10 Their Planet Has Different Gravity Gravity is a key factor that influences the development of all organisms. Aside from limiting the size of land animals, gravity also forces a number of very specific adaptations. We can see evidence of this right here on Earth. Organisms that made the transition from water to land had to develop limbs and complex skeletons because they no longer had the buoyancy of water to offset the force of gravity....
In this day and age, pretty much everyone has a blog. Your friends, your relatives – and if Disney Channel is to be believed, possibly even your dogs have blogs. So it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that Ellen Simonetti, a former flight attendant for Delta, also had a blog. I say former because she was fired from that position precisely for having that blog. Simonetti was fired in 2004 after her employers discovered her blog, entitled “Diary of a Flight Attendant” and decided they’d rather not have the world see her as a representative of Delta Airlines....
Note that we said “almost”. Because there do exist instances of absurdly accurate prognostication that can’t be explained by APE (in case you didn’t notice that acronym), and that make Nostradamus look like the hack that he was. Predicted: Modern displays and movie streaming in 1987 In 1987, beloved movie critic Roger Ebert gave an interview for Omni magazine in which he was asked a pretty simple question: how did he think the competition between movies and television would shape up in the future?...
10Bucharest, Romania Below the streets of Romania’s capital of Bucharest is a network of tunnels providing shelter for a group of drug-addicted, HIV-infected, and chain-wearing kids and teenagers. Their leader—or rather, father figure—refers to himself as “Bruce Lee” and takes in the lowest of the low. He’s dedicated his life to keeping his self-sufficient family safe and as warm as possible, even if that means giving them a safe space to do drugs....
When songs are banned, we imagine that there is a rational reason for doing so. Overt sexual references, use of expletives, or some moral justification are usually the driving for behind song bans. Sometimes, however, when a song is banned, it is for the most bewildering and unexpected of reasons. 10 Blondie—‘Atomic’ New wave rockers Blondie quite surprisingly found themselves on BBC’s list of banned songs during the First Gulf War....
10St. Teresa’s Demons A 16th-century Spanish mystic and contemporary of St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila was an important figure in the Church’s history. She was also plagued by visions, the most terrifying of which has to be the time see saw demons claim a man’s soul. After a local miser died, Teresa watched his body being wrapped for burial. Though she thought him a sinner, she felt he was likely to get to heaven nonetheless....
10 Cait Sith Cait sith means “fairy cat.” This cat is the size of a young calf and is all black except for a white spot on its chest. The Irish believed this to be a fairy animal, but the Scottish believed it to be a transformed witch. The legend goes that a cait sith is a witch who can transform herself into a cat nine times, but on the ninth transformation, she will remain a cat forever....
10Brewing For The Church The creator of the famous beer, Arthur Guinness is the father of the modern Guinness clan. When Arthur was born, the brewing industry in Ireland was facing disaster—most people were buying English beers instead of paying the higher tax on Irish ones. It was also the tail end of the Gin Craze, when public intoxication and drunkenness became a huge problem throughout the British Isles—making it the perfect time to start of brewing something a little less alcoholic....
In reality, voodoo is a mostly peaceful religion, although it can involve animal sacrifices. However, just like any other religion, there are people who do bad things in the name of voodoo. 10 L’Affaire de Bizoton In December 1863, Congo Pele of Bizoton, Haiti, asked his sister Jeanne Pele, a voodoo priestess, for help in using voodoo to gain wealth and power. Jeanne agreed to help him. The siblings consulted two other voodoo priests on the best way to achieve their goal, and the priests suggested that they would need to sacrifice a “goat without horns,” otherwise known as a human....
There are types of candies that the majority of people may find very strange or weird, though, but people in some cultures have enjoyed these treats since they were small children. Take pleasure in learning about some of these interesting candies, and you decide if they are absolutely brilliant or just plain strange. 10 Lamb Caramels In Hokkaido, “Genghis Khan” is a local dish of shredded mutton barbecue. The traditional dish is prepared in a skillet with lamb meat grilled at the top of the pan surrounded by various vegetables....
