The following is an article from the book from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd. Do you have a nagging, gnawing feeling that ...well, just a nagging, gnawing feeling? You should-odds are you're being slowly devoured by one of these tiny, vicious parasites right this very second. 

EATIN' YOU: Fleas

BIO: Fleas are tiny insects that just can't live without blood. They eat more than 15 times their body weight in blood in a single day. That includes the blood of dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, and any other mammal that's handy, including you. They're also "Super Bugs": Fleas can pull 160,000 times their own weight (the equivalent of a human pulling 24 million pounds) and can jump over 150 times their own size (the equivalent of a human jumping about 1,000 feet).

DANGER! In the right-or wrong-conditions, fleas are disease machines. They can transmit tapeworm to pets or humans, and can carry a number of diseases, including the blood parasite babesia, and the dreaded bubonic plague.Thankfully, they're not nearly as bad as they were in the days before the vacuum cleaner. (Most eggs hatch in your carpet.) Image credit: Flickr user Dr. Hemmert.

EATIN' YOU: Bedbugs

BIO: Tiny, painful, smelly, and disgusting, bedbugs are nocturnal, spending the day in walls, furniture, or in your bed. At night they crawl out of the mattress and suck your blood. And they can wait up to a year in that mattress between feedings.

DANGER! Their bites are often painful, but, thankfully, bedbugs are not known to transmit any diseases. Image credit: Flickr user PeterEdin (Tag Man).

EATIN' YOU: Ticks

BIO: Ticks are arachnids-not insects-and are related to spiders. There are no ticks that live solely on humans, but if there are no deer, cattle, birdsd, or reptiles handy, you'll do. They have three life stages after hatching-larva, pupa, and adult-and each stage needs a "blood meal" before morphing into the next stage. Ticks use a hunting technique known as "questing". That means that since they can't hop or fly or run after prey, they wait around on grass or twigs for a host to come to them. How long will they wait? Years, possibly decades. And despite all that sitting they can leap into action the instant they sense a host coming by. One female tick can increase its body weight 200 times in a six-day feeding. Human equivalent: going from 170 pounds to 34,000 pounds in a week.

DANGER! Only mosquitoes transmit more diseases to humans than ticks do. Image credit: Flickr user Micah Taylor.

EATIN' YOU: Chiggers

BIO: Chiggers are the blood-sucking, infant larva of mites, but before they can grow up, they must eat. They prefer rodents and lizards, but they'll happily dine on you. These ravenous babies digest skin cells by spitting up powerful enzymes. Irritated skin cells react by building a hard mound around the tiny hole created by the enzymes, forming a "straw" (called a stylostome) through which the chigger continues to suck your mushed skin.

DANGER! Chigger bites are possibly the most irritating and itchy bites in the world-and the sores can itch for weeks-but they're not known to carry any diseases. Old wives' tale: Putting nail polish over the hole will suffocate the submerged parasite. Wrong! Chigger do not burrow underneath the skin. If you have sores, you probably already scratched the chiggers off. Image credit: Flickr user Cabezalana.

EATIN' YOU: Face mites BIO: What's that on your eyelid? It might be one of those microscopic mites. They live in the pores and the hair follicles of the face, especially around the nose and eyelashes. They plant themselves head-down on a pore or follicle, and happily live there feeding on sebaceous secretions and dead skin debris.

DANGER! Usually you wouldn't notice them, but bad infestations can cause the face to become polluted by the excrement and and corpses of these invisible bugs. That and their eating of hair roots and oil glands may cause hair loss, rashes, and rough skin. They are not known to transmit diseases.

EATIN' YOU: Head lice

BIO: These bloodsuckers live their entire lives on the human scalp and hair. They puncture your skin with special piercing/sucking mouthparts and feed two to six times a day. They're particularly prevalent among children, who can spread them easily by sharing hats and combs, and by playing games such as "I'm gonna rub my lice-infested head against your head ...because its fun!" (But personal hygiene is irrelevant-they'll live on anybody.)

