Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share 🎬 Top 10 Times Scientists Got High and Accidentally Changed the World Hold onto your lab coats, because this episode drops harder than a beaker full of bong water!
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
🎬 Top 10 Times Scientists Got High and Accidentally Changed the World Hold onto your lab coats, because this episode drops harder than a beaker full of bong water!
Psychedelic synapses, accidental epiphanies, and the sweet, sweet smell of scientific serendipity... with a side of cheeba.
Welcome to GO FACT YOURSELF—the podcast that hits harder than your uncle's trivia night and cuts deeper than your ex’s last text. Each episode is a no-holds-barred countdown of the Top 10 Most Jaw-Dropping, Mind-Melting, Table-Flipping Facts in the universe. From the weirdest laws ever passed to history’s most savage comebacks, we rank it all—boldly, brilliantly, and with a twist of “did-they-just-say-that?!” This isn’t just a facts show. It’s a truth grenade. Press play. Regret nothing. In this week's extra-special, ganja-infused, and Nobel-adjacent adventure, we're diving deep into “Top 10 Times Scientists Got High and Accidentally Changed the World” 🧠🚀🤯. Get ready for a historical haze of accidental genius and chemically-induced creation! We're counting down the ten most delightfully deranged moments when scientists weren't exactly peer-reviewed, but definitely peer-stoned, into making world-altering discoveries! Buckle up buttercups, because the truth is stranger (and higher) than fiction!
Here’s the top 10 list that’ll have you questioning everything you thought you knew:
* #10: The Guy Who Discovered Acid... Then Rode His Bike Through a Psychedelic Apocalypse 🧪🚲😵. In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally dosed himself with LSD through his fingertips before intentionally upping the ante and embarking on a legendary bicycle ride through what he called a "kaleidoscopic circus from hell". This accidental trip birthed the modern acid trip, revolutionized psychiatric research, and arguably kickstarted the ‘60s a couple of decades early. Turns out, trying to synthesize a respiratory stimulant (LSD-25) led to neural atomic bombs and conversations with furniture. His "very good experience" fascinated the CIA (hello, MKUltra!), and now Bicycle Day is a celebrated holiday for those who think gravity is optional.
* #9: The Physicist Who Solved Nuclear Equations in a Nicotine-Caffeine Frenzy 🧠🚬☕. Meet Richard Feynman: Nobel laureate, bongo enthusiast, safecracker, and the man who chain-smoked and coffee-fueled his way through the Manhattan Project. Wired on Lucky Strikes and endless java, Feynman claimed he could feel the math "dancing" in his head, scribbling critical nuclear fission formulas on napkins and even in a strip club. This caffeinated trance-state genius helped win the war and led to a side hustle of nerd trolling via safe-cracking. Later, sleep-deprived and mainlining Diet Coke, he even helped figure out the Challenger disaster. Give this man the stimulants, and he'll unlock the universe (and your filing cabinet).
* #8: The NASA Intern Who Got So High He Put a Spider on Drugs 🕸️🕷️🚀. In 1995, some adventurous (and possibly blazed) NASA researchers, including a legendary intern, fed spiders caffeine, marijuana, LSD, and benzedrine to see how it affected their web-weaving skills. The results were pure arachnid pandemonium: LSD spiders became meticulous engineers, caffeine spiders built chaotic messes, marijuana webs started strong then petered out, and benzedrine webs were huge but sloppy. This real, taxpayer-funded research published in The Journal of Arachnology aimed to test drugs’ effects on neurocognitive performance. Unconfirmed whispers even suggest the intern wanted to name a spider "Web Marley". Turns out, stoners make terrible architects but excellent chaos theorists, according to NASA.
* #7: The Doctor Who Invented Heroin... and Thought It Was a Cough Suppressant 💉👶🤦♂️. In 1898, German chemist Heinrich Dreser, working for Bayer, created heroin as a supposedly non-addictive alternative to morphine and then gave it to children for coughs. He named it "Heroin" because it made users feel heroisch (heroic). Bayer marketed this "miracle cure" for everything from tuberculosis to teething pain, even showing blissful babies next to the bottle in ads. Oops! Turns out, it was more addictive than morphine, leading to a century-long drug war. Dreser pioneered the "Oops, All Addicts!" approach to pharmaceutical R&D.
* #6: The Biologist Who Got High on Shrooms... and Talked to Plants 🍄👽🗣️🌿. Biologist Terence McKenna didn’t just study psychoactive mushrooms; he consulted them, claiming they spoke in alien tongues and revealed the universe's secrets. Surprisingly, some of his hallucinatory insights were eerily accurate. In 1971, McKenna went to the Amazon, ate a "heroic dose" of Psilocybe cubensis, and spent three days communing with an "alien intelligence embedded in fungal DNA". The mushrooms allegedly told him all life is a simulation, language is a virus, and time is a spiral, even showing him "machine elves" and visions of the future that mirrored discoveries about fungal communication networks (mycorrhizal systems). His book Food of the Gods became a psychedelic bible, and even modern mycologists admit he was onto something about fungi's intelligent underground networks. McKenna: the only man who took shrooms, talked to plants, and accidentally described real science 20 years early.
