There have been some wild experiments that sound like they came straight out of a sci-fi movie and could’ve caused serious problems for the world. Take *Magnaporthe grisea*, for example—this rice-killing fungus has the potential to wipe out huge food supplies if mishandled. Then there’s Project Sirius, or Operation Stormfury, where scientists tried to control hurricanes, which could have ended in weather disasters if things went wrong. Ever heard of oil-eating bacteria? While they’re helpful in cleaning oil spills, if they got out of control, they could devour more than we bargained for. And let’s not forget particle collider experiments, which some feared could create black holes. These are just a few examples of how science, while incredible, can also come with some serious risks! Credit: Apollo-11-Capsule: By NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7595535 Apollo 11 astronauts: By NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133092718 Apollo Boilerplate 1102: By NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28490311 Swarm: Nature's Incredible Invasions / John Downer Productions Ltd. Wild Parsnip Phytophotodermatitis: By Pfc598, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15865020 Laboratory: By National Museum of Health and Medicine - https://flic.kr/p/9gudTE, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95958522 CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/: J Sendra with Magnaporthe grisea: By Coentor, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:J_Sendra_with_Magnaporthe_grisea.jpeg Arrossar amb piriculariosi: By Miquel Pujol, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77319181 Schleswig, Waldmühle, Riesenbärenklau: By Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133620381 CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0: Giant Hogweed Erdadication: By valenta - https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6587500, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151404541 Giant Hogweed at Gogarburn: By M J Richardson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125799413 Magnaporthe grisea: By Fk, CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1193680 Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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FunTranscript
00:00You're a brilliant scientist who wants to improve this world.
00:04You invent a pill that can purify water in any contamination.
00:08You throw the pill into a puddle and the water becomes clear.
00:12The purified water enters the sewer and a chain reaction of purification begins.
00:17But the chemical inside the pill destroy not only harmful microbes but also beneficial
00:22bacteria.
00:24The chain reaction reaches the oceans and all the water on the planet becomes lifeless.
00:30The ecosystem of Earth is collapsing and the apocalypse begins.
00:34Oops!
00:36And you just wanted to make the world a better place.
00:38This is a fictional story, but in real life, there were scientific experiments that could
00:43accidentally destroy our world.
00:47For example, in the 70s, scientists decided to find a way to deal with oil leakage in
00:52the ocean.
00:53To do this, a biologist and a researcher of genetic engineering, Dr. Chakrabarty changed
00:58the inner structure of one unique bacteria.
01:01The change gave the bacteria the ability to dissolve organic substances.
01:06You could put a couple hundred billion of these bacteria in polluted water.
01:11They would start feeding on oil and multiply, cleaning up the ocean.
01:15It sounds cool, but scientists were worried that the bacteria could mutate.
01:21What if, in addition to oil, they started eating plastic, paper, wood, dirt, glass,
01:27metals, and literally everything?
01:30Imagine that trillions of omnivorous bacteria multiply and eat the entire planet!
01:36After some research, scientists realized that this option was unlikely.
01:40However, they were worried that oil-eating bacteria could start eating other bacteria
01:46and would take a dominant place in the food chain of microbes.
01:51This would break the balance in nature because some bacteria are needed to nourish a million
01:56living creatures, and this fragile cycle of life in nature would be destroyed.
02:01Fortunately, none of this happened.
02:04Bacteria could only feed on oil, and Dr. Chakrabarty was the first to patent a living being.
02:12Another noble experiment that could have bad consequences is called SETI, the Search
02:17for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
02:20You've probably understood from the name what the danger of this gamble is.
02:24The program has been running for more than five decades.
02:29Special instruments have been scanning outer space in attempts to find radio signals from
02:33representatives of other civilizations.
02:36It sounds cool, but the problem is that we also send signals with our coordinates, hoping
02:41that someone will receive them and find us.
02:45If some creatures find out about us and can get to our planet from other parts of the
02:49galaxy, it will mean that their technologies are much more advanced than ours.
02:54And what if they can easily conquer our planet?
02:58Or imagine that green people have caught our signal and said,
03:01Hey look, there's a planet a couple thousand light years from here.
03:04Its inhabitants have sent us their address.
03:07Don't you want to go there and check?
03:09No dude, I'm sure it's a trap.
03:11Haven't you watched space horror movies?
03:14In any case, our signal is unlikely to reach any star system, where theoretically there
03:19may be life in the near future.
03:21The distance is too great.
03:25Another case occurred in the late 60s when the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft returned
03:30to Earth after their lunar mission.
03:32Three astronauts landed inside a capsule somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
03:37People who had been to the moon made a huge step for all humankind.
