Animal Bodies Science Has Completely Transformed

Like most sci-fi/horror movie monsters, Africanized bees were created in the 1950s for a good purpose. Biologists crossbred African honey bees with the Italian bee, the Iberian bee, or one of numerous other European honey bees to increase honey production in Brazil, where they were kept in quarantine. But just like in the movies, these ill-tempered lab experiments escaped, and are now out to get us. Known for their aggressive behavior, swarms of up to 40,000 bees have been known to attack people. To make matters worse, they prefer to assail our eyes, ears, and mouths. Since their breakout, the killer bees, as they're more commonly known, have migrated north into the US, reaching as far as Utah and Nevada, and spanning from California to Florida. Plan your vacations accordingly.

While some animals undergo genetic modification or breeding for a scientific purpose, others experience it just ... because. Such is the case with the liger, the result of mating a male lion with a female tiger. (Side note: female lions and male tigers make tigons.) As the two halves of this equation don't encounter each other in the wild, each of the 30 ligers in existence, as of this writing, was bred and lives in captivity. The result of this coupling is the largest cat in the world, with the largest, named Hercules, weighing 922 pounds (418.2 kilograms) and stretching 131 inches long (3.33 meters). Besides looking all huge, ligers are basically for show — they basically just serve as zoo exhibits and as visual results of mysteriously-inspired scientific experiments. Oh, and they're pretty much your favorite animal too.

Herman the Bull was the first human/animal hybrid to ever exist. While still an embryo in 1990, scientists spliced a human gene into Herman, hoping he would spawn female offspring that produced milk with human protein. Amazingly, it kind of worked! While his calfs' milk did indeed contain protein, there wasn't enough of it to attract commercial interest. After failing as a scientific experiment, Herman lived the rest of his 13-year life on a farm in the Netherlands with two cloned cows named Belle and Holly, until he was put down in 2004. His ailment, arthritis, is said to have nothing to do with his modification. What's left of him can be seen at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, Netherlands.

Those of you hoping to one day own a goat that can spin spider silk are in luck, as spider-goats now exist. Pioneered by Nexia Biotechnologies and carried on by college professor Randy Lewis, spider-goats were created because spiders are difficult — if not impossible — to farm. Goats are much easier to handle, so scientists spliced spider genes into a goat names Freckles, and about 30 of his pals. The resulting hybrid babies produce both milk and spider silk from their udders. The hope is that this silk, which pound-for-pound is far stronger and more durable than steel, will have industrial and commercial, applications, which is kind of cool. But if the spider-goats ever start crawling walls, they'll have to go.

Though this one happened by accident, someone should've seen it coming a mile away. In an attempt to kill worms, Iowa scientists have managed to create super worms. With farmer's crops plagued by various pests, scientists engineered corn, called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt corn, which was supposed to kill the crop-destroying rootworms (actually a kind of beetle). It was supposed to be a cleaner solution than spraying pesticides, except things didn't work out the way everyone involved planned. The root worms and their larvae built up a resistance to the crop in under five years, which in terms of evolution is super-quick. Farmers plan on continuing with the Bt corn, as it wards off other pests, but for now, the rootworms are not only here to stay, but they're stronger than ever too. Say goodbye to our food supplies.