Weird Universe Archive
June 2012
June 30, 2012
The Master’s Voice
The Master's Voice from Guilherme Marcondes on Vimeo.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 30, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Horror, Movies, Surrealism, Science Fiction
Darwin’s Point
Do you have a Darwin's point? According to wikipedia (which refers to it as "Darwin's tubercle"), about 10% of the population has one:The feature is present in approximately 10.4% of the population. This acuminate nodule represents the point of the mammalian ear. This atavistic feature is so called because its description was first published by Charles Darwin in the opening pages of The Descent of Man, as evidence of a vestigial feature indicating common ancestry among primates. However, Darwin himself named it the Woolnerian tip, after Thomas Woolner, a British sculptor who had depicted it in one of his sculptures and had first theorised that it was an atavistic feature.
In some people, such as myself, the point projects outwards rather than inwards, making a kind of elf ear. My wife calls mine my "Spock ear."
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 30, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Body
Note From Chuck
I've had a small cut on my eye this week that got infected, and for an editor-writer, that's hell getting adjusted. Plus, I have this condition of lingering, seething rage that kicks in if I have as much as a headache or a hangnail, so you can imagine my ire at an eye infection. I'm much better, but I'm way behind. I'll try to be back on track by Monday morning.
Posted By: Chuck - Sat Jun 30, 2012 -
Comments (8)
Category:
June 29, 2012
Brazil MTV Animation
VMB 2011 from CONSULADO on Vimeo.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jun 29, 2012 -
Comments (3)
Category: Music, Rube Goldberg Devices, Cartoons, South America
Science as a girl thing
EU bureaucrats, in their great wisdom, decided that the way to encourage teenage girls to pursue a career in science was not by appealing to their intelligence and curiosity, but rather by flashing images of high heels, lipstick, and makeup at them, along with the tagline: "Science, It's a Girl Thing." The inevitable outrage followed. (telegraph.co.uk)It was my impression (though I don't have any data at hand to back it up, so I could be totally mistaken) that in some sciences, such as biology and medicine, women are fairly equally represented (perhaps even at risk of becoming over-represented). So in those cases science already is a "girl thing." It's the physical sciences, such as electrical engineering, that still have trouble attracting women.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 29, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Science, Gender
June 28, 2012
The Complete Blacky Pictures!
Thanks to the stellar research powers of Alex B., we now have the complete set of these oddball Freudian prompts.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 28, 2012 -
Comments (9)
Category: Art, Children, Alex, 1950s, Mental Health and Insanity
Hercules McElroy
Read all about short-famed black strongman Hercules McElroy in the pages of EBONY magazine.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 28, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Human Marvels, 1960s
The Korean Nine-Person Shovel
Westerners traveling to Korea in the late nineteenth century were puzzled by this shovel, which they frequently saw in use on Korean farms. It required between three to nine people to operate, but it seemed to shovel dirt no faster or better than a western-style, one-person shovel.However, the westerners may have been mistaken about the lack of efficiency of the Korean shovel. An article in Esquire (June 21, 2010) by John Richardson offers this piece of info:
When I was a teenager in Korea, the lesson was called Three Men on a Shovel. Koreans used to dig trenches using one guy steering the shovel with the handle and two other guys pulling with ropes tied to the shovel. How Americans would laugh! Dumb Koreans, takes three of them just to dig a hole! Then the Army did a test with three Americans with three shovels against the Koreans, and the Koreans kicked our asses.
via Flickr
via wikipedia
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 28, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Inventions
June 27, 2012
Stuck
When attempting to break into the local rental store through the loading dock be sure you have pried the door up enough to fit under it. Nine hours is a long time to contemplate what you should have done differently. But, hey, at least aspirin is free at the jail.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 27, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category:
Human falling into lava lake: a scientific experiment
Some researchers wanted to know what would happen if a person fell into the lava lake of the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia. Would the force of the impact be enough to break through the thick crust, or would the person simply lie on top of the crust and get toasted?To answer this important question, the researchers used a 30kg bag of trash as a stand-in for a human and threw it into the lava, from a height of 80 meters. Watch the video to see what happened. If they're true mad scientists, they'll find a way to repeat the test with a human body.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 27, 2012 -
Comments (15)
Category: Science, Experiments
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