DANGER! The bites may itch, but head lice aren't dangerous. Image credit: Flickr user Eran Finkle.

EATIN' YOU: Crab lice

BIO: Also permanent human residents, these larger lice live in the warmer, moister climes of pubic and armpit hair. They're sluggish: If not disturbed, one can live its entire life within a half-inch of where it was born, but, like all lice, can be passed to other people through close contact. Not gross enough? Crab lice can also live in beards, moustaches, eyebrows, and eyelashes.

DANGER! Like head lice, you're only in danger of embarrassment from crab lice.

EATIN' YOU: Human liver fluke

BIO: This flatworm is contracted from eating infected fish, and primarily targets humans. They live in your bile ducts and liver tissue, as well as blood, and can grow up to an inch long and can live inside you for ten years.

DANGER! Symptoms can range from none ...to death, for heavy infestations. (There have been cases where one person housed more than 20,000 of the parasites.) They are most prevalent in Asia, where raw and pickled fish are dietary staples. Image credit: Wikimedia user Flukeman. 

EATIN' YOU: Mosquitos

BIO: Contrary to popular myth, mosquitoes do not live on blood. They survive on nectar and other fluids sucked out of flowers. But females take a "blood meal"-they need protein to develop their eggs. You can't hide: Mosquitos home in on their prey using specialized organs that can sense heat, carbon dioxide-which you just exhaled-and other gasses from up to 100 feet away. DANGER! Mosquitoes traveling between hosts can transmit several diseases to humans, including malaria, sleeping sickness, and elephantiasis. Mosquitoes are the most deadly animal to humans on earth, causing more than 1,000,000 deaths a year. Image credit: Flickr user bogdog Dan.

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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd. This book focuses on the odd-side of life and features articles like the strangest TV shows never made, the creepiest insect on Earth, odd medical conditions, and many, many more.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

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Oprah Winfrey is having a competition in which people pitch ideas for their own show. Actor and filmmaker Zach Anner of Austin, Texas is a shoe-in to get his own show, whether he wins the contest or not. However, you can vote for him at the contest website. Link -via reddit See more of Zach's projects on his YouTube channel. Link

StoryCorps has an entire series of recordings of people interviewing their mothers, such as the interview Joshua Littman conducted that was turned into an animated video. Some of these interviews were included in the book Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps. Friday, NPR's Morning Edition broadcast another StoryCorps interview, in which Scott Miller asked his mother Jackie about her decision to adopt him.

"We must have talked about it even before that," 73-year-old Jackie told Scott at StoryCorps in New York City. "You know, we're very methodical people."

But while Scott Miller knew he was adopted, he didn't know what prompted his parents to choose adoption to grow their family.

That's when the 73-year-old revealed a family secret she'd been holding for over half a century. Link to audio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127740529 to text.

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Gay Carrington made a version of a few relevant scenes from the 1960 movie Psycho starring ...dolls! -via Everlasting Blort

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Sure, you've seen kittens and mirrors before, but this video has a bit of a punch line. -via Arbroath

We didn't plan it that way, but this past week turned out to be "Art Week" at Neatorama.

We welcomed The Nag to Neatorama, as in Marilyn Bellamy, who many of you know as the Nag on the Lake. Since we spent years finding neat links on her site, she has now taken on duties as our newest contributing author!

You Call That Art? listed some strange art projects that go way beyond painting and sculpting and even macrame, from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

From mental_floss, we did The MacGyver Fact-Check, to see the 80s TV hero pull some of his most outlandish stunts and find out how plausible they are in the real world.

Bill Zeman of Tiny Art Director guest posted at NeatoBambino in At the Met with the Tiny Art Director. We had a contest, too- congratulations to commenter Maceo24, who won a custom original Zeman artwork (which you can see here) and and to Wendy, CheeseThief, TheRhube, and nepomuk who all won copies of Zeman's book.



Have you been to the Neatorama Art Blog lately? We are adding new artists to the gallery all the time. Just this week, we posted works by mixed media artist Jason LaFerrera, printmaker Mark Hosford, and cut paper artist Lorraine Nam.

