Ever wonder what it looks like to see a spacecraft land in the middle of a field? Wonder no more. NASA has posted a great Flickr set of photos showing the return to earth of Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté and Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt in their Soyuz craft.
Welcome to earth.
Apparently it’s snake week here at Weird Things, previously we reported on researchers discovering the stomping grounds of the largest snake ever, Titanboa. Now comes some fun news from the U.S. Geological Survey: We’re being invaded by giant snakes!
High-risk species—Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and yellow anacondas—put larger portions of the U.S. mainland at risk
It gets better!
Two of these species are documented as reproducing in the wild in South Florida, with population estimates for Burmese pythons in the tens of thousands.
That’s right, tens of thousands.
Just how long can a Burmese python get?
According to Wikipedia: A Burmese Python at the Serpent Safari Reptile Zoo in Gurnee, Illinois , USA was billed as the heaviest living snake in captivity. In 2005, it weighed 183 kilograms (403 lb) at a length of 8.2 metres (27 ft).
Get ready for thousands and thousands of giant snakes South Florida. Sidenote: Weird Things is looking for a desert climate to relocate to.
link: Science Daily: Report Documents Risks Of Giant Invasive Snakes In The United States
There’s no shortage of explanations for the demise of the newspaper industry. Could one more be the complete lack of face to face confrontation with paranormal creatures like zombies?
We at Weird Things lament the days when a brassy gal like Inez Wallace would leap feet first into adventure and track down an actual zombie and find out the supernatural and scientific explanations.
Check out these excerpts from her May 3rd, 1942 column in the Milwaukee Sentinel:
Although I rode a short distance each day into the mountains, I had practically given up hope of ever seeing a Zombie.
Then, one sultry afternoon, I was riding slowly toward Haiti’s capital when I saw HIM. Or, perhaps, I should say IT.
He was standing at a spot where a cane and a cocoa plantation met – just standing.
What did this creature look like you ask?
His face was neither the bronze of the Jamaican Negro nor the ebony black of the Haitian I had come to know in these mountains. The color was a sickly gray – like fresh Russian caviar and his skin, drawn tight over his bones, resemble old parchment.
There could only be one conclusion!
The thing before me was a ZOMBIE!
Read on for all the exhilarating details: The Milwaukee Sentinel – Google News Archive Search
German researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have discovered a gene mutation in certain individuals that seems to give them enhanced mental abilities.
…people graced with this genotype showed more activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, activity that is probably linked to metabolism of the brain chemical dopamine.
This extra dopamine may increase the reward response making people more prone to learning things quickly.
As we know from history (Marvel Comics history), it’s the X Gene that separates mankind from the next generation of super mutants. While there’s no immediate application for this discovery, other than explaining why some of us feel more like Forrest Gump than Professor Xavier, long term implications could include gene therapy – giving us all an extra boost.
The fact that German researchers discovered this should surprise no one.
link: Gene Mutation May Speed Learning – Yahoo! News
Science Daily reports that a Smithsonian research team has uncovered the first megafossils of a neotropical rainforest.
Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, lived in this forest 58 million years ago at temperatures 3-5 C warmer than in rainforests today, indicating that rainforests flourished during warm periods.
While, modern day snakes have been measured over 30 feet in length, it’s been speculated that that the warmer climate contributed to Titanboa’s 42 foot length.
If 58 million years sounds like a good amount of distance to keep between you and a creature capable of swallowing you and all your friends whole, keep this in mind from a recent National Geographic article on the creature:
So could Titanoboa-size snakes return with global warming? “Maybe,” study co-author Jonathan Bloch said. “They definitely could, or maybe … the warming could happen so rapidly that [snakes] wouldn’t have time to adapt.”
Let’s hope this cooling trend continues.
link: First Neotropical Rainforest Was Home Of The Titanoboa — World’s Biggest Snake
link: VIDEO: Biggest Snake Found
What’s better than a photo? A photo of a ghost. What’s even better than that? Capturing that photo on a friend’s iPhone. Of course the problem is, ghosts are never very cooperative and not likely to show themselves on demand. That’s why we’ve created this handy tutorial for faking a ghost image on a friend’s iPhone.
Mike from the Bigfoot Discovery Project explains on his latest YouTube video an investigation into a recent sighting. Did Bigfoot make the nest they found? Or was it a homeless person?
