The 50 Worst Inventions - Second 10 · 7:38pm Nov 3rd, 2016
TIME - From the zany to the dangerous to the just plain dumb, here is TIME's list (in no particular order) of some of the world's bright ideas that just didn't work out. These are numbers 11-20.
11. HONEGAR
Invented in 1959 by Dr. DeForest C. Jarvis, Honegar is exactly what it sounds like: a mix of equal parts honey and apple-cider vinegar. Jarvis drew his inspiration from the drinking habits of rural Vermont farmers, who he believed to be particularly healthy. While the unpalatable recipe failed to catch on (though there are modern-day devotees), the science may not be all bad: both honey and apple-cider vinegar contain a slew of important antioxidants and are folk treatments for ailments like arthritis.
12. HYDROGEN BLIMPS
When the Hindenburg was designed in 1931, its makers made the fateful choice to use hydrogen instead of helium to set the blimp aloft. Hydrogen was cheaper and more readily available but had the nasty side effect of being highly flammable. That proved to be a problem in 1937, when the famed blimp caught fire and crashed in just 36 seconds, spelling the end to the hydrogen blimp. Most current blimps, including the famous Goodyear ones, are powered by far less volatile helium.
13. HAIR IN A CAN
Cheese, Spam, sardines — nothing really good has ever come from a can. Hair is no exception. Hyped breathlessly on off-hour infomercials, spray-on hair is supposed to cover up bald spots. In practice, the can emits a fine powder that ends up looking a little better than if you had used a can of spray paint. If nothing else, it's evidence that there's definitely something to be said for growing old with dignity.
14. DDT
DDT was supposed to be the magic bullet vs. the scourge of insect-borne diseases like malaria. Discovered in 1873, DDT (short for the less catchy dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) wasn't used widely until 1939, when Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Muller noted its effectiveness as a pesticide during World War II, a discovery that earned him a Nobel Prize in 1948. After the war, use exploded: from 1942 to 1972, some 1.35 billion lb. of DDT were used in the U.S.
But absent from the DDT mania was consideration of the environmental effects of dumping millions of pounds of potent pesticides each year. Rachel Carson's seminal 1962 environmental tract Silent Spring was the first to call attention to the nasty little fact that DDT produced fertility and neurological problems in humans and accumulated up the food chain in wildlife, poisoning birds. Use of the compound plummeted, and in 1972, DDT was banned in the U.S. entirely.
15. AUTO-TUNE
It's a technology that can make bad singers sound good and really bad singers (like T-Pain, pictured here) sound like robots. And it gives singers who sound like Kanye West or Cher the misplaced confidence that they too can croon. Thanks a lot, computers.
16. RED DYE NO. 2
Among the most ubiquitous food colorings in the 1970s, Red Dye No. 2 was pulled from the market in 1976 after Soviet scientists claimed that tests showed a link between the substance and cancer. Was the panic overblown? Probably — no one ever succumbed to a red-dye disease. But the fact that the scare pulled red M&Ms from bags for a decade is enough for the substance to make this list.
17. FORD PINTO
The 1971 model is, hands down, one of the worst cars of all time. That's what happens when an automobile has the nasty tendency to literally explode when involved in a rear-end collision. Adding insult to injury was the infamous memo Ford wrote after learning about the problem, arguing it'd be cheaper to pay settlements to victims than to fix the Pinto.
18. PARACHUTE JACKET
Honestly, you can probably guess where this is going. Down. Fast. Designed in 1912 by German inventor Franz Reichelt, the parachute jacket had a high-profile unveiling when Reichelt wore one for a jump from the Eiffel Tower. It didn't deploy. Reichelt died.
19. SONY BETAMAX
Betamax wasn't so much a bad product as a lesson in marketing gone awry. The also-ran to VHS in the video-format wars, Betamax was pushed by Sony as a proprietary format in 1975 before it was completely ready, in a race to get manufacturers on board. But while Betamax could record up to an hour of video, VHS could record up to two hours. That slight advantage was enough for VHS to gain a foothold in the market, one it never relinquished. Betamax became a footnote.
20. BABY CAGE
In the 1930s, London nannies lacking space for their young ones resorted to the baby cage. It's exactly what it sounds like: a creepy wire contraption, patented in the U.S. in 1922, that lets you claim that space outside your city window for your infant. Risky? Maybe, but so convenient. How sweet; how sick.
