It’s a question that has grabbed the attention of humanity since long before history has been recorded. What life exists outside of this little ball that we call Earth? Whether we’re talking about the gods of Olympus or the Klingons of Star Trek, it is a theme that has appeared consistently throughout all of human history.

As science expands our knowledge of the universe every year, we half expect the news that extraterrestrial life has been found. But what if we’ve been looking in all the wrong places?

Science predicts many examples of counterintuitive forms of life. While impossible on Earth, they could very well exist elsewhere in the universe. So, without further ado, here are the top 10 scientifically possible extraterrestrial life-forms.

10 Silicon-Based Life

Silicon is a molecule whose structure and chemical properties are remarkably similar to the properties of carbon—the element on which most life on Earth is based. An important part of life as we know it is the ability of carbon to form complex chains of atoms and molecules sufficiently large to contain biological programming such as DNA.

Silicon, also commonly used in computer chips, is the closest that humanity has ever come to designing their own intelligent system. It would have the potential to organically form its own version of DNA under the right circumstances.

Additionally, there are examples on Earth of organisms using silicon in biological structures, specifically in a form of algae known as diatoms. They are responsible for the usage of over six billion metric tons of silicon each year in Earth’s oceans as well as the production of almost 20 percent of the planet’s oxygen.^[1]

As a result, it is likely that silicon might exist as a stage of early life on other planets, converting their atmospheres into oxygen and getting them ready for more advanced life later on.

9 Arsenic-Based Life

Although it seems counterintuitive that one of the most iconic poisons on Earth has a basis in forming life, science suggests that it is entirely possible for arsenic to be incorporated into complex biomolecules.

The argument for arsenic in life-forms stems from its chemical similarity to phosphorus, a staple part of DNA in Earth life. Some studies suggest that arsenic may have once been a part of the DNA in early life on Earth, taking the place in DNA that phosphorus does now.

In an early stage of life before microbial activity was able to leech phosphorus from rocks in the ocean, arsenic would have been far more available to organisms living near hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean.^[2]

Although evidence suggests that phosphorus is a more efficient chemical than arsenic in advanced life, the poisonous element would likely be good enough for early, simple forms of life. Creatures made of this substance may lurk in the depths of alien oceans.

8 Ammonia-Based Life

Water is an essential part of all Earth life. Our bodies use the liquid as a solvent, which is necessary for almost all chemical reactions that create energy and sustain functions. This is seen in humans and all the way down to the smallest microbes.

But what if there was an alternative to water? Recent science suggests that there is.

For life to exist in a substance other than water, it would be necessary for it to either have a large temperature range at which it is liquid or exist on a planet with little, if any, temperature change over the course of its year. Water exists in a liquid form between 0 degrees Celsius (32 °F) and 100 degrees Celsius (212 °F), a range of 100 degrees Celsius (180 °F).

Ammonia is liquid between -77.7 degrees Celsius (-107.86 °F) and -33.3 degrees Celsius (-27.94 °F), a relatively large range of 44.4 degrees Celsius (79.92 °F). While one might think that such temperatures would be too cold to sustain life, it is likely that the reactions and processes necessary for life could still exist, albeit at a slower speed.^[3]

As such, organisms using ammonia rather than water as a chemical solvent would likely live longer but metabolize and evolve more slowly than water-based life.

7 Methane-Based Life

There are some environments in which methane would be far more prevalent than water. Saturn’s moon Titan is a prominent example.

According to a computer model, life which relies on methane would be able to exist in extremely cold areas as well as regions entirely without oxygen. The model revealed that a cell wall could be constructed that would work in liquid methane at -180 degrees Celsius (-292 °F).

Along with the fact that cell membranes could be created with nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen molecules, which are known to exist in Titan’s oceans, this function means that simple organisms could exist in the frozen depths of methane oceans.^[4]

As with ammonia-based organisms, life in methane oceans would inherently be paced much slower than life on Earth. Slow evolution and metabolism would occur due to the frigid temperatures necessary to maintain the ocean of liquids.

