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Sure Fraggle Rock, The Smurfs and most other kid’s shows are a little strange, but these are nothing compared to the Teletubbies. If you really want to know just how bizarre children’s programming can get though, just take a look at these strange shows that make the Teletubbies look like a study in logical thought.
If you love American television programming, but wish you could use it to teach your children the perils of the evil Western fascist dogs, then Tomorrow’s Pioneers might just be your new favorite kids show. The show features a female host and a few costumed characters, including a knock-off Mickey Mouse character, entertaining children with ideas of antisemitism, anti-Americanism and Islamic extremism. As if that weren’t enough, many of the costumed characters are martyred, most notably, the Mickey Mouse character is killed by an Israeli interrogator, providing youngsters with a deep, long-standing hatred for Palestine’s sworn enemies. Nothing like getting your propaganda into your kid’s minds before they’re too old to think for themselves.
If you thought the Teletubbies were strange, just wait until you get a load of this show that their creator released after it. According to their website, the Boohbahs are “five magical atoms of power” who live in a Boohball, which is a glowing white ball that can travel from country to country whenever a child calls it. The Boohball features a spinning recharging pod where the Boohbahs can recharge their energy through the laughter of children they play with. Since this show was made for kids between the ages of three and five, I’m going to go ahead and say this show is actually just supposed to entertain kids with bright colors and weird effects –just like the Teletubbies, since all of that background story is way beyond the scope of any kids in their demographic.
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No one wants to come out of a lake or river covered in leeches and if your doctor pulls them out, you probably ought to run away as fast as you can…that is, unless you have arthritis. As it turns out, they can be particularly useful in those cases:
Slap four leeches on your knee and after 80 minutes, the pain and stiffness of osteoarthritis melts away. Of the 16 patients in the trial, the 10 who received leech therapy felt instant relief after application, and the comfort lasted for four weeks. The control patients continued experiencing pain. Researchers claim the leeches’ saliva works as an anti-inflammatory.
I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do with a stranger is rub feet together. Apparently some people want to though or else there wouldn’t be any competitors in the World Toe Wrestling Championship.
Believe it or not though, that’s not even the highest rated in this list of weird world championships.
Did you know that parrots name their babies? Or that monkeys that understand money immediately use the idea to solicit prostitution? As it turns out, animals are a lot more like humans than many of us ever imagined.
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While governments across the globe have been trying to figure out how to control the minds of their enemies for centuries, this practice is already possible in the animal kingdom. In fact, Cracked has a list of 5 incredibly creepy methods of animal mind control that are going on right now.
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We’ve already linked to Mental Floss’ list of weird college courses, but if you can’t get enough of these strange course listings, then you probably ought to head over to Cracked and read about six more of these classes including Super Smash Bros. Melee Theory and Practice.
I always knew you shouldn’t put light bulbs in the microwave, but I had no idea that it would look so cool if you did. If you want to see more weird things you shouldn’t put in a microwave (and the strange results), this BuzzFeed article is a good place to start.
It looks like a pizza and is made from a bunch of pizza-flavored ingredients, but it certainly isn’t a pizza and almost definitely tastes nothing like a pizza. This “meta-pizza”is made from Pizza Supreme Doritos, Pizza Pringles, Flavor Blasted Xplosive Pizza Goldfish Crackers, Pepperoni Pizza flavored Combos and Pizza-flavored Tribe hummus. Yummy? I’m not so sure.
You know, I can understand why Coca Cola would only let two people in the world know their secret formula, but there are some secrets that are just plain silly…like how to do the Hapsburg napkin fold. Yes, one of Austria’s greatest secrets is how to fold a napkin. Read about more weird well-gaurded secrets over at Cracked.
While this picture is already enough for most people to realize this is something no one should ever do,the fact that there is actually a record for most rattlesnakes held in the mouth at one time is just plain wrong. For more bizarre records, check out this great article over at All That is Interesting.
