11 Craziest Things People Have Done In The Name Of Science

Possibly the creepiest entry on this list, Lawrence LeShan's experiment is certainly a nail-biter.

LeShan, a psychologist and researcher from Virginia, was interested on the effect of subliminal messaging in the treatment of bad habits. He designed an experiment in which he would gather a group of nail-biting boys together and play a recording as they slept repeating the words "my nails taste terribly bitter" throughout the night in the hope of stopping the habit.

Unfortunately, disaster struck when LeShan's record player broke, almost derailing the entire experiment. Not to be defeated, however, LeShan simply decided to stand in the corner of the boys' cabin through the night and mutter the words "my nails taste terribly bitter" into the darkness. The experiment appeared to have been successful, with 40% of the participants breaking the habit. 

However, concerns were raised as to whether the boys had actually been asleep during the experiment, or whether they had lain awake and terrified all night as a creepy guy stood in the corner of their bedroom telling them how terribly bitter his nails tasted. It may well have been the case that the children stopped their nail-biting just to make the nasty man go away.