The US Defense department has green-lit a two-year $10 million dollar program to look for practical applications of the Casimir Effect. This is a quantum of effect with potential in everything from energy to levitation.
It’s the quantum version of the attractive force that pulls two ships at sea closer together when they’re nearby. Hendrick Casimir, discoverer of the effect, speculated that two metal plates held apart from each other in a vacuum could tap into the energy in a vacuum that quantum electrodynamics predicts.
Getting actual energy from the effect has proved quite elusive. Now researchers are exploring the potential of the repulsive and attractive forces created by the Casimir effect. One possibility is levitation. From the Scientific American article, researcher Hong Tang:
Then we’re going to engineer the structure of the surface of the silicon device to get some unusual Casimir forces to produce repulsion,” he says. In theory, he adds, that could mean building a device capable of levitation.
We’re all for device capable of levitation – even on the nanometer scale.
link: Casimir effect – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to Science News, hypnosis is gaining new found respect in the laboratory as experiments indicate that hypnotic suggestions actually have a measurable effect on parts of the brain.
In one experiment, suggestion of a paralyzed hand actually changed the way the brain routed instructions for motor movement differently than those with no instruction or those told to just imagine their hand was paralyzed.
The Mesmerized Mind / Science News
Hans Rollman, professor of Religious Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, writing for the Telegram has shared some details about Newfoundland sea monster lore. The best part? These are amphibious man eaters!
A sea creature of considerable ferocity is also known to the Inuit of Labrador. Nennorluk derives its name from the polar bear (Nennok, nanuk), but the Inuktitut affix “luk” indicates its evil intent. One of the earliest mentions of the Labrador Nennorluk appeared in David Crantz’s “History of Greenland.” Crantz, preserving a 1773 tradition from Nain, says that the legendary amphibious creature “hunted and devoured the seals.” Each of its ears was “large enough for the covering of a capacious tent.” Worse yet, the “beast did not scruple to eat human flesh, when he came on shore.”
link: The Telegram – St. John’s, NL: Columns | Newfoundland and Labrador sea monsters
Check out this video that’s eerily remiscent of the 1980’s TV series V and District 9 (if the aliens spaceships were made from vaporous ice crystals and not actual technology…).
The Sun has an article here on it: Mystery UFO halo in clouds over Moscow | The Sun |News
As the Hollywood and occult hype machines spin into overdrive about the proposed end of the world on December 21st, 2012, at least one person who may or may not know something about it says it’s all bunk. According to an AP story, Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan Indian Elder had this to say:
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.”
Another person who should know points out:
“If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea,” said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. “That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”
He goes onto suggest this doomsday thing is a Western concept we’re projecting onto the Maya. So if the Maya say it’s bunk, who should we believe? Them or the folks who remade Godzilla?
Mark your calendars. August 31st, 2009 may have been the day the insects got the upper hand in their war against mankind.
Reportedly, a truck driver for the Minot Air Force Base 91st Missile Wing lost control of his vehicle when a “large insect” flew into the cab and (attacked) landed on his back.
When one solitary bug accomplishes what all of our enemies combined have been unable to do, it’s time to start buying Raid by the bulk.
‘Large insect’ sparked missile truck’s crash – Military- msnbc.com
Remember that time you went to take a photo and when you looked at it your iMac screen mysteriously shown through your body as if you were an ephemeral spirit because deep down your souls are intertwined? I do.
Got a weird photo? Send it to JustinRobertYoung@Gmail with “Weird photo” in the subject line or upload it to Flickr and tag it #weirdthingscom.
I took this photo outside Disneyland. It’s of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. No retouching took place. This is exactly how the photo appeared!
Want to see something spooky? Click on these slideshows and see some various ghost photos on Flickr.
The spirit photographs of William Hope
Vintage Spirit Photography
Seances
Got a spooky photo or video you want to share? Upload it to Flickr and tag it with #weirdthingscom
According to ScienceDaily it turns out those ugly yellow splotches of bug guts on your car can serve science. They use the bug guts to to do DNA sequencing to determine species distribution and other information.
To gather genetic material, they utilized a simple but effective collection method – the front bumper of a moving vehicle. Two samples of bug splatter were collected, the first after driving from Pennsylvania to Connecticut, and the second after traveling from Maine to New Brunswick, Canada.
link: Bug Splatter On Your Car’s Windshield Is A Treasure Trove Of Genomic Biodiversity