Category: Oddities

Sandro Botticelli, an early master of the Italian Renaissance, is celebrated for his contributions to the major art motion. He is well known for his larger-than-life mythological scene of  The Birth of Venus, even though his work features secular portraits…

Panda patches. Giant pandas’ patches are among the most striking of any mammal: black ears and eye spots set against a white face, with dark limbs and shoulders abutting a white neck and torso. Science Scientists have proposed dozens of…

Colorful parrot. If you’re looking for a way to to make your property stand out on a real-estate website, dressing up as a colorful parrot and posing for photos seems to work wonders. At least it worked for the owner…

Looking for a real challenge in your life? Try Pure Hell, a maddening puzzle made up of extra tiny pieces that are all the same solid color, created by the sadistic minds at Beverly Japan. Pure Hell puzzles come in 1,000…

Never-seen-before negatives. Some artists don’t live long enough to experience the recognition they get. Masha Ivashintsova was one of them. This Russian artist and theater critic had been heavily engaged in the Leningrad (now, Saint Petersburg) poetic and photography underground…

Addicted rats. When police inspectors in Pilar, Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, were recently questioned about the disappearance of 540 kg of marijuana from the evidence room, they explained that addicted rats ate it all! Commissioner Emilio Portero relieved his partner…

Ignorant scientists. Science has enormous cachet and authority in our culture, for very understandable reasons! And that has led scientists (and non-scientists who claim the mantle of science) to claim public authority, which is all well and good in their…

Denmark Strait Cataract. What’s the largest waterfall in the world? If you’re talking by flow rate, it’s Inga Falls. If you mean the tallest, it’s Angel Falls. The widest? Khone Falls. But if you want to know the very largest…

  Multi-award-winning illustrator and artist Tran Nguyen creates ethereal paintings and colored pencil drawings, looking as if they come straight out of a fairytale. She explores her interest in therapeutic imagery, and she presents intriguing, dream-like narratives, drawing the viewer in and inviting…

Did Saint Patrick banish all the snakes from Ireland? It turns out the story is a bit more complicated than that. Legend tells it that St. Patrick banished all the snakes from the Emerald Isle, chasing them into the sea…

The Sony World Photography Awards celebrates its 11th anniversary this year. This is one of the most respected and influential photography competitions in the world. Every single year they are sent thousands of stunning photographs from amateur and professional photographers and this year has…

Miracle cat predicts death. Meet Oscar who is believed to have predicted the deaths numerous people at a nursing home. The 10-year-old tabby spends his days roaming the halls of Steere House and is known as notoriously anti-social. But the miracle moggy cuddles up to…

The roads of Transylvania from above! I’m Călin and I’m a photographer living in Romania, in Eastern Europe. I have a project with aerial views of the roads that lead you through Transylvania which I want to share with you….

Mayor in stocks. In most countries, the only way you can punish politicians and civil servants for not doing a proper job is by not voting for them in the next elections. But in Bolivia, they have a thing called…

Croatian artist Dino Tomic usually works with conventional materials like pencils and paper, but his latest project has him spreading kitchen salt on a black background to create incredible artworks and Indian mandalas. The Norway-based salt wizard, who works as an art…

Magical world of snails. Vadim Trunov, a self-taught nature photographer based in Voronezh, Russia, takes beautiful macro photos of snails, insects and mushrooms that seem to personify them and weave beautiful little stories around these oft-overlooked creatures’ lives. Trunov often…

A Chinese man was recently in the news for not only winning millions of yuan in a lottery, but also for the bizarre costume he wore when he collected his prize. The man was so worried about revealing his identity…

Ornate Insects. Latvia-based graphic artist and illustrator Alex Konahin (previously) recently completed work on a new series of ornate insect drawings titled Little Wings. The illustrations were made using pens and india ink in his distinctive style that makes used of ornate scrolls and intricate…

Incredible cute animals. Hokkaido, the large island at Japan’s northern end, is home to populations of adorable little critters that can’t be found anywhere else in Japan. There are several cute little critters in particular that you will absolutely fall in…

Talented Russian nature photographer Vadim Trunov has had close encounters with squirrels before, but this is the first time we’ve seen his photos of squirrels playing or shooting photos of each other! The photographer recently published some photos he’s captured…

Chinese casanova has to leave hospital with police escort. When a man from China’s Hunan province got into a car accident last month, little did he know that his misfortune would actually affect his love life. He was rushed to the…

Pollution creates a deadly aftermath. In 2015, about one in six of the deaths around the world were linked to pollution of some kind, a new report has found. “Pollution is much more than an environmental challenge. It is a…

In a breakthrough scientists successfully did gene editing of a human embryo to eliminate a dangerous gene mutation. The birth of an actual baby with genes selected by technological means hasn’t happened yet, but that is on the way — and…

No conspiracy theory has captured the imagination quite like that time we faked the moon landing. That’s right, we never landed on the moon. According to a 1999 Gallup poll, 6% of Americans thought the moon landings were fake, and…

The scourge of the betel nut. It is used by almost a tenth of the world’s population. It gives people a buzz equivalent to six cups of coffee and is used variously as a symbol of love, marriage and a…

Do words get removed from a dictionary if they are not used? The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary [OED] is generally regarded as the single most comprehensive record of the English language to exist. Included in this work are many thousands…

Swans Invaded The Siberia’s Swan Lake In The Dead Of Winter. Svetloe Lake, located near Urozhainoe village in Siberia, is better known to locals as the Swan Lake. Come February, the lake is usually teeming with activity – beautiful swans…

The elegant beauty of the big cats. Using only a simple, dark background, Vincent J. Musi captures the elegance of lions, leopards, tigers, and more. The South Carolina-based photographer works for National Geographic and shot these breathtaking images as part of a series titled Big…

To some people the peacock spider is the stuff of nightmares, while others think they are cute and ‘behave a bit like cats and dogs’. Bear Grylls’ Mission Survive has been axed by ITV after two series.  We’ll let you…

The warning signs of online fraud and how to avoid it. Logged 207,000 Internet fraud reports to the U.S. Internet Crime Center.