Spiders can hear you ‘walking and talking’. If you’re already scared of spiders, you’re not going to like this next part. A new study published Thursday in Current Biology found that spiders — specifically a species of jumping spider — can hear sounds from further than 10 feet away. Previously, scientists believed spiders, which lack eardrums, could only…
In between bouts of pirate-talk and rocking out to Alestorm (or Lazy Town, whichever you prefer), you may have wondered what life would’ve been like if you actually were a pirate. As it turns out, your life on the seas would’ve been drastically different from the one seen in movies like Treasure Island and Pirates…
Fire ants may not be cute or cuddly, but they have some pretty cool tricks. They can form rafts to survive floods, and researchers have now figured out how they form towers to escape danger or surmount obstacles. The ants don’t consciously decide to throw themselves on top one another to build towers. Rather, it takes a…
Voodoo. In A.D. 64, a great fire broke out in Rome for six days, and devastated much of the city. According to the writer Tacitus, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.” The “abominations” committed by the early Christians were…
Although being scared may possibly not be a pleasant sensation, the capability to sense fear is clearly fairly essential, making certain that creatures respond accordingly to harmful circumstances. An interesting insight is provided by focusing on how fear responses are hardwired in to the brains of various variety into particular sensory circuits have performed a job within their success,…
On the most southernmost tip on New Zealand’s South Island is a place called Slope Point. It hosts some of the strangest-looking trees in the world. They are shaped by the relentless winds that constantly pummel this place. Trees don’t usually grow in the Slope Point area. It’s not that the soil isn’t fertile enough,…
There are strange and amazing creatures living in our world, and some of the most intriguing of these animals are the ones that are transparent. There are many types of species that have see-through bodies and here is a look at the 11 Transparent Creatures In Our Planet. click on pics for full size 1.…
These days, monsters feel as American as apple pie. They star in our movies, and turn our Six Flags theme parks into Fright Nights. Tom Cruise fights them, and Kristen Stewart gets freaky with them. We treat them like a novelty, like something to give us a jolt, or smooth over an awkward first date.…
Alien abduction claims have become a godsend for science fiction writers, bored reporters, and stand-up comedians since the early 1950s. First-hand accounts of alien abductions number in the thousands, and it would seem that a sizeable majority of alien abductees are eager to tell their story to anyone who will listen. Typically, alien abductees enjoy…
The Man Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. He was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century. He initially worked in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer. Freud formed the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system … and that it is the structural investigation of which is…
You’ll never know what’s in store for you when you hear the true story of The Greenbrier Ghost. It is a remarkable case in which the victim’s spirit testified about its own violent death, and named the murderer! At the foot of the stairs One January afternoon in 1897, Erasmus (aka Edward) Shue, a blacksmith,…
Stark warnings. The last few years have seen Artificial Intelligence and robotics finally start to catch up with their science fiction counterparts. Advances in “deep learning” – in which large neural networks are modeled after the human brain – are being used to run everything from Facebook’s automatic photo tagging to Google’s search engines to…
Flat earth. One of the great lies told to schoolchildren is that the whole round-earth thing was first proposed by Christopher Columbus, sailing toward the edge of the Earth in hopes of encountering India. The truth is Columbus knew exactly what he was doing because people have been aware of the shape of the Earth…
Dangerous railways. Nobody is actually really scared of trains, are they? Air travel, sure, and you wouldn’t be too surprised to meet someone who gets a bit nervous crossing oceans or driving on tight roads or even getting on a bicycle. But did you ever heard of somebody freaking out before climbing on board a…
Idiots that changed history. Yes, it happened to us all at one point or another. We’ve all felt the slow burn that comes with the realization that we’ve done something horribly wrong. Whatever you did, chances are good that you only changed history for you. These people changed the world on a grand scale, so…
Alone with their thoughts. In 1654, scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Now, there’s some science behind that statement. A study was conducted by the journal Science and they found that many people prefer a self-administered electrical shock to sitting…
The Saurian Monster must have left a ghoulish sight in the wake of his macabre stride. It all started in October 1886 when workers found a sheep picked clean to the bones at the Frankton Junction slaughter yards, near Hamilton in New Zealand. The reports told the story of the sheep carcass that was taken…
The grey wolf. The battle between wolves and farmers has been going on since the beginning of time, and has been largely uninterrupted over the course of American history. Western Europe, over the course of the twentieth century, has hunted these predators to the point of near-extinction. In the past few years, however, grey wolves…
Hilarious incorrect quotes. It’s safe to say that almost everyone has a t-shirt or two with their favorite band, tv show or a movie. So, if you ever feel like wearing a t-shirt with a logo of your favorite band look no more because a shop called slightlywrong has you covered. Except there’s one small thing, their…
False facts about the Titanic. The sinking of the Titanic was a disaster on a monumental scale, ending with the deaths of 1,500 passengers in the frigid Atlantic Ocean. It’s been elevated to one of those moments in history that feel more myth and legend than real, a horrible, terrible disaster that most of us…
Vietnamese people with the same last name. The existence of last names in Vietnam dates to 111 BC, the beginning of a lengthy thousand-year occupation of the country by the Han Dynasty in China. Before this time, nobody really knows how the Vietnamese handled names, due to lack of written records. In fact even the…
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 Cats. His photos showcase incredible, up-close details that we don’t often see, like the individual…
