Paul Clerkin, a shark ecology graduate student at California’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, has been spending the last couple of months on a deep-sea trawling vessel in the Indian Ocean to see if the ship’s nets might pull up anything interesting in the way of sharks.
The trawler’s nets have been dropping to a depth of 6,500 feet off the coast of an island called Mauritius. What’s come up have been hundreds of strange-looking sharks. Several are species known to be very rare while others may be absolutely unseen before now.
“I tell people I have a ton of sharks, and they keep thinking I’m joking,” Clerkin said. “It was an actual ton. I brought back 350 sharks.”
What’s even cooler is that if any of the strange sharks are entirely new species? Clerkin gets to name them. He’s said that he’ll name a few after his mentors and possibly one after his mom and maybe himself.
Robotics design is continually making all those creepy robot-takeover concepts part of our future reality. Check this thing out. It’s a ‘robot’ that imitates the actions of a worm but has the uncanny creepy factor of a maggot when you continue to watch it move. As soon as someone attaches some kind of weird syringe-probe thing? We’re done.
From MIT:
Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach.
Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed.
Watch it again….it’s creepy little self gets stepped on and hit with a hammer! And it KEEPS GOING!
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things before in the medical field. But THIS? This is a whole new level.
Back in 2009 a woman by the name of Shanyna Isom had an asthma attack. No biggie, right? Wrong. Isom experienced an allergic reaction to the steriods used to treat the asthma attack.
The result? A reaction like a d-lister from the Xavier Institute…she’s growing fingernails where she would normally grow hair.
No…really…fingernails are sprouting from her body.
Johns Hopkins University doctors are baffled at the condition. There’s no precedent for what’s happening to Isom. She began growing skin cells at 12 times the rate of a normal person and each follicle began producing a fingernail!
Doctors seem to have the bizarre disorder under control and are working to figure out how to fix whatever strange effect the steroid treatment created which caused this entire mess to start in the first place.
[I09]
It’s late. It’s dark. You’re out in a cemetery with a buddy looking to snag some swag off a couple corpses and hoist it on the local pawn shop in the morning.
You and your buddy unearth a casket, begin to pry it open and BLAM! You realize that something from inside the coffin has just shot you in the face!
Sounds like the opening scene of a Sam Raimi film. It’s not. It’s an absolutely real thing called a ‘grave gun’ or more commonly a ‘set gun’.
Originally the guns were used to protect a particular area around a campsite to prevent any kind of intruders from entering the camp. The gun’s business end was typically very wide and one to three trip-wires were then strung from the trigger of the gun and anchored at the other end to trees. When someone entering the area hit any of the trip-wires, the gun would fire effectively disabling hte intruder.
Around 1700, the original set-gun design went through a little redesign and began turning up inside the coffins of the more important individuals who’d died.
Once word spread about the ‘grave guns’ being inside random caskets? Grave robbing saw a drastic decline.
One of the last, and quite possibly, the most in your face version of the grave gun was created in the late 1880s. Called a ‘Coffin Torpedo’, the next-gen grave gun was basically a sawed-off shotgun attached to the underside of the coffin’s lid. Once you opened the casket to peer inside? SUPER-BLAM! as a sideways rain of 36-caliber lead balls raced to kiss your face.
[GUNS.COM]
Posted in Burial, Weapon | Comments Off on Hidden ‘Grave Guns’ Stopped Grave Robbers Dead!
Police officers in northern Penang, Malaysia raided a house after getting a distressed phone call from someone.
What they found was a pile of eight, chanting adults covered with a blanket lying on the floor of a bedroom.
Underneath this bizarre dog-pile was a 3 year-old girl who’d been suffocated by the adults on top of her. The adults that took part in this eerie and disturbing scene were the girl’s parents, grandmother, uncle, aunt, two cousins and the family’s maid in a ritual to remove the evil spirits that apparently inhabited the child.
All eight adults are currently being detained.
