Part-goat, part-spider, all bullet-proof! Could this be the new tagline for the humans of tomorrow? A scientist by the name of Jalila Essaidi hope so!

54-year old scientist Daniel "D.B." Karron and her firm Computer Aided Surgery Inc. were given a $1.3 million government grant from the Department of Commerce. The money was supposed to go towards developing medical technology for uses in radiation therapy, surgical planning and manufacturing prosthetic devices. D.B. however had a better idea on how to spend that dough - surgically fashioning her penis into a vagina and buying blenders. Among other things.

Wartime propaganda of the '30s and '40s didn't stop at the physical enemy on the other side of the trenches. Guilt and scare tactics were common in the battle against the spread of sexually transmitted diseases within the American public at large and in the military in particular. Soldiers were the primary targets of posters like the ones below, which appealed to patriotism, family, morality, manly pride and outright fear to get enlisted men to take steps to avoid venereal disease (VD) -- including throwing out dubious "facts" like "98% of all procurable women have venereal disease" that tried to make sexual intercourse with women look as scary as possible. The message is frightening, but the posters are colorful, charismatic and downright charming.

Who says bacon can't be good for you? If you dig through the facts hard enough and with an empty enough stomach, the delicious truth emerges...

Today it seems hard to believe that anyone would take these medical devices seriously, but in decades past, a combination of scientific ignorance and hope for a magical cure-all allowed quack gadgets like these to multiply and prosper. Even today, a causual peek at late-night infomercials on TV show that medical quackery is still going strong, feeding on the hopes of the sick and and gullible until the next big health fad comes along.