6 Carbon-Based Life

Carbon-based life-forms are the only type which we, being carbon-based ourselves, know anything about. Thus, we’re sure that hundreds of planets exist within the potentially habitable zones of their stars. These planets would be able to support life as we know it with oxygen, liquid water, and even the chemicals and reactions necessary to jump-start life.

Additionally, carbon-based life is the only type that we are sure exists, as evidenced by our own planet.

This isn’t to say that carbon-based life on other planets would look at all like Earth’s. Through evolution, it is possible for extraterrestrial carbon-based life to take on a dramatically different form by adapting to fit its environment.

Just look at the massive number of life-forms that exist on Earth. They live everywhere from frigid oceans to the mouths of active volcanoes and fault lines. The existence of organisms on Earth in such extreme environments is proof that it is entirely possible for this kind of life to exist on a wide variety of other planets, including some that we would consider uninhabitable for humans.^[5]

5 Hybrid Life

If creatures could hypothetically evolve using an entirely different basis for life than that on Earth, why couldn’t they combine multiple methods? For example, life could be based primarily in silicon, contain elements of carbon or arsenic, and use ammonia as a solvent.

As previously mentioned, some life-forms on Earth incorporate silicon structures into their cells. So why not take it a step further? If an organism evolved on a planet with a relative abundance of multiple elements that could be used in the processes of life, why not take those two and make them into a composite whole?

Silicon and carbon can bond with each other as well as silicon and oxygen, carbon and oxygen, and silicon and fluoride. So it is possible for these molecules to react and form complex chains that would store and transmit information in a manner similar to DNA.

This could also work if a planet had a biosphere with a subset of creatures which used an element such as carbon as their base and another subset which used a different element such as silicon. Rather than a creature being based in two different elements, the biosphere as a whole could contain two different elemental bases for life.^[6]

4 Plasma-Based Life

This one truly falls into the realm of science fiction.

By modeling conditions that are possible in space, a 2007 study found that plasma and dust can function in a way that may qualify as life. They may even form microscopic double helix strands of solid particles through the polarization of plasma and dust. Sound familiar?

Even more fascinating, the study found that these strands can undergo changes such as those associated with organic molecules, specifically DNA. They can divide, copy, and even evolve as less stable strands break apart and more stable ones endure.^[7]

These life-forms could exist as chilling entities formed of nonorganic materials in the void between stars inside massive dust clouds or in plasma or dust rings surrounding stars. Through continued evolution, it is entirely possible for such clouds to one day achieve sentience.

3 Celestial Life

Although science does not currently suggest that stars or galaxies themselves could form life, it does indicate that life with organic compounds can form outside of a home planet with the help of nearby stars and star structures.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, organic compounds have been detected in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. Complex organic molecules such as methanol, dimethyl ether, and methyl formate, all of which are essential in organic life, were detected in two nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This suggests that given time and the right circumstances, these compounds could eventually form into self-replicating molecules that would become the basis of life in such nebulae. Later, they could create more complex biological structures. As they would evolve without the basic function of gravity such as on Earth, we have no idea what these creatures might look like.^[8]

2 Panspermia

A popular theory is that life propagates through the universe through planetary ejection caused by large impacts on previously populated planets. This theory states that life can be distributed by dust, debris, asteroids, and comets carrying microorganisms from other planets.

For panspermia to be plausible, the organisms must be able to survive intense forces and extremely hot and cold temperatures for extended durations. This is due to the inherent forces involved in an asteroid impact, the heat from friction with a planet’s atmosphere, and the extended time when the organism is in transit through space—potentially thousands or millions of years.^[9]

Organisms like that exist on Earth already. These extremophiles can resist extreme cold and heat as well as UV rays and intense forces. Although they are among the most basic known forms of life, they have an unparalleled ability to survive conditions that would kill most other organisms.

