Every once in a while in my searches for new gadget content to tell you about, I come across something so weird and twisted that I have to write about it; its sheer existence boggles the mind so much that to not report on it would be a crime. As it so happens, today is one of those days. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Electronic Test Tube Aliens.

Made by 4Kidz, Inc., whose design department seems to have developed a cruel streak, the Electronic Test Tube Aliens are a cross between a science experiment and an electronic toy. Each alien (there are six varieties, three good and three evil, according to the toy's rather sophisticated, but very poorly edited mythology) comes in a capsule, which according to the storyline protected it on its voyage to Earth away from its dying planet. Each alien is looking for a caretaker to help it survive while it looks for a new planet to colonize - by buying the toy, you agree to serve as parent and legal guardian, with all of the rights and privileges and possibilities for cruelty granted in novels by Charles Dickens. Put the capsule in water and it dissolves, freeing its occupant, whose life force you can monitor by watching the blinking LED on its head. Feed the alien, give enough light and enough dark, or by all that's holy you'll kill the thing and have to live with the guilt the rest of your life. But wait, it gets better.

What does caring for the alien get you? As it turns out, nothing but either guilt for killing it or pain at its loss, because it's going to die as soon as the battery that runs its LED runs out. There's no progression, no metamorphosis and certainly no colonization. If you're feeling a little sadistic though, you can go to testtubealiens.com, where holding the alien up to the screen will initialize a connection to the website, giving you information on the alien's vitals, how much you've neglected it and, as an added bonus, opportunities to torture it through games. Pretty sick, right? Ages 7 and up!

Via Popular Mechanics