Many religious cults are based on apocalypticism, the belief that the world is going to end. Check out ten such beliefs, their founders, and followers. One such cult is the Panacea Society.

In 1792, part-time fortune teller Joanna Southcott started collecting “divine revelations” and had them sealed in a box with strict instructions to open it only for Jesus. Her followers called themselves Southcottians and were mostly early-19th century Spiritualists. Southcott dramatically announced that she was pregnant with the messiah, Shiloh, whose birth would kill all but her followers. However, Southcott was a 64-year-old virgin who showed no signs of pregnancy. To Southcott’s credit, she began doubting her beliefs when she failed to give birth but died before she was able to do anything about it. The sudden power vacuum among the Southcottians brought out all sorts of leadership, all of whom claimed they could psychically communicate with Southcott’s box, and transformed the Southcottians into a bizarre cult that refused to bury Southcott’s corpse, believing that she would be resurrected. They renamed themselves the Panacea Society under the belief that they had healing powers, and still believe that Shiloh will descend from heaven to reboot the world at a later date.

There are nine other cults profiled at Ty.rannosaur.us. Link

You can learn a lot from science fiction. For example, you should not try to bring someone back from the dead because they will try to kill you. Proof comes from seven different stories that send chills down our spines.

Pet Sematary: Any dead creature buried in the ancient Micmac burial ground comes back to life, just not quite the way you put it in. After losing his young son Gage, Louis buries his son in the graveyard. Sure enough, Gage comes back — and promptly murders his mother.

That's only one of ten reasons not to resurrect dead bodies. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Scans of the human brain show how neurons fire in different patterns when we are asleep, drugged, experiencing seizures or headaches, and when the brain is damaged. The image on the left is the brain of someone who is asleep. The right shows the brain of a person in a drug-induced sleep. http://www.newsweek.com/id/216558 -via the Presurfer

The Rockin’-R-Ranch in Columbia Township, Ohio hosts a haunted house and conducts haunted hayrides during October. This year, they also hosted a vampire wedding! Jack Holsinger was carried in a coffin to the alter where he met his bride Connie Spitznagel. Both were dressed as vampires. The best man appeared as pirate Jack Sparrow and the maid of honor was decked out as the Bride of Frankenstein.

Minister Greg Kopp got into the spirit of things as well. The couple vowed to love each other, haunt with each other and howl at the moon together till the end of time.

They promised to forsake all other ghouls and goblins and grow in love and “other body parts” until - you guessed - death parts them.

Instead of a first kiss, Holsinger was ordered to bite his new bride on the neck.

Many of the wedding guests were also dressed as vampires or other Halloween characters. Patrons of the haunted house were welcomed to the wedding as well. Link -via YesButNoButYes

(image credit: Alicia Castelli/The Chronicle-Telegram)

Neiman Marcus always has some over-the-top offerings for Christmas -after all, that’s the only reason some folks look at the catalog. This year, how about a cupcake car for only $25,000? Designed by artist Lisa Pongrace, the cupcake runs on electricity and has a top speed of seven miles per hour. Your purchase will be decorated in your favorite flavors. Link -via Buzzfeed

Angry farmers took to the streets to protest low food prices in Brussels, Belgium. They dumped milk into the streets and threw eggs. One pictures shows a farmer aiming streams of milk directly from a cow’s udder onto policemen.

The protest organizers, the European Milk Board, said that more than 1,000 tractors and 5,000 people took part on behalf of “more than 80,000 dairy farmers”.

The group said milk prices are below 75 percent of production costs. Another European farm union organization, Copa-Cogeca, says that milk prices have plummeted 30 percent in a year and that dairy producers will lose up to 14 billion euros before the end of the year if nothing is done.

See the awesome full version of this cropped picture at the New York Times. Link -via Buzzfeed

(image credit: Georges Gobet/Agence France-Presse)

Creative Cloud has a collection of newspaper scans with the biggest headlines of the past 100 years. Here you have a chance to see the news the way people saw it on the days (or the day after, in most cases) many world-changing events happened, from the sinking of the Titanic to the election of the latest president of the United States. Link -via the Presurfer

Police in Gunbalanya, Northern Teritory, Australia arrested and detained a two meter long female crocodile. The charge? Loitering!

Police said they found it loitering near a fence, trying to look innocent.