Thus, it is entirely plausible that life could have spread throughout the universe via asteroid impacts and the extremophiles that were carried on these alien asteroids.

Even if life was based on the extremophiles from another planet, the simplistic nature of these organisms makes it unlikely that they would evolve into anything that looked like the more complex creatures on the original planet. This is due to the different traits necessary to survive on the two planets.

1 Not At All

Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that we are the only planet in the universe that has life. Due to the vastness of space and the limit that light speed imposes on intergalactic travel, it may be impossible for us to ever discover other life or even determine if it exists at all. In the observable universe, we have not found any concrete evidence that life does or has ever existed on other planets.

With that being said, the universe is only about 13.8 billion years old. While this may seem like a long time, we have no way of knowing how old the universe will become. Perhaps we are the first planet to evolve life, with many others to follow in the future.

We estimate that the universe’s heat death (a state in which there is no longer any free thermal energy) will occur somewhere in between 1 and 100 trillion years. In the worst-case scenario, we are only 1.38 percent of the way through the universe’s expected life span. At best, we are about 0.01 percent of the way there. That is a lot of time for life to happen.^[10]

Still, we can’t help but wonder if our signals will ever be received by someone or something out there or if they will just shoot forever through the cold, dark void of space.

One of the most popular plot devices in fiction is for a character to develop amnesia and lose their memory. Of course, in real life, amnesia cases don’t happen nearly as often as they do on soap operas, and they come in many different forms. But when these cases do occur, they make for some interesting stories, even when they turn out to be a complete hoax. We’ve already profiled the story of Benjaman Kyle, a middle-aged man who lost his memory after an assault and still hasn’t uncovered his true identity, but his is not the only bizarre case of amnesia (not by a long shot).

10 Ansel Bourne

One of the most well-known amnesiacs in pop culture is Jason Bourne, a character who is forced to uncover his past as a government assassin after losing his memory. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Jason Bourne was named after one of the first known amnesiacs. Ansel Bourne was an evangelical preacher from Greene, Rhode Island, who took a trip to visit his sister in Providence on January 17, 1887. However, for unexplained reasons, he ended up withdrawing his savings instead and traveling to Norristown, Pennsylvania. While there, he decided to open up a variety store under the name Albert J. Brown and started a new life.

When Bourne woke up on the morning of March 15, he had no idea where he was. He became very confused when residents told him his name was Albert J. Brown. In his mind, it was still January 17 and he had no memory of his previous two months in Norristown. After returning home, Bourne was studied by the Society for Physical Research. Under hypnosis, he would assume the persona of Albert J. Brown. The hypnotized Bourne told a back story about Brown that was similar to his own, but denied knowledge of anyone named Ansel Bourne. It was probably the first documented case of a psychiatric disorder known as the “fugue state,” a dissociative form of amnesia that causes a person to lose their identity for a period of time before their memory suddenly returns. After the hypnosis, Ansel Bourne lived out the rest of his life without incident and never assumed the persona of Albert J. Brown again.

9 Clive Wearing

After suffering a serious brain injury, the protagonist of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed film Memento is afflicted with anterograde amnesia. Even though he still remembers his past, he is unable to create new memories. While this condition is real, it is far less common than retrograde amnesia, which involves losing memories from one’s past. However, a British musicologist named Clive Wearing has the dubious distinction of suffering from both forms of amnesia at the same time. On March 27, 1985, the 46-year-old Wearing contracted herpesviral encephalitis, a very rare form of the herpes simplex virus that attacks the central nervous system. As a result, Wearing cannot remember events from his past or store new memories in his brain.

