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Oddities & Curiosities

A collection of 103 issues

The Scientific Showdown Between Kansas and an IHOP Pancake

A whimsical 2003 scientific study set out to test a cliché, pitting the topography of Kansas against an IHOP pancake. The results, which revealed the breakfast food to be far lumpier than the state, challenge our very perception of what it means to be 'flat'.

Geography & Places Science & Nature Oddities & Curiosities

The First Chiropractor Got His Big Idea From a Ghost

Millions of people see chiropractors for back pain, but few know its founder claimed the entire practice was revealed to him by the spirit of a doctor dead for 50 years, an origin that explains its contentious place in modern medicine.

History Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

The Walking Tongue: How Lobsters Taste the World With Their Feet

For lobsters, tasting isn't a job for the mouth—it's for their feet. Covered in chemosensory hairs, their legs act as sophisticated detectors, allowing them to identify food, find mates, and avoid predators by simply walking along the ocean floor.

Science & Nature Oddities & Curiosities Animals in Culture

The Audacious Plan to Revive George Washington with Lamb's Blood

Hours after George Washington's death, a physician and architect arrived with a radical plan: thaw the president's body, inflate his lungs, and transfuse him with lamb's blood. The family's decision left history with one of its most bizarre 'what if' scenarios.

History Medicine, Psychology & Health Oddities & Curiosities

A Fowl Felony: Why Chickens Are Banned from Crossing the Road in Quitman, Georgia

The classic joke gets a legal answer in Quitman, Georgia, where an ordinance forbids chickens from crossing the road. More than just a punchline, this peculiar law reveals its practical origins in public safety and animal control from a bygone era.

Law, Crime & Justice History Oddities & Curiosities

The Spectator in Your Own Skull: What Happens in the Brain During Dissociation

When faced with overwhelming input, the brain can build a mental firewall, cutting off emotion to create a profound sense of detachment. This neurological glitch reveals how our very sense of self is a fragile biological construct.

Medicine, Psychology & Health Science & Nature Oddities & Curiosities

Thirteen Deaths, Zero Burns: The Bizarre Tragedy of the Great Dublin Whiskey Fire

In 1875, a Dublin warehouse fire unleashed a river of burning whiskey into the streets. While firefighters built dams of manure to contain the blaze, locals scooped up the free liquor. The strange result: 13 fatalities, none from the fire, all from alcohol poisoning.

History Oddities & Curiosities Food & Lifestyle

Perfectly Safe: The Volunteers Who Stood Directly Beneath a Nuclear Detonation

On a Nevada morning in 1957, five Air Force officers and a cameraman stared up at the sky as a nuclear missile detonated directly above them. This wasn't a mistake; it was a calculated experiment to prove that atomic warfare could be perfectly safe.

History Military Technology & Strategy Oddities & Curiosities

Biological Black Ops: The High-Stakes Mission to Secure Putin's DNA

On foreign trips, a special detail from Vladimir Putin's security service has a unique mission: collecting his bodily waste. The extreme protocol is designed to thwart bio-espionage, preventing foreign agencies from analyzing his DNA for secrets about his health.

Politics & Power Oddities & Curiosities Science & Nature

Not Dead Yet: The Panic That Forced Doctors to Define Death

A 19th-century terror of being buried alive sparked a wave of macabre 'safety coffins' with bells and escape hatches. But the true legacy of this panic was the intense pressure that forced medicine to create the scientific definition of death we rely on today.

History Medicine Oddities & Curiosities

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