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Did you know that Shrek was partially based on a pro-wrestler named Maurice Tillet? Or that Sonic’s rival, Eggman, was based on a combination of Theodore Roosevelt and an egg? Learn more weird inspirations for fictional characters over at BuzzFeed.
Remember Mary Bale, a.k.a. the woman who was tracked down and harassed after someone uploaded a video of her throwing a cat into a trashcan? She’s one of the many people who were taught a lesson by the throngs of angry internet users. You can read more about her and 11 others in similar situations over at Ugo. Fair warning, not all of the people actually deserved what they got.
Have you ever wanted your own dinosaur and a man-servant? If you do, and you happen to own an extra house in Vancouver, today just might be your lucky day. A man in Vancouver is offering up his services as a pet dinosaur (the species is your choice) and a maid/nanny for one full year in exchange for his own Vancouver home at the end of his servitude. A few choice excerpts:
Do you own more than one property? Do you have so many rental homes with no mortgage payments, yet you still feel unfulfilled? Tired of your illegal tenants whining that there are rats in the walls? Have you always wanted your own dinosaur? Now is your chance my friend.
In exchange for one of your properties, I will be your personal dinosaur for one year. I will be at your beck and call, 24 hours a day, wearing a dinosaur costume. The type of dinosaur is negotiable. I can babysit your children (references upon request), scare the mailman, wash dishes, entertain and impress your guests, and much more.
Link Via Consumerist Image via TypeFiend [Flickr]
This doesn’t appear to be an officially endorsed product, yet someone has created a Windows brand cheese snack. I wonder if the cheese also makes you crash after a few hours? See all the cheesey goodness at the link
I love hot dogs, but usually I go for the standard toppings. For those of you with more adventurous palates though, Serious Eats has a great selection of bizarre but delicious dog toppings from restaurants around the nation. My favorite are the turkey dogs above with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and a side of cranberry sauce. Yum!
Artist Kate Macdowell’s sculptures take animals and put them in human accessories of war, or puts human body parts inside the animals. The result is slightly unsettling and very attention-grabbing. Check out more of her cool artworks over at Environmental Graffiti.
I joke about renting a laundry-folding robot because seriously, who likes to fold laundry? As it turns out, I could probably find one to rent if I looked hard enough. I could also rent a tree, a goat, a wife(?!) or any of the 20 things listed in this handy infographic from The World’s Biggests. Link
I’ve never seen koalas so angry before. The noises they make are utterly bizarre and strangely cute. If you can ignore the annoying narrator’s comments, it’s a fascinating video.
Historians of the future have their work cut out for them when it comes to decoding some of our current artwork and photographs, I’m sure. What will they think of the LOLcats? Probably something like what we think of these old photos over on Retronaut: Huh. WTF. See more general weirdness, including apparent side-show performers and the Wonder Spot. Link
Would you love a cat that looks like Hitler? Apparently cats looking like Hitler is such an epidemic that there is an entire website dedicated to cataloguing these Kitlers. If you have one you can post your Feline Führer and show him to the world before he tries to take it over. Link
While there are plenty of bizarre Blogger and Word Press pages, the number of off-the-wall Tumblr accounts is a little astonishing. I don’t know what it is about Tumblr, as opposed to all the other blog programs out there, but something about it just seems to inspire people to create some of the weirdest sites around the net. Here are a few of my favorite strange, niche and just plain silly Tumblr blogs.
Perhaps one of the strangest Tumblr blogs around, Selleck Waterfall Sandwich is exclusively dedicated to three things: Tom Selleck, waterfalls and sandwiches. You’ll be amazed just how many ways these three things can come together in an image.
Have you ever seen a citation needed tag on Wikipedia and thought, “really, they need a citation for that?“ Well, that’s the whole point of Citation Needed. One of my personal favorites on the site is this gem, “The band March Hare is named after the March Hare. [citation needed]“ Unfortunately, many of the funny bits on this site are removed from Wikipedia, making Citation Needed the only archive of such comments.