The virus severely damaged Wearing’s hippocampus, the area of the brain that transfers memories from short-term to long-term. As a result, his brain can only store new memories for several seconds before he forgets them again. Wearing also cannot remember most of the details of his life before 1985. He can recall that he had children from a previous marriage, but cannot remember their names. While Wearing can still remember that he loves his current wife, he often forgets that they’re married. However, his procedural memory is still intact, meaning that even though he cannot remember his musical background, he still knows how to play the piano. It sounds like a nightmarish situation, but Wearing has managed to live day-to-day life under these difficult circumstances for the past 28 years.

8 Sywald Skeid

On November 28, 1999, a young man in his mid-twenties wandered into the emergency department of a hospital in Toronto, Canada. He had a broken nose and appeared to be the victim of an attack. The man spoke with a foreign accent, but carried no identification and claimed to have no idea who he was. He was treated by doctors, who diagnosed him as having post-concussive global amnesia. When the press picked up on his story, they gave him the nickname “Mr. Nobody.” After being released from the hospital, Mr. Nobody stayed at a shelter for a few weeks before being taken in by an Ontario couple. The young man went through various name changes throughout the years, but finally settled on Sywald Skeid.

Skeid’s photographs and fingerprints were circulated in an attempt to uncover his identity, but he refused all offers of treatment for his amnesia. He moved to Vancouver and met with a lawyer in order to lobby for a Canadian citizenship and eventually married the lawyer’s daughter. Police received a lead suggesting that Skeid was a French model named Georges Lecuit, but subsequently discovered that the real Lecuit’s passport had been stolen in 1998. Skeid and his wife fled the country and were later found living in Portugal, where he was attempting to obtain Portuguese citizenship. Skeid finally revealed his full story in an exclusive interview for the June 2007 issue of GQ magazine. He hailed from a poor Romanian peasant family and his real name was Ciprian Skeid. In the end, Skeid admitted to faking the whole amnesia episode in order to escape his past and seek citizenship in another country.

7 Jody Roberts

In 1985, 26-year-old Jody Roberts lived in Tacoma, Washington, working as a reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune. In May of that year, Roberts’ friends and family started to notice some strange changes, as she stopped taking care of herself and began to drink significantly more than usual. On May 20, she mysteriously vanished and would not be seen by her loved ones for 12 years. Little did they know that five days later, a disoriented Roberts was found wandering around in a mall in Aurora, Colorado, over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 mi) away. She carried no identification, but had a key to a Toyota, which was never found. She was admitted to a Denver hospital, where doctors determined that she had entered a fugue state and developed amnesia.

Unable to uncover her true identity, Roberts started a new life after leaving the hospital. She gave herself the name Jane Dee, got a job at a fast food restaurant, and enrolled at the University of Denver. After moving to the town of Sitka, Alaska, Roberts married a commercial fisherman and had two sets of female twins while starting a new career as a web designer. In 1997, one of Jane Dee’s Alaskan co-workers saw Jody Roberts’ picture on a Seattle newscast and recognized her. Roberts eventually reunited with her old friends and family in Tacoma, but still had no memory of them. While it’s theorized that severe stress might have brought on her fugue state, it remains unknown how Jody Roberts ended up in Colorado.

6 Raymond Robins

Raymond Robins was a noted economist and advocate of organized labor who often worked closely with the White House on such issues as prohibition and establishing diplomatic relations with Russia. On September 3, 1932, Robins had a meeting scheduled with President Herbert Hoover, but never showed up. He was last seen leaving the City Club in Manhattan. Robins’ disappearance made headlines, leading to speculation that he might have been the victim of organized crime, but there were also reported sightings of him acting strangely while wandering the streets of Chicago. On November 18, Robins was discovered living under the name Reynolds H. Rogers in Whittier, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina.

