Archive Gallery: PopSci Plays Pranks
Julie Beck
at 11:30 AM May 14 2012

When scientists take a break from studying, researching or inventing to devise a practical joke, the stakes are sky-high, sometimes literally. Who else can dangle a car off a bridge, or pull out a monster mask on a space station? A look into our archives finds an abundance of wild prankery.

  • Space Station Shenanigans, August 1994

    Jean-Loup Chretien was anything but a mild-mannered guest aboard Russian space stations Salyut 7 and Mir. But it would seem the Soviets enjoyed his joie de vivre, because Chretien was the only guest cosmonaut to be invited onto both space stations. He was known for wacky antics like serving French cuisine as a waiter, and playing a hand-cranked organ to provide ambience. Chretien also brought a monster mask aboard Salyut 7 and popped out from behind a panel, scaring the stardust out of cosmonaut Anatoly Berezovy. 

  • Enabling, November 1917

    Rambunctious readers in 1917 could find a hearty supply of pranking necessities from this ad in the back of the magazine. Jokesters could purchase invisible ink ("invaluable for many reasons"), sneezing powder and stage money ("with a bunch of these bills, it is easy to appear prosperous") as well as select from a curious list of items with no descriptions, such as "Pharo's Serpents Eggs box," "Cleopatra's Snake (very lifelike)" and "Fighting Roosters, pair." Are those live roosters..? Alas, the answer is lost to time.

  • Car On The Roof Trick, June 1926

    Leading a cow up stairs is a classic prank - the idea being that they can't walk back down, so they'll just stay up there, mooing and causing a ruckus. In 1926, a group of students at MIT decided to recreate the prank with a more willing and less stinky subject: a car. Being the future engineers that they were, they hoisted a Ford onto the roof of one of MIT's dorms with block and tackle, leaving it carefully balanced over the edge of the building. 

  • Fake Fossils, November 1933

    Mother Nature's got to get her jollies in where she can. She created several kinds of rock formations that strongly resemble fossilised plants and animals. The Smithsonian has an entire collection of these fake fossils. For example, the "fossilised heart" pictured at left is really just mud shaped by a clam shell. And what appears to be remnants of an ancient fern is actually a pattern formed by iron-heavy water seeping into rock.

  • The King of Practical Jokes, January 1955

    In 1955, we profiled inventor Sam Adams, a man who enjoys a good joke at someone else's expense. The palm buzzer? He invented that. The dribble glass? Snakes in a can? Those too. However, he's sure to point out that a prank is only funny as long as it doesn't go too far. The ideal practical joke, he told our reporter in 1955, "does not generate the urge toward mayhem or murder against the joker, who is my customer, and who, consequently, I do not wish to see murdered."

  • Gus the Mechanic

    In this tale, our hero, Gus, who prefers staying in and tackling tough engine jobs to going out fishing with the boys, has a run-in with a couple of hooligans from the neighbourhood. If he's such a good mechanic, they taunt him, maybe he can figure out what's wrong with their car. He quickly determines that the hooligans are pranking him for April Fools' Day. They've switched two of the spark plug wires - "the oldest automotive practical joke in the book," Gus says, and charges them eight whole dollars to teach them a lesson.

  • Computer Generated Research Papers, July 2005

    In 2005, three computer science students at MIT noticed that they were getting a lot of emails asking them to submit research papers for publication, for the low fee of $390. They developed a program that would generate nonsensical research papers for them to submit. This led to papers that said things like "A grand challenge in theory is the important unification of virtual machines and real-time theory. A conference initially accepted the paper, but after they caught wind of the joke, they rejected it and issued the students a refund.

  • Go Big Or Go Home, September 2008

    The University of British Columbia engineering students are known for hanging Volkswagen Beetles off of things, in this case, the Lions Gate Bridge. The car has a giant "E" painted on it, for "engineers." Our intrepid reporter accompanied the students as they executed the prank. We can only hope that getting their stunt published in PopSci helped a few of the students earn their "Black E patches," awarded to UBC engineers when one of their pranks gets widespread media attention. 

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