Our annual bottom-10 list, in which we salute the men and women who do what no salary can adequately reward

Number 7: Gravity Research Subject
They´re strapped down so astronauts can blast off

Spend time in outer space, and the lack of gravity will earn you the bloated look astronauts call puffy face, as well as atrophied muscles and bone degeneration. Researchers hope to combat these symptoms by developing artificial-gravity therapies for long voyages. But the only way to approximate the effects of weightlessness is by having volunteers lie still-for weeks on end.

Liz Warren, a researcher at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, managed to convince 15 men to spend 21 straight days in bed. They were tilted head-down at a 6-degree angle, which, along with their inactivity, mimicked the restricted muscle use and increased blood flow to the head experienced in space. The subjects showered using handheld hoses, relieved themselves in bedpans, and were occasionally wheeled out to a common area to socialize with other bedridden guinea pigs.


What´s more, every day technicians strapped the subjects to a gravity-simulating centrifuge and slung them around for an hour, creating 1 G near their hearts and 2.5 Gs at their feet. Their vitals were then compared with subjects who had skipped the ride.

For actor Tim Judd, it was a life-changing experience; the $6,000 payday gave him enough cash to move to Los Angeles to pursue his film career. It´s a good thing he had such a strong motivation. "Your body cavity is upside down, and after the first day you can feel your internal organs start to shift toward your head," he says. Although Warren´s study is now complete, NASA is still far from a full understanding of how to mitigate the effects of weightlessness. "We´ve got a whole wing at the University of Texas hospital in Galveston," Warren says, "and it´s always full of NASA bed-rest subjects."

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25 Comments

That's so disgusting. Go vegan!

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"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?

Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.

"Go vegan", indeed.

"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?

Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.

"Go vegan", indeed.

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That's so disgusting. Go vegan!

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the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.

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more than one story hear kids- pig story last page for sure warrants us all to -go vegan- !!!!!

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what does vegan-ism have anything to do with anything...are you talking about the whale vasectomy?

sorry, i meant elephant vasectomy.



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