If you happened upon a lost wallet full of cash, would you return it? That’s the question researchers in Edinburgh wanted to answer—but they added a few extra conditions, to make it more interesting. As part of the experiment, they left a whole bunch of wallets lying around the city, complete with the address of the fictional owner who’d lost it. And along with this information, the researchers put a picture into the wallet to see what was most likely to ensure its safe return....
10The Thief Robert Vesco grew up in Detroit, where his dad worked on the Chrysler assembly line. He could have had a good job in the auto industry himself, but even as a teenager he had three goals: “To get the hell out of Detroit, be president of a corporation, and become a millionaire.” As an adult, Vesco became an itinerant salesman, hustling everything from aluminum sidings to awnings. He eventually came across a small valve-making company that desperately needed $125,000 to avoid bankruptcy....
A few studies, polls, and personal accounts in the media suggest otherwise. Maybe the differences between most liberals and conservatives aren’t really that stark. Maybe some in the media sensationalize their news stories to raise their ratings and persuade people to come to their political side when simply reporting all the facts in an unbiased manner won’t do the job. Either way, unrest is also being fueled by two US political parties battling for power in the worst possible ways....
However, you may be surprised by how much our medical knowledge has changed in just the last 100 years. Not that long ago, we all believed in and trusted these crazy procedures that we now know were terrible ideas. It begs the question: What current medical ideas will we look back on as insanity in the next 100 years? 10 Lobotomy For mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, some psychiatrists in the 1940s suggested putting two ice picks through your eye sockets and hammering them into your brain....
10Nutria The Louisiana bayou is under attack. The enemy: nutria, a 6-kilogram (14 lb) South American rat. With a voracious appetite for aquatic vegetation, these rodents turn wetlands into open water. Without the bayou to absorb storm surges, flooding could wash away southern Louisiana. The family behind Tabasco sauce released nutria into Southern swamps in the 1930s, hoping to provide an alternative to the beaver fur trade. However, the Argentinian swamp rat pelt lacks beaver’s luster, so nutria fur never caught on....
10The Sun Revolves Around The Earth In 2012, a survey of 2,200 US adults was carried out by the National Science Foundation to gauge Americans’ attitudes. While the respondents were found to generally be very interested in scientific progress—particularly in the field of medicine—the responses to one specific question left researchers stunned. The question was “Does the Sun go around the Earth, or does the Earth go around the Sun?” Fully one in four respondents failed to answer it correctly....
Whether you’re a twin looking for more information on your own genetic situation or you’re simply a curious onlooker, here are 10 intriguing facts about all sorts of twins. 10 Identical Twins Are . . . Not So Identical After All It is common knowledge that identical twins have the same DNA. However, that does not necessarily mean that they are biologically similar in every other sense. From birth, identical twins have different fingerprints and different belly buttons....
So now it’s time to dish out ten fun and funky facts about Julia Child… 10 Super Tall Julia Child was tall… really tall. At some 1.8 meters (6 feet 2 inches), it should come as no real surprise that she was a basketball star in school. She was the captain of the basketball team at the affluent Katharine Branson School for Girls in California. She was also a member of the tennis team, golf team, swim team, and president of the school’s hiking club....
Here are some lesser-known facts about The Twilight Zone franchise which are “submitted for your approval”—a phrase which, although heavily associated with the show, was only actually uttered by Serling three times. 10 The Iconic Theme Song Was Not Introduced Until the Second Season Even people who have not seen The Twilight Zone are familiar with the catchy “dee-dee-dee-dee” of the theme song. However, this song was not actually used during the airing of the first season of the show....
There are records of UFOs in the early 1900s and throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries. On top of that, there are many recorded events from thousands of years ago which, when viewed from a modern perspective, sound very much like modern UFO sightings. If even a small percentage of these early records are accurate, then it would appear that UFOs, whatever they are, have had an interest in human beings since antiquity....