Robins had apparently arrived in the town one week after he disappeared, claiming that he was a miner from Kentucky. He lived in a boarding house, spent most of his time prospecting, and became a popular figure in the community. However, even though Robins had a grown a beard by that time, a 12-year-old boy recognized him from a photograph in the newspaper and contacted the authorities. Robins’ nephew went to Whittier to identify him, but Robins did not recognize him and had no memory of his previous life. After reuniting with his wife and undergoing psychiatric treatment, Robins finally started to regain his memory. It was speculated that a combination of stress and emotional strain might have caused Robins to enter a fugue state, prompting him to assume a new identity.

5 Barre Cox

In 1984, 31-year-old Wesley Barrett “Barre” Cox had a wife and a six-month-old daughter and worked as a minister in San Antonio. On July 11, Cox had just taken a trip to Lubbock and phoned his wife to tell her he was planning to drive to Abilene to see friends. The next day, Cox’s vehicle was found abandoned and ransacked on a rural road in Jones County, and the contents of his wallet were scattered across the ground. In the early hours of the morning, Cox had been seen at a nearby convenience store buying two jugs of fuel. He claimed his car had run out of gas and a policeman gave him a ride back to his vehicle. Cox was not seen again until 2000, when he was recognized working at a gay church in Dallas as a minister named James Simmons.

Cox claimed he had been beaten and found unconscious inside a car trunk in a Memphis junkyard. He was taken to a hospital and remained in a coma for two weeks. When Cox woke up, he had no idea who he was and learned that he had amnesia. After leaving the hospital, Cox started a new life and eventually became a minister at a gay church. However, authorities could find no police or hospital records to verify Cox’s story. The policeman who drove Cox back to his vehicle had noticed a motorcycle in the car’s trunk. This motorbike was missing when the abandoned car was found, and witnesses saw a man fitting Cox’s description riding it later that day. This has created suspicion that Barre Cox chose to stage his own disappearance and seek a new life after realizing he was gay.

4 Michelle Philpots

In the comedy 50 First Dates, Drew Barrymore plays a woman who suffers a serious head injury in a car accident. As a result, she develops a rare form of anterograde amnesia which causes her memory to reset whenever she goes to sleep. After she wakes up, all her new memories have been erased and she believes that it’s the day of her accident. Believe it or not, this story actually has some basis in reality. In 1985, Michelle Philpots of England suffered a head injury a motorcycle accident. Five years later, she re-injured her head in a serious car accident. These injuries did enough cumulative damage to Philpots’ brain that she eventually started having seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. By 1994, she was suffering from anterograde amnesia and had completely lost the ability to create new memories.

For the past 20 years, Philpots has had all her memories wiped clean after she goes to sleep. When she wakes up, she believes that it is still 1994. Even though Philpots was in a relationship with her husband long before she suffered amnesia, they did not actually get married until 1997. As a result, Philpots’ husband has to show her their wedding pictures every morning in order to remind her that they’re married. During an appearance on The Today Show with Matt Lauer, Philpots actually forgot Lauer’s name in the middle of their interview. Even though an operation was performed to remove some of Philpots’ damaged brain cells and put an end to her seizures, it seems unlikely that her condition will go away or that her erased memories will return.

3 Doug Bruce

On the morning of July 3, 2003, an unidentified British man walked into a New York police station and told them he didn’t know who he was. He had recently woken up on a subway train having no idea how he got there, and since he carried no identification, he did not even know his own name. The man was checked into a nearby hospital for a few days until a phone number was discovered inside his knapsack. The number belonged to a female acquaintance, who came forward to identify the man as Doug Bruce. Bruce was a British citizen who had earned millions by working as a banker in Paris before moving to New York to pursue a degree in photography. But even after Bruce was escorted home to his fancy loft in Manhattan, he did not remember the place or any other details about his life.

Bruce is believed to be suffering from a very rare form of retrograde amnesia, and he became the subject of an acclaimed documentary called Unknown White Male. The film became the subject of controversy as there have been allegations that Bruce’s story is an elaborate hoax. Experts have been unable to pinpoint a specific traumatic incident that could have caused Bruce’s amnesia and some have expressed doubts that it is genuine. Shortly before the incident, one of Bruce’s friends had gone through his own bout of short-term amnesia after suffering a head injury, leading to speculation that the incident might have inspired Doug to perpetrate a hoax. Whether Doug Bruce is faking it or not, he has yet to show any signs of regaining his memory.