[ABC NEWS]
Posted in Cult, demon, Exorcism | Comments Off on Malaysian Exorcism of Child Goes Horribly Wrong!
A lot of couples like to get those fun, old-timey pictures taken together. Others like to get romantic looking, holding-hands-in-front-of-a-landscape picture.
Then there are the pictures that Haruhiko Kawaguchi are taking of couples which are about as far from cute and ‘awww’-inspiring as you can imagine.
Using a plastic bag and a vacuum, Kawaguchi shoves the loving couple into the large, clear plastic bag, seals it shut and then uses the vacuum to suck all the air from the bag effectively shrink-wrapping the couple like a bag of meat. For about 20 seconds, the couple have to endure the pressure, their ears popping and a lack of oxygen. Kawaguchi steps up on a box, snaps a couple pictures and then opens the bag to let air back into the lungs of his subjects.
Haruhiko (who prefers to be called ‘Hal’) has snapped over 80 couples for this, his latest project called ‘Flesh Love’. The process hasn’t been without incident. Men tend to panic more than women. One guy peed himself. ‘Hal’ now uses a lubricant to cover his subject’s skin since the tightening bag causes friction when the plastic bag begins to press against the skin.
Think we’ll just stick to old-timey photos or really bad self-made, mirror-shot profile pictures.
Got an event coming up real soon? Maybe a wedding? Maybe a birthday?
Well in case you are and you’re wondering where to find memorable entertainment for your party? Look no further than Ebay.
Right now, because of a ‘changed business model’, you can now have an entirely Hillbilly band play at your event!
A petting zoo/amusement park in Massachusetts has decided to bid farewell to this frightening group of robotic performers designed and built by an ex-Disney Imagineer (we kinda get why he’s an ex-Imagineer).
Originally this band cost the company $15,000. They’re letting go of the whole group, including the porch if you dismantle it yourself, for a steal at $5,000! Total deal.
You only have a couple of days left to snag the entire group so you’ll have that special ‘something’ that leaves an impression on your event’s guests that they’ll never forget..
Like when they all suddenly stop playing, turn their heads to look at you with their unblinking stares and then quickly return to playing one of their beloved jigs.
Because death and urns with your loved one’s ashes aren’t surrounded by enough creepy stories, a fun company called Cremation Solutions has decided to knock the creep factor over the wall. How?
By using a 3D printer to create an amazingly creepy look-alike head of your loved one that contains said loved ones ashes.
No…really…This isn’t a fun, faux site put up as a joke. This is legit, kids. You can now sit home and stare lovingly at the lifeless eyes of a remains-stuffed replica head of your loved one. These things make great conversation pieces too!
Guest: “That’s interesting. Are you into cosmetology?”
You: “No. That’s my ex-wife.”
Fun, right?
Before you get excited and click that Paypal button, there are some things to consider. The head doesn’t come with hair. It can either be added digitally (we’re not really sure what that means…but we’re guessing it’ll end up a lot like putting hair on those little Lego figures) or you can purchase a wig. We’re also not sure about the following line:
The full sized personal urn can hold all the ashes of an adult. For holding just a portion of the ashes, we recommend the keepsake sized personal urns.
Does that mean mini versions of your loved ones are available? We’re not sure.
Wombats are like the koala’s derpy ground-dwelling brother. They’re harmless, adorable and just keep their noses to the ground without being a bother to anyone. They’re about the size of a small, fat, over-inflated dog/gopher hybrid that like to build extensive burrows and tunnels.
Almost 200,000 years ago they were still cute and adorable and liked to create burrows with one small difference…
Wombats used to be about the size of a Prius.
In a remote part of the outback in Australia, almost 50 prehistoric mega-wombats called Diprotodons have been discovered in what’s being called a ‘graveyard’ for these giant animals.
As researchers uncover more of the site, the conditions of what brought the animals together in one place is becoming clearer…and creepier.
Also found at the site? The bony back-plates of a massive ancient crocodile and the teeth of an 18-foot-long venomous lizard called megalania.