(Stay tuned for the mind-meltdown to continue with #5 to #1 in our next transmission!)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gofactyourself.substack.com
View all episodes
By Top 10 Lists. Zero Apologies!Psychedelic synapses, accidental epiphanies, and the sweet, sweet smell of scientific serendipity... with a side of cheeba.
Welcome to GO FACT YOURSELF—the podcast that hits harder than your uncle's trivia night and cuts deeper than your ex’s last text. Each episode is a no-holds-barred countdown of the Top 10 Most Jaw-Dropping, Mind-Melting, Table-Flipping Facts in the universe. From the weirdest laws ever passed to history’s most savage comebacks, we rank it all—boldly, brilliantly, and with a twist of “did-they-just-say-that?!” This isn’t just a facts show. It’s a truth grenade. Press play. Regret nothing. In this week's extra-special, ganja-infused, and Nobel-adjacent adventure, we're diving deep into “Top 10 Times Scientists Got High and Accidentally Changed the World” 🧠🚀🤯. Get ready for a historical haze of accidental genius and chemically-induced creation! We're counting down the ten most delightfully deranged moments when scientists weren't exactly peer-reviewed, but definitely peer-stoned, into making world-altering discoveries! Buckle up buttercups, because the truth is stranger (and higher) than fiction!
Here’s the top 10 list that’ll have you questioning everything you thought you knew:
* #10: The Guy Who Discovered Acid... Then Rode His Bike Through a Psychedelic Apocalypse 🧪🚲😵. In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally dosed himself with LSD through his fingertips before intentionally upping the ante and embarking on a legendary bicycle ride through what he called a "kaleidoscopic circus from hell". This accidental trip birthed the modern acid trip, revolutionized psychiatric research, and arguably kickstarted the ‘60s a couple of decades early. Turns out, trying to synthesize a respiratory stimulant (LSD-25) led to neural atomic bombs and conversations with furniture. His "very good experience" fascinated the CIA (hello, MKUltra!), and now Bicycle Day is a celebrated holiday for those who think gravity is optional.
* #9: The Physicist Who Solved Nuclear Equations in a Nicotine-Caffeine Frenzy 🧠🚬☕. Meet Richard Feynman: Nobel laureate, bongo enthusiast, safecracker, and the man who chain-smoked and coffee-fueled his way through the Manhattan Project. Wired on Lucky Strikes and endless java, Feynman claimed he could feel the math "dancing" in his head, scribbling critical nuclear fission formulas on napkins and even in a strip club. This caffeinated trance-state genius helped win the war and led to a side hustle of nerd trolling via safe-cracking. Later, sleep-deprived and mainlining Diet Coke, he even helped figure out the Challenger disaster. Give this man the stimulants, and he'll unlock the universe (and your filing cabinet).
* #8: The NASA Intern Who Got So High He Put a Spider on Drugs 🕸️🕷️🚀. In 1995, some adventurous (and possibly blazed) NASA researchers, including a legendary intern, fed spiders caffeine, marijuana, LSD, and benzedrine to see how it affected their web-weaving skills. The results were pure arachnid pandemonium: LSD spiders became meticulous engineers, caffeine spiders built chaotic messes, marijuana webs started strong then petered out, and benzedrine webs were huge but sloppy. This real, taxpayer-funded research published in The Journal of Arachnology aimed to test drugs’ effects on neurocognitive performance. Unconfirmed whispers even suggest the intern wanted to name a spider "Web Marley". Turns out, stoners make terrible architects but excellent chaos theorists, according to NASA.
* #7: The Doctor Who Invented Heroin... and Thought It Was a Cough Suppressant 💉👶🤦♂️. In 1898, German chemist Heinrich Dreser, working for Bayer, created heroin as a supposedly non-addictive alternative to morphine and then gave it to children for coughs. He named it "Heroin" because it made users feel heroisch (heroic). Bayer marketed this "miracle cure" for everything from tuberculosis to teething pain, even showing blissful babies next to the bottle in ads. Oops! Turns out, it was more addictive than morphine, leading to a century-long drug war. Dreser pioneered the "Oops, All Addicts!" approach to pharmaceutical R&D.
* #6: The Biologist Who Got High on Shrooms... and Talked to Plants 🍄👽🗣️🌿. Biologist Terence McKenna didn’t just study psychoactive mushrooms; he consulted them, claiming they spoke in alien tongues and revealed the universe's secrets. Surprisingly, some of his hallucinatory insights were eerily accurate. In 1971, McKenna went to the Amazon, ate a "heroic dose" of Psilocybe cubensis, and spent three days communing with an "alien intelligence embedded in fungal DNA". The mushrooms allegedly told him all life is a simulation, language is a virus, and time is a spiral, even showing him "machine elves" and visions of the future that mirrored discoveries about fungal communication networks (mycorrhizal systems). His book Food of the Gods became a psychedelic bible, and even modern mycologists admit he was onto something about fungi's intelligent underground networks. McKenna: the only man who took shrooms, talked to plants, and accidentally described real science 20 years early.
(Stay tuned for the mind-meltdown to continue with #5 to #1 in our next transmission!)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gofactyourself.substack.com