Oddities and Humor

Scary stuff.

Indeed..

Bra training complete . . .

Melissa Dahl writes: Well. Here’s something you didn’t even know you needed to be terrified of.

A healthy, 25-year-old Christian minister went to an Alameda, Calif., emergency room in September 2008, complaining of something in his eye, reports a case study in this month’s issue of The Annals of Emergency Medicine. An eyelash, maybe? A pesky speck of dust, perhaps? Or, ew, maybe a stray contact lens had wedged its way somewhere in there?

It’s just so much worse. Israel Orellana’s discomfort was caused by something called an African eye worm. That’s a worm. In his EYEBALL.

It’s an infection called loaiasis, a skin and eye disease caused by the loa loa, a parasitic worm endemic to West and Central Africa

just wanted to say, this is one my favourite threads... nothing to add sadly.

I love the Doritos commercial. I've watched it multiple times.

African eye worm? Yikes, edgar. Don't remember the Doritos commercial, however.

another oddity.



Alain Robert the human spider man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcV7E60r9eU

All I can say about human spiders is, they is nuts. Oddly, I have never heard about one having a serious fall.

WASHINGTON " About 5,500 years ago someone in the mountains of Armenia put his best foot forward in what is now the oldest leather shoe ever found.

It'll never be confused with a penny loafer or a track shoe, but the well-preserved footwear was made of a single piece of leather, laced up the front and back, researchers reported Wednesday in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science.

Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe was found in a cave along with other evidence of human occupation. The shoe had been stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe " between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago.

"This is great luck," enthused archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team.

"We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. "What did they eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a chance to see this ... it gives us a real glimpse into society," he said in a telephone interview.

Previously the oldest leather shoe discovered in Europe or Asia was on the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps a few years ago and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and 5,128 years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.

Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a leather strap. The Armenian shoe appears to be made of cowhide, Pinhasi said.

Older sandals have been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were made of fiber rather than leather.

The shoe found in what is now Armenia was found in a pit, along with a broken pot and some wild goat horns.

But Pinhasi doesn't think it was thrown away. There was discarded material that had been tossed outside the cave, while this pit was inside in the living area. And while the shoe had been worn, it wasn't worn out.

It's not clear if the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a lining or insulation, or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was stored, according to the researchers.

The Armenian shoe was small by current standards " European size 37 or U.S. women's size 7 " but might have fit a man of that era, according to Pinhasi.

He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace from toe to top.

There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one layer of soft leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky terrain," Pinhasi said.

He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version, known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last long, he said.

"In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region," Pinhasi said.

While the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun to harden now that it is exposed to air, Pinhasi said.

Oh, and unlike a lot of very old shoes, it didn't smell

Have you received an e-mail claiming you're about to be assassinated?

Don't worry; law agencies say its author doesn't really want to kill you " just separate you from your money.

The e-mails that have been terrifying Montgomery County residents for the past few days are part of an international scam that dates back years. In most cases, they claim a hit man will kill you if you don't give him money. But law enforcement say the threats are usually mass-mailed and have never been carried out.

Most of the time, the scam's operators are located outside the United States in countries like Nigeria. They're a variation on other Internet extortion schemes, such as the infamous “419” scam, in which people are encouraged to send copious amounts of money in order to secure the release of millions of dollars.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office recommends you delete unsolicited e-mails or report them to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

If an e-mailed threat seems personal, police say, or if you're otherwise sure you're being targeted for assassination, call police immediately.

Boy has parasitic twin removed

Wow!

Another oddity, edgar.



Einstein's Stolen Brain, Einstein IQ & Dissection Studies Results

Jun 2, 2010 Aimee Larsen Stoddard
Einstein's brain was surrounded by controversy over its postmortem donation to science. What have scientists learned of Einstein IQ from his stolen brain?

Why was Einstein's IQ so high? What made the genius scientist so smart? These questions, perhaps along with a desire for notoriety, motivated pathologist Thomas Harvey to remove Einstein's brain without permission during the autopsy that was performed shortly after the physicist's death.

In a bizarre true-life story filled with drama, intrigue, and controversy, Harvey took Einstein's brain without authorization for what he later justified as the benefit of science. Yet scientists remain skeptical that the subsequent dissection and research of the genius brain has uncovered any secrets of how brain composition results in superior intelligence.
Fate of Einstein's Brain

On April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein died at the age of 76 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at New Jersey's Princeton Hospital. Einstein had left explicit instructions that his body should be cremated.

During his lifetime, Einstein had become a celebrity as a result of his groundbreaking scientific theories and high IQ. Einstein did not want his body venerated, scrutinized, or worse after his death. The Guardian article, "?My dad has Einstein's brain,"? includes a revealing quote from Einstein: "?I want to be cremated, so people don't come to worship at my bones."?

Einstein's instructions to cremate his body were followed "" mostly. His body was cremated per his wishes; however, Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist on call at Princeton Hopsital the morning of Einstein's death, could not bear the thought of losing the chance to preserve the genius physicist's brain as well as his eyeballs. He gave the eyeballs to Einstein's ophthalmologist, Dr. Henry Abrams, and intended to study Einstein's brain himself.

Insterding. Calls to mind a novel I read when still perty young.

