiterate blacks and started when there were no truly effective cures for syphilis. During the study, penicillin was invented and offered an immediate cure. The study should have been promptly closed with all the participants given penicillin. It was not.

A.U. Daniels, Basel, Switzerland

Was the Elephant on LSD study funded through the US Military?

This is about the time we became involved with the war in Indo China, and elephants were important to VC's logistics. Eventually, elephants were declared Military Combatants and fired upon.

Had the LSD Dose been properly calculated and had it confirmed the hypothesis, the elephant wold have been temporarily transformed into a bio-weapon.

Michael LaPoint, Boston, MA

Black Mesa was the weirdest of them all. Although Portal also ranks highly.

Jagdish, Anytown, USA

Interestingly though the name "Boese" probably is German, where the word means "evil".

Karl Siegemund, Rum, Austria

I would like to turn attention to Dr. Wilson Greatbatch, the inventor of pacemaker. For a long time, he was experimenting with hart transplantations on dogs, and also was building artificial harts, implanting them in dogs, and observing how long the dogs would survive. A countless number of dogs died in his shed as a result of those experiments. Most (if not all of) his neighbors thought he was completely insane.

Today, more than 600.000 pacemakers are implanted a year - countless human lives have been saved. If the whole idea had failed, I can easily see that he might have been highly ranked on this list. But the idea worked!

Branimir, Zagreb, Croatia

the author's name is ALEX BOESE, not Boase!

J Boese, Kilmarnock, VA, USA

Tusko's tormentors made an elephantine mistake in scaling up the LSD dose by a factor of 3,000. An elephant has about 70 to 100 times the bodyweight of a human, and its brain only has about 5 times the mass of a human brain. If the 'scientists' had started with 5 times the human dose Tusko should have survived and might have gone on to star in a prog-rock band in the 70s.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

I understand that the process isn't always pretty, but there appears to be a fine line between "science" and sadism.

B.K.B. Fitzgerald, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

As you can see, all of these "experiments" were conducts many years ago. Many improvements have been made in conducting expriements these days. A sample with only 10 soliders will certainly draw intensive questions in experiment design, not to mention drinking vomit or observing the behavior of one bady.

Kai, Boston, US

This doesn't tell the full story of what happened to Tusko.

After he became agitated the scientists gave him a massive dose of a sedative to calm him down.

It's not clear whether the LSD or the sedative killed him. Some think it's more likely to be the latter since it's pretty much impossible for a human to fatally overdose on LSD. Then again, different species react to substances in different ways.

Ed W, London,

It is amazing what humans are capable of in the name of science and religion!

Tortue, Hong Kong,

Why are peoples comments always not a representation of an article. Mr Boarse said "they filled me with disbelief, astonishment, disgust and — best of all – laughter" hence not all of what he found made him laugh, and i am sure he didnt select the examples given. Can people learn to read articles properly before making unecessary derogatory comments about people

Rich, Geneva,

The fact of the matter is that most HUMANS wouldn't die from 3,000 times the average dose of LSD. LSD is very curious in this regard. By mass it is one of the most psychoactive compounds known to man, and yet it is very very difficult to overdose on it.

Peter, Los Angeles, CA

In response to Astrid, What Mr Boase said was
“They filled me with disbelief, astonishment, disgust and — best of all – laughter."
He was talking about the weird experiments in general not that the elephant on acid experiment made him laugh. I'm quite sure that to the vast majority of us killing an elephant by drugs overdose would fall into the "disgust" part of Mr Boase's statement.

Bob Haidong, Lancashire, UK

Most of these experiments weren't science at all - they seem to be the uninformed dabblings of the scientificall illiterate. As to the traetment of Tusko - two of them had taken plenty of acid themselves - that explains the imbecility then.

Bill Q, Derby,

No mention of bacon at all :-)

Mark M, Southend on Sea, Essex

If the irreverent Warren Thomas psychologically tortured and killed an elephant in India (a nation that reveres elephants), he would have been beaten to death in minutes. Warren Thomas was a reprobate.

Brien Comerford, Glenview, United States

Scientists should share the same fate as their subjects....

tony, long beach, usa

Mr Boase said it filled him with laughter - I myself fail to see the fun with this experiment. I sincerly hope that Mr Warren Thomas was convicted of animal cruelty.

Astrid Ruqsapram, Bangkok, Thailand

More of interest, I imagine, would be Tusko's reaction to being injected with 3000 times more LSD than a human can handle.

Richard Roylance, Tokyo, Japan