2 Anthelme Mangin

On February 4, 1918, a disoriented French soldier was discovered wandering around on a railway platform at the Brotteaux train station in Lyon, France. The soldier carried no identification, but after being questioned, he said that he believed his name was Anthelme Mangin. However, he didn’t know anything else about his life and could not recall how he’d ended up on the railway platform. Mangin was placed in an insane asylum and was moved around from institution to institution for years as they attempted to work out who he was.

Mangin’s photograph was widely circulated in newspapers and over 300 families came forward to claim his as their own. However, Mangin did not remember any of them, and none these families could be verified as his relatives. Finally, in 1930, a family from the commune of Saint-Maur, Indre positively identified Mangin as a former waiter named Octave Monjoin, who had gone off to fight in World War I and never returned. In August 1914, Monjoin had been wounded and taken prisoner alongside 65 other French soldiers on the Western Front. After spending the next 3.5 years in a series of prison camps, the soldiers had been sent back to France in January 1918. However, Monjoin’s paperwork was lost, so his family never found out he’d returned home. It is believed that Monjoin’s traumatic experiences in the war caused him to lose his memory.

1 Agatha Christie

Since Agatha Christie was arguably the most famous mystery writer of all time, it’s only appropriate that she became the center of her own bizarre mystery in 1926. On the evening of December 3, the 36-year-old Christie mysteriously vanished from her home in Sunningdale, England. The next morning, her abandoned car was discovered one hour away in Newlands Corner, but she was nowhere to be found. Christie’s disappearance became a huge story and once word spread that her husband, Archibald, had recently asked for a divorce, speculation ran rampant that he’d murdered her. Finally, on December 14, Christine was found alive and well, registered under the name Teresa Neele at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate. She claimed to have no memory of how she’d ended up there.

There has always been debate over what happened to Christie during those 11 days. At the time, many believed she staged her own disappearance for publicity or as a way of getting back at her husband—especially since Teresa Neele happened to be the name of his mistress. However, there is evidence that Christie might have entered a fugue state and genuinely lost her memory. On the morning of her disappearance, a witness encountered her walking down the road. In spite of the cold weather, she was wearing nothing but a thin dress and seemed upset and confused. It has been theorized that Christie’s impending divorce and the recent death of her mother caused her to enter a deep depression. Crashing her car might have been the breaking point that caused her to develop amnesia and forget who she was. Agatha Christie died in 1976, and took the full truth about what happened to her grave.

Robin Warder is a budding Canadian screenwriter who has used his encyclopaedic movie knowledge to publish numerous articles at Cracked.com. He is also the co-owner of a pop culture website called The Back Row and recently worked on a sci-fi short film called Jet Ranger of Another Tomorrow. Feel free to contact him here.

Keeping up with the news is hard. So hard, in fact, that we’ve decided to save you the hassle by rounding up the most significant, unusual, or just plain old mind-blowing stories each week.

This week, the phrase “spoke too soon” is the one that probably applies best to the news. You may recall last week’s column opened with us saying how it had been a blissfully dull week, with no major attacks. No sooner had we filed the dang thing than a mass killing in Kashmir threatened to send nuclear-armed India and Pakistan spiraling into war. More on this brewing crisis below, alongside all the other important stuff that happened this week.

10 A Terrorist Attack Pushed India-Pakistan Tensions To Boiling Point

A mountainous region in the Himalayas, Kashmir is a beautiful slice of Asia that also happens to be one of the biggest potential triggers for a nuclear war. Partially administered by both India and Pakistan, and wholly claimed by both, it’s a troubled place where unrest is common, and violence is never far from the surface.