There’s a reason owls are nocturnal creatures –they’re too hung over to be awake during the day. But while hungover humans tend to look downright disgusting, Hungover Owls look absolutely adorable –in a slobbish, grumpy and tired kind of way.
Have you ever read a captcha and laughed at how humorously the words seemed to go together? Captcha Art asks you to take a screenshot of the captcha and then submit your artistic interpretation of the message.
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I don’t know about you guys, but I have a soft spot for seriously strange and seriously niche blogs. Paula Deen Riding Things is one of those blogs.The name says it all. The entire site consists of images of Paula Deen riding on things. Enjoy.
It seems everyone is familiar with the dangers of drug-resistant staph infections and well aware of just how scary they are. As it turns out, they are so terrifying that a woman recently robbed a convienance store using the staph infection on her arm as a weapon.
When a worker confronted her, prosecutors said Slusher showed her Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus-infected arm to the attendant, told him to stay away and then left the store.
She was later arrested and hopefully held in a cell away from the other prisoners.
Link Image via mtsofan [Flickr]
All children need toys, but not all toys are created alike. While most bad toys are simply a bit boring, these eleven are the absolute worst of the worst. In fact, you’ll notice a lot of these are so ridiculous that they have actually taken on a cult collector’s item status and now cost quite a pretty penny.
There are toy guns, toy bow and arrow sets, toy swords and more, but somehow a toy tazer still seems to take things a touch too far –particularly considering the “Police Electric Baton Shock” actually gives out real shocks. On the upside, it’s only $3.50, so it’s much cheaper than most kid’s toys.
Russian Roulette is a ton of fun, but it’s unfortunately completely permanent. If you want to practice the game without those deadly consequences, then you’d better go ahead and start out with the Kaba Kick and the more gentle pink hippo kicks that replace bullets.
It’s totally normal for kids to pretend to do grown up jobs, after all, some kids play house, some play doctor, some play superhero and some play with chemistry sets, but who wants to be a janitor? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like a better idea to push your kids towards an intellectual pursuit than a job in the cleaning industry.
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If you keep up with Neatorama, then you probably recall Miss C’s post about the Urine-Free Charity Auction. Essentially, D.H. Morgan posted a used wetsuit on eBay and to emphasize that it had never been peed in, he included this brilliant image. The picture went viral and Morgan volunteered to give 90% of the proceeds to the Red Cross’s work in Japan. Soon, the auction started getting a lot more bids and sponsors started throwing in free surfboards, concert tickets, shoes, a brand new wetsuit and more.
In the end, the auction ended up pulling in over $15,000 in bids…unfortunately, the winning bidder refused to pay up and the second place winner wouldn’t take the Second Chance Offer. That left Morgan with tons of free stuff that wasn’t really his to keep and left the Red Cross out of a huge donation.
In order to correct the problem, he has opted to host a massive charity raffle for the prizes. Tickets are only £2.50 and the prizes total more than $1000. The only down side is that this time he’s only giving 70%, apparently because the raffles cost more to run and he needs money to fix the exhaust on his car.
Even so, it’s still a good chance to donate money to a good cause and possibly win a boatload of free stuff. Plus, included in the raffle prize is the opportunity to hang out with Morgan and a bear (presumably someone in a bear suit, not an actual bear).
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Imagine trying to prosecute someone who could only respond with oinks and grunts. Believe it or not, trials of this type did happen many times in the middle ages and continue to take place in non-Westernized countries. Mental Floss has a great collection of these stories, including a pig who was executed in people clothes, a donkey who escaped a bestiality charge through a number of character witness testimonies, and a lawyer who was able to help fight off the charges against every rat in Autun, France.
If that’s not enough animal tails trials for you, then check out Crack’s article on the same subject that includes some of the same stories, but also a few different court cases including a cat fighting for its right to free speech and a chicken who was charged with laying an egg without a yolk -which could obviously result in a basilisk baby if it was hatched. In case your wondering, both of the animals named lost and while the cat simply had to stop meowing on the sidewalk for money, the chicken was burned alive on the stake with her egg.