In more art news, the four-year run for The Vader Project is coming to a close. The decorated Darth Vader helmets will be auctioned off this summer, but you can see some of The 100 Helmets of THE VADER PROJECT at the Spotlight Blog.

At NeatoGeek, John posted a collection of his favorite Geek Love Songs in video form. Then many of you suggested lots more songs in the comments! Oh yeah, NeatoGeek also featured a lot of fan art this week.

Individual prize winners from the Quiz Play Day promotion were announced. Even though Boing Boing won the friendly blog competition by raising the most money for charity, the Grand Prize winning player is a Neatorama reader! Vanessa won an iPad from Neatorama and will appear on the Game Show Network to talk about her favorite charity.

You're invited to join in the fun at our Facebook page and keep up with even more neat links with our Twitter feed!

This picture explains how Venn diagrams work better than most explanations, without any words at all. Link -via The Daily What

This site Sexual Congress has nothing to do with political scandals; it is rather like a "hot or not" site where you will be shown two members of the US Congress, and you decide who is the sexier of the two. Politicians should be able to handle the scrutiny, if anyone can. You may choose to vote for men only, or women only, or skip to the current standings. The current leaders are Mary Bono Mack of California's 45th district and Aaron Schock of Illinois' 18th district, both Republicans. Link -via b3ta

You know them, you love them (at least some of them), but you might not know that Captain Crunch, The Comic Book Guy, Mr. Clean, the Michelin Man, and the patient in the game Operation all have given names. It's true! Mental_floss dug them up, along with lots of other fictional characters with full names, just so you'll know. Link

With nothing more than his trusty Swiss Army knife, some duct tape, and a wad of gum, MacGyver can make his way out of any predicament ...or can he? It's time to fact-check the 1980s icon and his most outrageous escape tricks.




FLYING OUT OF A CUCKOO'S NEST

Episode: "A Prisoner of Conscience" Season 1, episode 21

Sticky Situation: MacGyver is locked in a mental ward, with only a lamp and a bunch of patients.

MacGyverism: In a flash of brilliance, Mac smashes the lamp's light bulb and pulls out the tungsten filament. He then uses the metal strip to pick the lock and make his escape.

Plausibility Meter: **** High. MacGyver moves too fast, though. While out tech-savvy hero picks the lock in about ten seconds, it took the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, more than 50 minutes to pull off the same stunt.

Also, for the trick to work, you need an incandescent bulb, which produces visible light by heating metal filaments with electricity. Modern compact fluorescent bulbs don't have filaments. Instead, they use electricity to excite a gas to produce ultraviolet light that's invisible to the eye. In fact, the UV is only turned into visible light thanks to a special coating on the bulb.

Best for: Dexterous mental patients.

BUILDING AN AIRPLANE OUT OF BAMBOO



Episode: "Legend of the Holy Rose" Season 5, Episode 1

Sticky Situation: MacGyver gets trapped on a construction site in Colombia while trying to rescue an injured American hostage. They both need out-pronto!

MacGyverism: In just four hours, Mac constructs an airplane out of bamboo, some trash bags, a wheelbarrow, duct tape, and the engine of a cement-mixer. Inexplicably sporting a Rambo-style headband throughout the adventure, Mac pilots his makeshift airplane away from the bad guys, soaring off a cliff to freedom with his injured friend in tow.



Plausibility Meter: *** Moderate. Mythbusters tried this one, too, and it took them three days to build their makeshift plane. (Even then, it crashed after takeoff.) That said, Mac has history on his side. Bamboo aircraft exist, and they don't require much in the way of modern technology. Way back in 1907, Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont unveiled a 300-pound ultralight airplane made of bamboo. He christened it Demoiselle, French for "Damselfly".

Best for: Mechanics with a lot of time and bamboo on their hands.

