THE PITCH DROP EXPERIMENT

John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 -- in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/physics_museum/pitchdrop.shtml