
Say you find yourself in a public restroom and notice a man standing at the mirror taking an obsessive interest in combing his hair. At the same time, an overexcited guy tries snuggling up to you in the adjacent urinal, getting as close as possible to share in your moment of dick-wielding intimacy. On top of all that, you get the eerie feeling that someone is secretly staring at your gigglestick through a periscope.
Sound like paranoia (or a David Lynch film)? Wrong. You've been caught in a urination shyness sting. Yes, that's a real thing, done by actual scientists.

Though, clearly, it could be worse.
That guy at the mirror groping his coif is actually intently listening to your pee and trying to determine how fast it's being jettisoned from your chubmarine. The eager beaver next to you is fucking with you on purpose, diligently working to increase your level of discomfort. And yes, there is someone inside the wall, monitoring your urine stream through the world's filthiest viewmaster. All in the name of science, of course.
Here's the paper the three researchers published on their experiment-slash-Porky's reenactment. They wanted to know how an invasion of personal space would affect the speed and flow of someone's urine stream. Really, do we need to list all of the thousands of reasons that information could be important in an emergency?

Their mind-blowing discovery? It takes a guy longer to pee when he's creeped the fuck out. Perhaps even more mind-blowing is the fact that the experiment was likely made possible by grant dollars, which means somebody read this proposal and decided to invest in it, presumably before going on to invent several Japanese game shows.
5
The Military's Death and Paperwork Experiment

Back in the 60s, 10 soldiers boarded a military aircraft for what they were told was a routine training mission. After reaching an altitude of 5,000 feet, the plane suddenly lurched and began to plummet back down to Earth.
The pilot took the intercom and informed the soldiers that the aircraft was experiencing catastrophic engine failure, and that everyone aboard should probably start kissing their asses goodbye while they still had lips. But before they could bend over, a steward passed out insurance paperwork and explained that the forms had to be completed in order for anybody's family to be paid a death benefit.

So there they were, rocketing towards a jagged metal resting place by way of fiery explosion, trying to find a flat surface to write on. Then, just as impact seemed imminent, the pilot said, "LOLZ, just kidding about that emergency, folks" and righted the plane. Once safely back on the ground, we like to think the soldiers showed their appreciation for this fine joke by repeatedly sodomizing the pilot with their rifles.
What was the point? To see how extreme stress affected a person's "cognitive ability," measured in this case as the ability to do paperwork.