[Phys.Org]
When you think of something called a torpedo, you generally think of something that looks like a missile…but in the water.
The word torpedo has morphed over the years. During the Civil War most booby traps or incendiary devices were called a torpedo….even the lumpy, meteorite-looking thing in this picture.
Surprise! That’s not actually a meteorite. It’s a coal torpedo…used by the…get ready for awesomely potential book material…Civil War Secret Service!
The thing is actually a hollow iron ball filled with gun powder, musket balls then its hole is sealed with beeswax and the entire thing is covered in coal dust. In order to sabotage the enemy’s steam-powered boats, trains and other vehicles that would make current steampunks grin like children at Willy Wonka’s place, operatives would sneak this primitive IED into the coalbox of those particular vehicles. Once shoveled into the boiler, it was only a minute or two before the explosives hidden inside ignited and things got ugly.
These things were apparently no joke when they went off either. The equivalent of four Civil War-era hand grenades, these deadly 4 inch balls of unhappiness contained around 24 musket balls nestled in gunpowder. When it went off, the shell of the coal torpedo would become deadly flying shrapnel as well. Secondary explosions caused by these things were even more disastrous once the boiler blew.
Because of their camouflaged appearance and the resulting damage caused to the original torpedo, evidence of what caused an incident completely disappeared.
Unveiled in the UK at the annual Designing Interactive Systems conference, the egg-like device has been dubbed Kissenger. Hidden inside Kissenger’s eyeless, Humpty-Dumpty-like body is a pair of pressure-sensitive soft plastic lips that peek through a smooth plastic casing about the size of an Easter egg.
The lips contain pressure sensors and actuators. When you kiss them, the shape changes you create are transmitted in real time over the net to a receiving Kissenger. There, the actuators reproduce the mirror image of the pressure patterns you created– magically transmitting your smacker to your partner.
“People have found it a very positive way to improve intimacy in communications with their partners when they are apart,” claims Hooman Samani of Singapore-based Lovotics, which developed the device.
The device is a prototype and Samani says it will not be commercialised until “all the ethical and technical considerations are covered”. He adds: “I am not interested in sexual uses for it.”
Remember that part where he stated, “I am not interested in sexual uses for it”? He’s obviously been locked away in his lab for far too long and has forgotten what people are like.
Best part of the story from the New Scientist article? THIS little excerpt:
“I think that approach is too much and I find it kind of creepy,” says Samani. “You don’t need to transmit all the parameters of a kiss. The main aim is to improve long-distance relationships. We’ve taken several steps to minimise the creepiness.”
Two things: We’d hate to see this dude’s idea of what he considers creepy and what did this thing look like BEFORE he minimized the creepiness?
We all just collectively shuddered together.
Here’s Lovotic’s actual company video for an earlier version of the device (in case you were wondering about that ‘before’ design mentioned above)…which makes us wonder how going from a cute rabbit-like design to the disembodied mouth of a Cenobite is ‘minimizing the creepiness’. Again…can someone get a search warrant for this dude’s basement? Or are we just not ready for that?
Could this be an alien invasion in the beginning stages?
Millions of little, purple, crab-like creatures have washed up on the coast of O’ahu in Hawaii! The animals are about the size of a large pea and seem to be some kind of crab in its larval state. The problem is that even local biologists have never seen these things before and there are literally millions of them all over the beaches. Most them are either dead or dying but biologists have captured many that seem to be healthy. Those same biologists that will probably be responsible for nurturing the first wave of an alien strike force, are hoping to see what the larva will grow into.
While we all wait for a definitive answer from the scientists and biologists now showing We’ve all seen enough science fiction/monster movies to know EXACTLY what these will turn into…
This awesome piece of ugly mimicry is all-natural, folks.
It’s a fungus.
Called the Auricularia auricula-judae, this grotesque-looking piece of work is a fungus commonly referred to as Judas’ Ear, Jelly Ear or Common Ear Fungus. Fitting.