Of course, animals have been known to be on the other end of proceedings as well. There’s always Tabby Sal, the cat who was called for jury duty. While the issue was eventually resolved and the cat didn’t end up serving on a case, I can only imagine what kind of horrible revenge would be in store for us if animals did start to serve on juries.
If you thought bloodletting, maggots and leeches were all outdated in our modern world, you were wrong. In fact, they are only a handful of the many bizarro medical treatments that will leave you both disgusted and fascinated with their effectiveness when you read about strange medical treatments that are actually quite useful.
To be fair, bloodletting is far from a cure-all like medieval doctors believed, but it is still a useful practice in some cases. When someone suffers from excess iron, known as hemochromatosis, bloodletting is an effective means of releasing the built up iron. The treatment is also used to help people who have too many red blood cells in their blood stream, a condition known as polycythemia.
I know most people think the last thing they should ever see at a hospital is a maggot, but they can actually be a quite effective and sanitary way to treat wounds that do not respond to conventional medicinal treatments. The bowfly larvae eat away dead tissue and bacteria, allowing the healthy, living tissue to thrive. “I call them microsurgeons,” said Edgar Maeyens, Jr., a doctor in Coos Bay, Oregon, who employs maggot treatment. “They can do what we can’t do with scalpels and lasers.”
In many cases, the maggots can help treat festering wounds that have been open for weeks, even years, within only a day or two. While the treatment is pretty gross looking, patients rarely feel anything and when they do, it’s generally an itching or tickling sensation and nothing more.
Image via OakleyOriginals [Flickr]
What happens when you cross bloodletting and maggot therapy, you get bloodsucking leech therapy. Of course, the leeches aren’t used for everything, including headaches and ear infections, like they were in medieval times; instead they are used to help drain blood from swollen parts of the body after reconstructive surgery. Doctors find they are particularly helpful when the areas contain many blood vessels that can easily clot up, like the ear.
New studies are underway to find the effectiveness of leeches in other treatments, such as the reduction of pain and inflammation of osteoarthritis.
Apparently there have been thousands of micro-surgeons swarming the earth before mankind began, we just never had the science to back them up until now. Worm therapy is yet another insect treatment that is quite promising, and incredibly disgusting. The treatment involves the use of a parasitic worm (the type depends on the specific condition) being intentionally released within the patient’s body.
While scientists have still not drawn any firm conclusions as to the effectiveness of this treatment and the reason it seems to work, preliminary studies have been largely favorable in showing the parasites do have a positive effect. The worms have been used in a variety of treatments including celiac disease, Chron’s disease, allergies, asthma, multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis.
Image via AJC1 [Flickr]
How did they treat syphilis before antibiotics were discovered? With a little dose of malaria, that’s how. While it sounds crazy, this treatment is relatively effective. The high fever from the malaria kills the syphilis bacteria and malaria can then be treated with quinine.
If you ever find yourself suffering from syphilis and happen to have malaria treatments on hand, but no antibiotics, you can always try this treatment. Otherwise, it has fallen out of favor since we now have safer methods to treat the STD. Even so, it is still used in some parts of the world.
Image via psd [Flickr]
If you were grossed out by any of the other treatments so far, then you may want to skip past this probiotic treatment. Fecal bacteroetherapy is exactly what it sounds like, the treatment of certain diseases with fecal mater. It works by transplanting healthy fecal material from a donor and then inserting it anally via enema into the patient. The healthy bacteria from the sample are believed to help restore normality to the patient.
The treatment is considered quite effective for treating severe inflammatory bowel disorder and may be a good alternative treatment for Chron’s disease and a few other conditions.
Image via locator [Flickr]
Smoking is a bad habit in most cases, but people at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s or Parkinson disease may find the benefits to be worth the risks as studies have shown a 50% reduction in these diseases in smokers.