Brevet Sergeant Adam Russell said intrigued residents had gathered around to watch the arrest - but any dreams he had of nabbing the gnasher in style were promptly voted down.

"I wanted to jump on it Steve Irwin style," he said. "But (the rangers) wouldn't let me."

After three days in the clink, during which the croc endured a hosing-down every few hours, the prisoner was turned over to a crocodile farm. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26165898-13762,00.html -via Arbroath

Businesses all over look for memorable names. Many go with puns, since a funny play on words will stick in your mind. Tanks A Lot is a blog full of punny business names, like restaurants named Beau Thai, Thai Ranosaurus, Thai Foon, or Tongue Thai’d (wonder what kind of food they serve?) or eyeglass stores named Specs Appeal or You and Eye. Link

The annual United Nations human development index, released today, names Norway the best country in which to live. The list of 182 countries is based on 2007 statistics on life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment, gross domestic product, and other criteria.

The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan.

The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.

China wins the most-improved award, moving up to number 92. Niger was at the bottom, and Afghanistan came in second to last. Link -via Digg

Listen to French artist Thomas Bloch demonstrating a glass harmonica, or armonica, at the Paris Music Museum. From Wikipedia:

Benjamin Franklin invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval at Cambridge in England in 1758.[6] Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies.

In Franklin's treadle operated version 37 bowls were mounted horizontally on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot pedal. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers.

Link

Hey baseball fans! As we head into post-season play, test your memory of past World Series with today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Do you know how many World Series titles each of twelve players earned? Keep in mind that some went all the way with more than one team. I scored 7 of 12, so any real baseball fan should beat that! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/36140

This list, researched by a cheese fan, encompasses a great portion of the history of cheese as well as the different varieties and how they are made. Who knew you could buy cheese made from moose milk?

A farm in Bjurholm, Sweden actually makes moose cheese. The lactation period of moose is short, lasting from about June to August, and the farm, owned by Christer and Ulla Johansson, keeps three moose that produce only 300 kilograms of cheese per year. The moose cheese sells for roughly US$1000 per kilogram.

Before you faint over the price, remember that a kilogram is more than two pounds! Link -via Unique Daily

Old age in itself is no barrier to fitness. Many people in their 80s and 90s stay fit with regular exercise, and some put many younger folks to shame! Imagine competitive swimming in your 90s.

92yr old Ladislav Nicek has been competing in the annual Winter Swimming Championships in the Vlatva River for over half a century, and has until this point only missed a few events. Up to 70 ‘otuzilci’ (hardy fellows) brave the icy waters in an event which attracts a huge amount of media coverage, a large percentage due to the efforts of Mr. Nicek. He even organises the event every year before jumping in himself.

Nicek is one of five elderly athletes profiled at Vitabits. http://www.vitabits.co.uk/health-blog/health-freaks/ -Thanks, David!

7-year-old Wyatt Wilke was looking forward to entering his best sunflower in a competition at the Sunflower Fair in La Porte, Indiana.

"He loved growing his sunflowers," said his mother, Cathleen Wilke. "Every year we talked about coming into La Porte for the Sunflower Fair, but we never got around to it. Wyatt really wanted to be part of the contest."

That's what they had planned -- a day at the fair, to enter his sunflower. He was a healthy, constantly laughing boy -- he loved school, where he was in the second grade, he loved horses, he loved his big brother John, with whom he shared a bedroom. The Wilkes lived in the tiny town of Hamlet, about 15 minutes from La Porte; Wyatt would look out the back window, watching for blue jays and cardinals.

"He planted his sunflowers in our garden," Cathleen Wilke said. "He was so careful with them. A few weeks before the fair, there was a heavy windstorm that knocked his biggest sunflower over. He called to me: 'Mom, it's on the ground -- my flower, it's down.' He was afraid it was ruined. But he managed to save it."

But a bacterial infection struck Wyatt and he died in just a few days. His stunned parents realized the fair had started the same day he died and took Wyatt's sunflower to the competition, just as he had planned. They had never been to the Sunflower Fair before.

They waited together as all the categories were judged. No one around them had any idea.

And then, through the loudspeaker system at the fair, the winner of his category was announced:

"First place. . .Wyatt Wilke."

There is more to the story, but you’d better have your handkerchief ready if you go read it. Link -via Fark