Fact: They Wore Phalluses As Good Luck Charms Romans were many things—influential, civilized, powerful—but they were also downright superstitious about certain things. One of the good luck charms of ancient Rome was the phallus—a very Latin way to say erect penis. There’s evidence that the phallic symbolism was a very integral part of Roman life. They wore phallus charms as necklaces, hung them in their doorways, and even made wind chimes to ward off evil spirits....

The naked human eye can only see objects as small as 0.1 millimeters long. This list covers 10 human inventions on a scale 100,000 times smaller. 10 Self-Fueled Liquid Metal A simple, liquid-metal alloy formed from gallium, iridium, and tin can be electrically controlled to form complex shapes or run laps in a Petri dish. To say it’s like the robot villain from Terminator 2 is not hyperbolic. Jing Liu of Tsinghua University, one of the researchers who worked on the project, which was based in Beijing, China, said, “The soft machine looks rather intelligent and [can] deform itself according to the space it voyages in, just like [the] Terminator does from the science-fiction film....

It may seem counterintuitive to cure one illness with another, but it has worked time and time again. And it’s not always that scary. Other microorganisms, specifically viruses and bacteria that are not necessarily dangerous to humans, have also been utilized to treat lethal diseases. 10 Malaria Syphilis was incurable throughout most of history and often led to death within four years. The worst form is neurosyphilis, which is infection of the nervous system by syphilis and often the final stage of the disease....

10 The Vultures In The Jungle Book Were Designed For The Beatles The Jungle Book tells the story of abandoned child Mowgli who was raised by wolves. Suddenly, he is put in danger by the return of man-eating tiger Shere Khan. This leaves Mowgli with no choice but to leave his family and return to live with the humans. He is accompanied on his adventure by the panther, Bagheera, and the bear, Baloo....

This week, we’ve decided to shake things up a little. Following a grueling few editions featuring endless battles over the Supreme Court, we’re going to leave off US politics entirely. So there’ll be no mention below of Brett Kavanaugh, Nikki Haley, or Taylor Swift. Instead, we’ll be taking you on a magical mystery tour through the major stories causing figurative earthquakes in Brazil, South Korea, and China before swinging back to the US for some non-political stuff....

10The Inquisition Was A Single Event Thanks in no small part to Monty Python and Mel Brooks, when we think of the Inquisition we usually think of the Spanish Inquisition. It was, and still is, the most famous one, but it was by no means the only one. The idea of the Inquisition has its roots much earlier than that. As early as the first century, Roman law made allowances for what they called “inquisitorial procedures....

As with most things, Twain was absolutely right. Even a lot of “modern technologies” are really just updated versions of older creations, polished and given a fresh coat of paint. 10 Video Games The general consensus is that the history of video games began with Pong. But in reality, these games had been entertaining us long before Pong’s release in 1972. Back in 1958, Dr. William Higinbotham was working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, designing a simulation to calculate the trajectories of missiles and bouncing balls....

Moreover, while including the sons, brother and wife of some individuals on this and the previous list may seem redundant, it is important to keep in mind that they played leadership roles in different capacities than their fathers, brother and husband and yet still met horrific ends. Their inclusion demonstrates the perils that even the family members of leaders can face. One need only consider the violent deaths of Caligula’s wife and daughter, as reenacted in the famous eponymous film of his life, or the brutal end of the wife and children of Nicholas II, to remember that when a reckoning comes against someone viewed negatively by a certain segment of the population, not only will the leader succumb to a potentially despicable demise, so too might his or her family....

10 A Hymn To The Pillory br> Daniel Defoe Contempt, that false New Word for shame, Is without Crime, an empty Name. A Shadow to Amuse Mankind, But never frights the Wise or Well-fix’d Mind. Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) is best known to us today for his novel Robinson Crusoe, but he spent most of his life as a campaigner and pamphleteer during the tumultuous political and religious tension following England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688....

Indeed, no game can claim to be immune to the possibility of being mired by violence. But, when it comes to team sports, the potential for chaos is multiplied, thanks to the more significant number of individuals involved and the group mentality that binds teammates together. Here, we’ll be looking at some of the biggest and most infamous brawls to ever occur in sport. 10 Boston Bruins vs. New York Rangers (1979) Brawls are all part of the hockey experience, but not when they occur between fans and players....