What’s the weirdest treatment you’ve ever undergone?
Source: National Geographic, Live Science, Wikipedia, Neatorama, Health Mad
Image via hurleygurley [Flickr] (BTW, if you want to make your own brain Jell-O, get the mold at the Neatoshop.)
Our brains are incredibly complex organs that allow us to comprehend both our surroundings and abstract concepts. Unfortunately, because our minds have to process so much information at once in order to help us understand things, they can also be easily tricked. Here are a number of ways your brain not be as reliable as you like to think.
We like to think that our memories work as photographs that preserve our pasts, but the reality is that memories change all the time and can be manipulated to change even faster.
Image via wallyg [Flickr]
Do you recall seeing the video of the first plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11? 73% of people remember seeing the video on that fateful day, but the truth is that the footage of the first plane wasn’t released until the next day. The problem is, according to neuroscientist Karim Nader, that every time you remember something, you change it just a little in your mind. Thus, the more we recall a memory, the more we forget the actual details of the event. In fact, if you make up a lie about something and tell it to yourself often enough, your brain will actually start to remember the fib as the cold hard truth.
If that wasn’t bad enough, other people can manipulate your memories just as easily. Remember when the concept of repressed memories came out a few decades ago and everyone started to believe it as absolute truth? As it turns out, repressed memories can be easily implanted in your mind through the power of suggestion. Researcher Elizabeth Loftus told study participants that she was conducting research on childhood memories. She gave them four accounts of stories from their childhood that were written by the relatives. One of the four accounts was a fictional story about being lost in the mall. Loftus then asked them questions about this incident and over a quarter of the volunteers recalled this imaginary event, citing incredible details about the incident.
After learning about these two facts, it’s not entirely surprising that repetition of something can lead to our acceptance of the statement as a truth. It’s called the Illusion-of-Truth effect and it means that we start to believe things are true, despite evidence to the contrary, if we just hear about it enough. It’s sort of our brain’s way of saying, “well if everyone else believes this, then I should too.”
What’s worse though is that when someone has firmly accepted something this way, it’s nearly impossible to prove the truth to them. Think about a cult that says the world will end on a certain date. When the time comes and goes, the cult members don’t realize they’ve been had and move on with their lives, they start rationalizing it, saying that they changed god’s mind somehow. In many cases, being confronted with the truth will only make the mislead person believe his or her convictions even more strongly.
It doesn’t even take manipulation from another person to alter your memories. Your brain can be tricked with a Photoshopped image just as easily. Ms. Loftus, from the repressed memories study, also experimented with falsified images including the famed picture from the Tiananmen Square protest. People who saw the manipulated images were far more likely to remember the events in a different manner than those who didn’t see the altered pictures. By the way, if you realized the crowd in the image above was added after the photo was taken, you’re in the minority.
Our brain’s concentration can also lead to some strange problems with cognition. For example, watch the video below and count how many times the white team passes the ball.
Video link.
Did you notice the gorilla? Over 50% of people watching the white team don’t notice the fact that a man in a gorilla suit walks through the court. This phenomenon is known as selective inattentiveness and it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. When you are hunting or being hunted, you don’t want to be distracted by every little thing going on around you. Sometimes though, this inattentiveness can be a problem. If the players in white were prey and the gorilla was a predator, half of all viewers would be an easy target for the hungry beast.
Interestingly, if we are told not to focus on something after it is brought to our attention, we usually can’t get the image out of our minds. Watch the video again and try to ignore the gorilla. Your eye and your mind will almost certainly keep going back to it.
Image via Marcus Vegas [Flickr]
Similarly, if you try not to think of a white bear, your mind will keep veering back to the white bear. If you’ve ever had a crush that just wouldn’t get out of your head even after you made a conscious effort to stop thinking about him or her, it’s the same problem; the conscious effort makes you focus on the one thing you aren’t supposed to think about. This can even lead to an obsession, which is why so many stalkers know very well that they shouldn’t be so focused on the person at hand.