Found all over the world on elder trees, the fungus is bland-tasting but occasionally used as a remedy for a sore throat in Asia and Europe.
In America it’s probably beneficial when used as a remedy for freaking out annoying children.
In the movie, Jurassic Park, sound designer Ben Burtt tried to create what he thought prehistoric beasts might’ve sounded like when they walked the Earth. Using currently existing animals and a little exaggeration, no one will ever forget the sounds Uncle George’s sound guru created.
Now an art installation in France created by Marguerite Humeau is bringing us as close as we may get to what they might have actually sounded like and it’s pretty awesome to hear.
Titled ‘Proposal for Resuscitating Prehistoric Creatures’, the exhibit displays the recreated vocal chords of three different prehistoric animals: the entelodont, known as the ‘hell pig’, the mammoth imperator and the ambulocetus, known as the ‘walking whale.’
Because the vocal chords are made of soft tissue, Humeau has spent years working with researchers in various fields from throat specialists to engineers to paleaontologists to get everything in order to recreate as accurately as possible. Humeau also gathered data on these particular animals current ancestors: an Asian Elephant for the mammoth, dolphins and harbors porpoises for the ‘walking whale’ (which is pretty damn frightening to consider this whale had ridiculous teeth…and it walked) and a wild boar for the ‘hell pig’ (again…frightening).
Using foam, similar soft materials and an enormous amount of data collected over several years about these animals, Humeau stated:
“I’m not only recreating a shape, but also the data that has disappeared — we’ll never be 100 per cent sure this is accurate,” Humeau told Wired Magazine UK. “But when I heard it roar, it felt real.”
Why are you still reading this? Press play and listen to what it might’ve sounded like 50 million years ago when a ‘hell pig’, a ‘walking whale’ (again…a walking whale..with freakin’ teeth) and a mammoth just casually strolled the planet.
Grim Reapers, demons and power-hungry Disney villains sure do have it easy nowadays. Instead of going through poison apples, waiting around near future fatality sites or having to track a particularly important living individual who’s lineage might be of importance, all you have to do is plop down in front of an internet-attached device and ride over to ebay.
A woman, who’s going by Lori N. (or LHumanist on ebay), tried to sell her soul on the mega-auction site.
Lori placed her ‘slightly used’ soul on auction for $2,000. Ebay has removed the auction due to their restrictions about selling this type of thing on their site:
“We don’t allow humans, the human body, or any human body parts or products to be listed on eBay, with two exceptions. Sellers can list items containing human scalp hair, and skulls and skeletons intended for medical use.”
So what’s up with Lori that she’d want to sell her soul so badly for?
Five years ago Lori was a passenger in a car that was slammed into by a drunk driver. She suffered a heart attack, a stroke and was thrown into a coma for three weeks. When she woke up she found that she’d also been dealt a broken hip, pelvis, leg, collarbone, sternum, ribs, had a collapsed lung and she’s also lost a breast.
Lori was a freelance writer and now gets by on part-time work and making jewelry.
Emails have been coming in from everywhere. Some people are connecting with Lori and sharing similar stories. Some people are condemning her for selling her soul and claiming that she’ll burn in hell and live in fear and agony for eternity.
It’s hard for her to take those threats seriously and probably a little hard to believe you’re not getting jacked out of a soul to add to your collection in the basement..
Almost 30 people have been arrested during a dawn raid on what’s believed to be a cannibal cult in Papua New Guinea.
Members range from a 13-year-old boy to a teacher in his 50s. Two men are still on the run.
The group has killed at least four men and three women since April according to local authorities.
“The group alleges that there were some deaths related to sorcery in the area.
“They were initiated into a cultural house and believe they could identify sorcerers. It has been an ongoing problem.”
Although sorcery is legally defined in Papua New Guinea, the government’s Law Reform Commission is trying to rid that particular outdated legalese because once a murder is claimed sorcery-related the prosecution process becomes murky.
In this case, however, facts, forensic evidence and statements made by the accused have led invesitgators to believe that parts of the victims were eaten.