In some cases, however, multiple members of the same family are lost at once, and on rare occasions, there is no family left behind at all. In situations like these, it is up to the rest of society to find out the truth. Below are ten family mysteries that are largely unsolved. 10 Allison And Marie-Josee Benitez On July 14, 2013, 19-year-old beauty queen Allison Benitez and her mother left the house of Francisco Benitez, Allison’s father, after an argument and seemingly vanished from Perpignan, France....

10 Hitler Took Guns Away From Everybody In every debate about gun control, someone eventually equates any form of gun control with gun confiscation. Amid dramatic cries of “they’re coming to take our guns,” some people even claim that those in power are trying to take guns from US citizens like Adolf Hitler did to the Germans. Some may even cite the Nazi Weapon Law of 1938, saying that the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power was to take away the firepower of his citizens....

Even in this technological era, there is still so much that modern science cannot explain. Are there unknown forces that we cannot detect? What is dark energy? How does quantum physics work? Some of the most intelligent minds on Earth are trying to solve these elusive riddles. And, once in a while, they make a breakthrough. In recent years scientists have made a number of incredible discoveries. After scouring the world of subatomic particles, researchers at CERN uncovered the Higgs boson in 2012....

10 The Eiffel Tower’s Secret Room The Eiffel Tower has a secret apartment hidden within its highest level. The apartment is owned by Gustave Eiffel—the engineer who designed the tower. In 1890, the year after the Eiffel Tower was opened, French writer Henri Girard, stated that Gustave Eiffel was an “object of general envy” among the citizens of Paris. This envy, according to Girard, was inspired not by the fame that Gustave gained as the creator of the tower, or the fortune the tower generated, but from the apartment he owned at the tower’s top....

It is impossible to live in the world without altering it in some way. Some of the natural wonders of our planet have been unwittingly created by animals, and some less impressive changes have been caused that are just weird. Here are ten startling ways that organisms have changed the world. 10 White Cliffs Of Dover The White Cliffs of Dover are an iconic image of Britain. Rising hundreds of feet from the sea, they present a hard, white barrier to the rest of the world....

This week, we have two stories on mysterious texts and ciphers. One is carved into a rock in France, while the other one is considered a Holy Grail of cryptography. Another mystery would be who keeps drawing penises on the sports fields of Melbourne. There is also a secret chamber in Rome, a brewery in the United States, and a Danish politician with a unique strategy to reach his constituents....

It’s oddly specific, but this was a big week for food-based records. We got the priciest melons, the most cheese-rolling wins, and the largest gin and juice. It was also a pretty good time for science, as we explore some new and peculiar developments in paleontology, physics, cosmology, robotics, and evolutionary biology. 10 Oldest Dandruff In The World Found On Dinosaurs They might have gone extinct tens of millions of years ago, but our knowledge of dinosaurs keeps on expanding....

Produced: August 9, 1930 – 7 July, 1939. Inspiration: Helen Kane (Singer) Helen Kane became “The Boop Boop a Doop Girl” in 1928 when she sang the scat lyrics “boop-boop-a-doop” in the song “That’s My Weakness Now.” The song was an overnight success, promoting a steady career in music. The following year she made it into the movies, appearing with Ned Sparks and Richard Dix in the now public domain 1929 comedy farce Nothing But the Truth – where audiences had their first glimpse of the shy spoken, squeaky-voiced starlet, complete with hair bow and almost childlike singing voice....

10The US Government Turned Its Citizens Into Collateral According to this conspiracy theory pushed by members of the so-called “redemption movement,” the US government turned its own citizens into collateral in 1933 when it stopped using the gold standard so it could keep borrowing money. Supposedly, this made all American citizens unwitting slaves of international Jewish bankers. As movement leader Roger Elvick explained, every time a new citizen is born, the government awards his “straw man,” or twin, with a secret bank account worth $630,000....

10 Scorpions And Ticks Many people believe that ticks are insects, but they are not. They are true arachnids, closely related to scorpions and spiders. It’s an ancient lineage; one gene study tentatively suggested that these creatures were here before the dinosaurs, already crawling around the surface of the Earth 400–450 million years ago. For both ticks and scorpions, the next meal is primarily found by their excellent sense of smell, and they can only survive on liquid food....