DONOVAN'S BRAIN
The novel is written in the form of diary entries by a physician, Dr. Patrick Cory, a middle-aged physician whose experiments at keeping a brain alive are subsidized by Cory's wealthy wife. Under investigation for tax evasion and criminal financial activities, millionaire megalomaniac W.H. Donovan crashes his private plane in the desert near the home of Dr. Cory. The physician is unable to save Donovan's life, but removes his brain on the chance that it might survive, placing the gray matter in an electrically charged, oxygenated saline solution within a glass tank. The brainwaves indicate thought --and life-- continue. Cory makes several futile attempts to communicate with it. Finally, one night Cory receives unconscious commands, jotting down a list of names in a handwriting not his own-- it is Donovan's. Corey successfully attempts telepathic contact with Donovan's brain, much to the concern of Corey's occasional assistant, Dr. Schratt, an elderly alcoholic.

Gradually, the malignant intelligence takes over Cory's personality, leaving him in an amnesiac fugue state when he awakes. The brain uses Corey to do his bidding, signing checks in Donovan's name, and continuing the magnate's illicit financial schemes. Corey becomes increasingly like the paranoid Donovan himself, his physique and manner morphing into the limping image of the departed criminal. Donovan's bidding culminates in an attempt to have Corey to kill a young girl who stands in the way of his plans. Realizing he will soon have no control over his own body and mind, Corey devises a plan to destroy the brain during its quiescent period. Corey resists the brain's hypnotic power by repeating the rhyme "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts." With Dr. Schratt's help, he destroys the housing tank with an ax and leaves the brain of Donovan to die, thus ending his reign of madness.
Wikipedia

Lost Camera Hitches 1,100 Mile Ride on Sea Turtle
(NewsCore) - A photographer was reunited with a camera he had lost in the Caribbean after a sea turtle swam all the way to Florida with it, De Telegraaf reported Wednesday.

The camera's strap caught on the reptile's shell after Dutchman Dick de Bruin dropped it in the sea during a trip to Aruba last November.

In its efforts to free itself, the turtle accidentally switched the waterproof device on and filmed part of its 1,100 mile journey.

The camera washed up six months later in Key West, Fla., where it was spotted by Paul Shultz, an investigator with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Shultz charged up the battery and found a series of photos capturing various Aruban landmarks.

He posted the footage on YouTube along with a brief note about its contents in a bid to trace its owner, De Telegraaf said.

Residents of the sundrenched Caribbean island circulated the report until De Bruin, a Dutch photographer who had been taking snaps of a shipwreck, spotted it and contacted Shultz.

"I'm still amazed it floated all the way to Key West. I will be shipping it Fed-Ex to you tomorrow'" an excited Shultz replied.

Experts say the camera may have floated part of the way before become entangled in the turtle.

Aruba is one of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located around 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela.

The 21 mile long island forms part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

It's so passe to put your dogs in purses and buy them designer clothes these days.

In the newest pet fad, dog owners in China are dyeing their mutts to resemble pandas and tigers, the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph reports.

Chow Chow dogs that normally have golden fur are being dyed white and black to resemble fluffy pandas. Golden Retrievers with light blonde hair are painted orange and given black stripes to look like tigers.

Oh, I love how China's burgeoning middle class spends its money on the bizarre. More cute/ridiculous photos after the jump.

A Google search for "?dog dye"? frighteningly returns 2.7 million hits. There are hundreds of websites that instruct pet owners how to dye their dogs' fur.

The Daily Mail reports that spending in the U.K. on pets has increased by 500% from 1999 to 2008, at the expense of the animals' dignity, of course.

Check out this horrifying gallery of pooches dyed in every colour the rainbow has to offer.



Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/06/08/photos-chinese-paint-their-dogs-like-pandas-tigers-in-new-fad/#ixzz0qbLsn9UB
The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.

The tiger stripes look amazingly realistic.

The race has been run in and around Llanwrtyd Wells since 1981 The annual Man v Horse race in the heart of the Welsh countryside has been won again by a four-legged entrant.

Sly Dai, ridden by Llinos Jones, from the contest's home village of Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, ran the 22-mile course in two hours seven minutes four seconds.

The first man home was Haggai Chepkwony, aged 40, a Kenyan living in Bristol, in 2:17. He was also first man across the line in 2006.

Man has triumphed only twice in the 31 years of the race, in 2004 and 2007.

The event carries a 1,000 guinea (£1,050) first prize, and it began to try to settle a bar-room argument over which was faster over a long distance.

When Mr Chepkwony was first man across the line in 2006 he was some nine minutes behind the winning horse.

Although he was about 10 minutes slower than the horse this time, his overall time was two minutes faster than four years ago.

Mr Chepkwony, who left the British Army two years ago, said he was getting better at the race, and believed that one day he could win outright.

'Minor bumps and bruises'

The run begins in the town centre and continues through countryside on the edge of the Brecon Beacons.

The number of horses is limited to 50 for safety reasons, and there were more than 500 entrants in total.

The race is organised by Green Events, which is also in charge of other wacky Llanwrtyd Wells competitions such as the annual bog snorkelling championship.

The Green Events chairman, Lindsay Ketteringham, said: "There were one or two minor bumps and bruises, as there always are, but it's been a gorgeous day".

However, the two-legged competitors failed to take full advantage of Saturday's warm weather, which favoured them as horses overheat more readily.

Mr Ketteringham said: "The higher the temperature, the horses struggle".