TEARING DOWN THE WALLS OF SCIENCE

Episode: "Pilot" Season 1, Episode 1

Sticky Situation: While trying to rescue two scientists from a metallurgy lab, MacGyver finds himself blocked by a wall. He needs to blow through it in a hurry, because a missile is going to strike in five minutes! Luckily, he's got lots of laboratory-grade metal on hand.

MacGyverism: Mac creates a bomb by putting sodium metal inside a gel-cap and then immersing it in a bottle of water. When the gel-cap melts, the highly volatile sodium reacts with the water, blowing a hole right through the wall.

Plausibility Meter: * Low. You may remember from high school chemistry class that sodium in an alkali metal. That means it will react violently with water to release hydrogen and heat. The chemistry is accurate, but in MacGyver's case, the explosion would have been way too small to break through any sort of real wall.

Best for: Escaping from a paper bag.

JUMPING OUT OF A PLANE (IN A CAR)

Episode: "The Heist" Season 1, Episode 5

Sticky Situation: A diamond-mogul villain has captured Mac and his most recent love interest in the cargo hold of an airplane. The villain cackles, "Take it up to 30,000 feet. The lack of oxygen will kill 'em!"

MacGyverism: Conveniently, the cargo hold also contains a sports car and a comically oversized parachute. Mac attaches the parachute to the roadster (with its top down, of course), and then drives the car out of the airplane. The parachute releases just when oxygen levels are high enough to breathe. While gently floating to the ground, Mac makes out with his girlfriend and the credits roll.

Plausibility Meter: ***** Surprisingly high. First of all, the bad guy knows his science. At 30,000 feet, humans aren't getting enough oxygen and can suffer from hypoxia, a medical condition that can have fatal results. Climbers trying to reach the top of Mt. Everest (summit: 29,029 feet) often succumb to hypoxia, and that's after they've had days to acclimatize.

As for the parachute with the car, let's run the numbers. A sports car plus two passengers will add up to about 1.4 tons, and a large cargo parachute can easily handle two tons if dropped from that height. MacGyver and his lady friend can even put on a few pounds and still make the thing work.

Best for: Lovers.

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The MacGyver Fact-Check was written by Chris Higgins and appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today for more!

Wired has a roundup of eleven of the strangest military programs you can imagine. Man made northern lights? Psychics? Nuclear weapons launched from a backpack? They're all here, including the plan to use bats in warfare.

Toward the end of World War II, the Air Force was looking for a better way to burn Japanese cities to the ground. A dental surgeon contacted the White House, and suggested strapping small incendiary devices to bats, loading them into cages shaped like bombshells and dropping them over a wide area.

According to the plan, millions of bats would escape from the bombshells as they parachuted toward earth, and the flying mammals would find their way into the attics of barns and factories, where they would rest until the charges they were carrying exploded. In the early 1940s, a test with some armed bats went awry, and they set fire to a small Air Force base in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

The bats eventually had a successful test, although the bats themselves wouldn't consider it so. Link -via Digg

(Image credit: Flickr user Furryscaly)

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This is a Lee Enfield bolt action sniper rifle made from Lego bricks. It shoots Lego bricks as well! Find out more about it at creator Jack Streat's post. Link -via reddit

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You know how your Mom always said, "If your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?" Apparently, the dinosaurs did just that. The Film Board of Canada presents this charming 1995 film by Munro Ferguson. Not intended for use as a science lesson. -via Everlasting Blort

To fill time while they waited for an appearance on The Jack Paar Program in 1964, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Don Sahlin and Jerry Juhl decorated some pipes in their dressing room. They left a note that said, "With love, from the Muppets." It was just a spur-of-the-moment prank, and Paar mentioned they would be painted over the next day. But the pipes remained as they were for 46 years. Read the rest of the story at Muppet Wiki. Link -via Metafilter

Wildlife experts have found that perfumes made for humans can attract wild animals. Zoos use this knowledge to encourage big cats to explore their habitats. Researchers use perfume to "bait" camera traps, so they can photograph and identify a variety of species. The most successful scent found so far is Obsession For Men. Calvin Klein must be proud! Link -via Everlasting Blort