Tag: oddities

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…

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…

Have you ever wished for a fairy tale world to escape to? Well, if you’re furiously nodding at your screen right now then you’ll be glad to hear that it is in fact entirely possible to do so. We have just…

Future technology. Resuscitation is one of those topics that is regularly discussed in the world of science. Resuscitation is highly unlikely at present due to the lack of the needed technology for success. However, it might be possible in the…

The dark side of selfies. Our social media feeds are full of self-shot photos of our friends and family looking better than we do, doing things that are more exciting than the things we do, and just generally proving to…

Ryan Koopmans tells the story:   GQ Magazine assigned us to photograph the atmosphere and culture around Area 51, a highly secretive and much talked-about US airforce institution located in the desert of Nevada. We met with local business owners and…

Dave Pollot is a painter in the US who brings new life to old and forgotten thrift store paintings by adding pop culture characters. He uses these old paintings to combine his interest in painting with his love for popular…

The specific point on Earth that reigns as the planet’s hottest place turns out to be a very complex, loaded question. What defines ‘hottest’ exactly? Do we mean the place that reaches the highest temperature? The place with the highest…

Simon Beck, who bills himself as “the world’s first and most famous ‘Snow Artist,’” is back with a new work of unique art – a massive snow dragon that he drew by walking in the heavy snowfall near Yakutsk, Siberia….

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…

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…

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…

Cute panda ant. The panda-ant may look cute, but its sting is painful! Technically not an ant but a wasp, its colors and patters are aposematic, warning other predators to stay away. Only the female is wingless, and despite sometimes…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The human eye. According to scientist and photographer Dr. Roger Clark, the resolution of the human eye is 576 megapixels. That’s huge when you compare it to the 12 megapixels of an iPhone 7’s camera. But what does this mean,…

A 5000 year old toy chariot was found! The ancient settlement of Sogmatar, which thrived 5,000 years ago, back to the Bronze age, might seem like a world detached from our own. By legend, this is the place where Moses…

What life actually was like for a real pirate. 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….

How fire ants form towers more than 30 ants high. 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…

We are entering a digital dark age You may think that those photos on Facebook or all your tweets may last forever, or might even come back to haunt you, depending on what you have out there. But, in reality,…

Missing Cat. Clive, a Norwegian Forest cat, disappeared from his home in December 2014 and left his owners Tanya and Jonathan Irons devastated. The couple launched an appeal on Facebook and put up posters around their neighborhood but unfortunately, to…

Adorable opossums. Instead of caving to the portrayal of possums as terrifying rat-like trash burglars, this collection of adorable possum pictures will change your mind. The cute possums of the world may carry their young around with them, but they are not carrying disease….