The popular science journal New Scientist had an article recently, which listed the 10 most bizarre science experiments ever conducted. Among others the list include experiments on giving elephants LSD (unluckily one died during the experiments) and resurrection of asphyxiated dogs by shaking them up and down, while injecting hem with anticoagulants and adrenaline (two dogs were actually successfully brought back to life after being death for 10 minutes. Unfortunately they turned out to be both blind and brain damaged).

The exceptional experiment was conducted by the Russian surgeon Vladimir Demikhovs. He conducted transplantation experiments with dog and in 1954 he successfully transplanted the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy onto the neck of an adult dog. He actually managed to keep the two-headed dog alive for 6 days, but the dog tried several times to shake the puppy head attached to its neck off and the puppy retaliated by biting the dog’s ear. Vladimir Demikhovs conducted several similar experiments in the following 15 years, but none of his creations survived longer than a month. He blamed bad surgical techniques, but today we know that the reason was more likely that each dog’s immune system fought the foreign cells from the other dog. However, his experiments were not just a display of animal cruelty, but also paved the way for the first heart transplants.

See the entire list of bizarre experiments here.

Read more about Vladimir Demikhovs and see a photo (unfortunately in bad quality) of the two-headed dog here.