03:41It was awesome!
03:42Ships sailed up to the capsule in the ocean and brought astronauts on board.
03:47They were greeted as heroes.
03:50But what if they had picked up some unknown microbes on the moon?
03:54It was the 60s when medical and research technologies were not as developed as they are now.
03:59The astronauts might not have suspected that some organisms got attached to them.
04:03Then those organisms could have sneaked inside the spaceship and arrived on Earth.
04:09But scientists would have been unable to stop them from spreading or understand their nature.
04:16Not only astronauts, but also space probes and satellites can infect the planet with
04:21extraterrestrial microbes.
04:23What if these creatures start feeding on our oxygen and multiply exponentially?
04:28One scientist said that there was a 99% probability that Apollo 11 wouldn't bring lunar organisms
04:34to Earth.
04:35But 1% is still a lot and can lead to unpredictable consequences.
04:40Sometimes the forces of nature can become a destructive power in human hands.
04:45There is a fungus, Magnaporta grisea, that infects rice grains and makes them unfit for
04:51consumption.
04:52Every year, this fungus destroys so much rice that it would be enough to feed 60 million
04:57people.
04:58Livestock eat rice too, so animals also suffer from the fungus.
05:03Therefore, Magnaporta grisea is one of the most dangerous enemies of agriculture.
05:09Imagine someone taking samples of this fungus, modifying them and making them stronger and
05:15more destructive.
05:16And then these samples would accidentally get on the fields.
05:20The fungus would begin to multiply and devour the crops.
05:24This would lead to the disappearance of rice and livestock, leading to hunger.
05:30Of course, there is no evidence that someone could use this substance.
05:34However, in some places, farmers noticed that Magnaporta grisea began to spread too quickly.
05:41The balance in nature is very fragile and any change in the planet's ecosystem can
05:46lead to unpredictable consequences.
05:48Even such animals as mice can do that.
05:51Let's look at a real example of a catastrophe that happened on Gough Island in the South
05:56Atlantic Ocean.
05:58In the 19th century, sailors accidentally brought mice to this island.
06:03The rodent population began to grow quickly and displace other animals from the island.
06:08The Tristan albatross and dozens of other rare birds were on the brink of extinction.
06:14Even though albatross chicks are much larger than mice, rodents still attacked them.
06:20The island's history shows that such invasive species as mice can destroy entire animal
06:24species and disrupt the biodiversity of nature.
06:28And what if rodents didn't have natural enemies such as cats and other predators?
06:33In that case, they'd be able to conquer the entire animal world.
06:39To save the birds, experts began to get rid of mice with poison.
06:42However, there are more effective methods.
06:45The toxin can harm other animals and poison the area, leading to disastrous consequences.
06:51And scientists found another way to combat invasive species.
06:56This is gene drive.
06:58This thing changes an animal's genetic code, which makes them infertile or makes them give
07:03birth to only one gender.
07:05Thus, mice disappear because they can't reproduce or because they have only a female or only
07:11a male population.
07:13The gene drive showed its effectiveness when scientists were fighting malaria mosquitoes.
07:18Just a few winged insects infected with the gene were enough to destroy an entire species
07:24on some territories.
07:27Infected mosquitoes gave birth to offspring affected by the gene too.
07:31And so, the spread of infertility began.
07:35This is an effective way to control pests.
07:38But what if someone wants to use the gene drive for other purposes?
07:42Say spread it among fish or wild animals?
07:46That would change nature forever.
07:49Not only animals and people can affect nature badly, some plants do that too.
07:54One of them is giant hogweed.
07:56It grows faster than people manage to destroy it.
07:59It's immune to any poisons and has a long lifespan.
08:03Giant hogweed is an invasive species that takes over fields and gets rid of other growth.
08:08It can also burn human skin with its poison.
08:11Despite the fact that there are animals that eat hogweed, the plant is still spreading
08:16too fast.
08:17Perhaps evolution will create more effective ways to fight with it.
08:21It can be some parasitic bacteria.
08:23But until that happens, people have to deal with the plant on their own.
08:28We spend millions of dollars to get rid of giant hogweed and it doesn't always work
08:32out.
08:33You can burn a field with it, but if one seed remains, it will quickly grow on the scorched
08:38ground.
08:39But what if scientists created a poison that would not destroy the plant but change its
08:45genetic code, which would lead to mutations?
08:48The plant would increase in size and start growing faster.
08:52Ivy and hogweed would fill city streets and grow in buildings.
08:56It would be an unpredicted result after all the movies about zombies and invaders from
09:01other galaxies.
09:02That's it for today.
09:04So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
09:09friends.
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