Image via Sean Dreilinger [Flickr]
Did you know today is National French fry day? I don’t know about you, but where I live, everyone is frying them up. I can smell French fries all over the place, even in my house. Do you smell them? If so, then I have some bad news; it’s not National French fry day and unless someone’s in your kitchen making fries right this second, your mind is probably playing tricks on you.
Over 100 years ago, Professor Edwin Slosson proved that suggestion is a major part of our sense of smell. He poured distilled water on a cotton ball and told his class that he just poured a sample of a highly aromatic chemical. He then asked them to raise their hands when they could smell it. Within 15 seconds, the majority of the front row had their hands in the air and within 45 seconds, three-quarters of the class was raising their hands.
If you read the rest of this article saying “fine, my memories and my concentration can be manipulated, but my basic observations are more reliable,” then you’re wrong. Sensory manipulation is so easy that even professionals can be duped.
Image via digimist [Flickr]
A 1998 study by Frederic Brochet asked 54 professional wine tasters to try some wines and write down their opinions. He asked the specialists to taste two white wines and two red wines. The first set of red and white wines were different, but the second set was the same white wine with some red food coloring added, presented as “red wine.” The tasters used completely different adjectives to describe the colored wine as its uncolored equivalent. Their notes on the white wine included things like “dry, apricot, lemon, honey, and straw,” while the red wine notes included words like “deep, cherry, raspberry, spice and black currant.”
He later tried serving the specialists another wine, telling them it was a common table wine for the first sampling and for the second sampling, he told them it was an expensive vintage. The tasters loathed the first sample, calling it “simple, unbalanced and volatile.” When it was presented as a premium wine, they called it “complex, balanced, flavorsome and excellent. While it would be easy to say that this was a good way to prove that wine tasters are full of it, the study actually goes a lot deeper into how we give foods a perception prior to trying them and how this can affect our sense of taste.
The human mind is a complex and wondrous place, but the more you accept its ability to make mistakes, the fewer manipulations you will be subject to. And next time you’re arguing with someone about politics, just remember, whoever is wrong will never allow their mind to accept the truth, even when it is presented conclusively, so there’s really no point to the discussion.
Sources: Elephants on Acid, Smithsonian Mag, Boston Globe, Wiley InterScience, Wikipedia, Cracked
In the Ultimatum game, you’re handed $100 and told to offer a portion to someone else. If the person accepts, then both of you get the money. If he declines, then none of you get it.
Americans typically offer (almost) $50, and reject offers below $40 if the tables were turned. After all, fair is fair, right? But is this how the rest of the world think?
Researchers from the University of British Columbia decided to test the Ultimatum Game to the rest of the world and found that the Western concept of fairness is actually not the norm, it’s the outlier. Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic (WEIRD) people, he argued, are actually the weird ones:
It seems most of humanity would play the game differently. Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia took the Ultimatum Game into the Peruvian Amazon as part of his work on understanding human co-operation in the mid-1990s and found that the Machiguenga considered the idea of offering half your money downright weird — and rejecting an insultingly low offer even weirder.
"I was inclined to believe that rejection in the Ultimatum Game would be widespread. With the Machiguenga, they felt rejecting was absurd, which is really what economists think about rejection," Dr. Henrich says. "It’s completely irrational to turn down free money. Why would you do that?"
Link – via Metafilter
Photo: Inspiritus [Flickr]
A few days ago, I posted about a group of cross-dressing cosplayers in China, in which I used the word "weird." A few Neatoramanauts took umbrage at my choice of words (both in the title and the post) – and the comment thread explored the issues of rudeness, homophobia, and "exotification" (that’s a new one for me).
While I’ll leave that up to you whether you see a valid complaint, I’d like to ask you about the use of the word "weird." Is it a bad word to use? I mean – if someone says, "you’re weird," would you be offended? Is "Keep Portland Weird" an evil demand?
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