Last Thursday, after this column had been written, that violence came erupting out. A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of India’s security forces, detonating a car bomb that killed 40. The attack was claimed by Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed. It was the deadliest attack in Kashmir in decades.

Bad as this was, what comes next could be even worse. India believes Jaish-e-Mohammed is linked to Pakistan’s intelligence services. There’s now a real chance that these two nuclear-armed states could go to war.^[1]

So far, India has only implemented economic sanctions against Pakistan. Still, military options are said to be on the table, and even a limited military strike against Jaish-e-Mohammed could trigger countermeasures and spark a conflagration.

9 16 US States Sued To Stop Trump’s Border Wall

Late last week, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency to redirect federal funds and build his border wall. This week, the fallout from that announcement blanketed the news, in the form of 16 US states suing the White House.^[2]

Trump’s national emergency declaration was always going to be controversial. Controversial on the left because Democrats see the wall as a monument to racism. Controversial on the right because building the wall will eat up a ton of federal funds and involve eminent domain land purchases, all of which smacks of the sort of big government project many Republicans did not sign on for.

Now, the battle moves to the US courts, courtesy of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Michigan. If the decision goes to the Supreme Court, it could set a precedent for the use of executive power for decades to come.

8 Brexit Began To Rip Apart The UK’s Main Political Parties

Ah, Brexit. The gift that keeps on giving like a recurring bout of malaria. With barely a month to go until the UK exits the European Union and no Brexit deal in sight, the tensions in Westminster are starting to reach breaking point.

On Monday, they finally made a crack in the opposition Labour Party. Seven MPs, including former leadership contender Chuka Umunna, split from the party over Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of Brexit and a recent anti-Semitism scandal. They aligned themselves to something called the Independent Group, a brand-new, moderate political entity that didn’t exist last week. One day later, an eighth Labour MP joined them. Shortly after that, three MPs defected from the ruling Conservative Party, saying Theresa May was in thrall to Brexit extremists.

The Independent Group is now the joint fourth-largest force in the UK Parliament, behind the Conservatives, Labour, and the Scottish National Party and equal with the Liberal Democrats.^[3]

In a 650-seat House, 11 doesn’t add up to very much, but it’s what this could mean for the future that’s important. Already, there’s talk of yet more Conservatives defecting. Should it look like Britain is really about to go over the Brexit cliff-edge, the Independent Group might become much bigger.

7 A Wave Of Anti-Semitism Swept France

France is home to the single largest Jewish community outside of Israel and the US. Sadly, there are some who don’t see this as something to be proud of, and their numbers are apparently growing. This week, a wave of anti-Semitic incidents across the country prompted tens of thousands to take to the streets in protest.^[4]

The attacks were the standard litany of hate that unfortunately goes with this territory. In Alsace, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized with swastikas. The German word for “Jew” was spray-painted on a bakery. A synagogue was shot at with an air rifle. More swastikas were painted on pictures of a Holocaust survivor in Paris. A tree planted to commemorate a Jewish man tortured to death was chopped down.

Perhaps most disturbingly, this anti-Semitism seems to have found a home in the yellow vest protest movement. On the weekend, a gang of yellow vests surrounded a prominent Jewish philosopher and peppered him with verbal abuse.

6 A Prominent Actor Was Charged With Faking His Homophobic Attack

So, this was a scandal few of us saw coming. Way back on January 29, Empire star Jussie Smollett was hospitalized, saying he’d been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack that had included a noose being tied around his neck. It was the sort of awful story that’s sadly all too common, only Smollett’s version came with a twist.

This Thursday, Smollett was formally arrested by the Chicago police. The reason? It’s now believed that he orchestrated his own attack for reasons that remain totally unclear.^[5]

It’s said that Smollett knew his two attackers and may have paid them to assault him. On top of that, he’s been charged with sending a threatening letter to the studio where Empire is filmed. Smollett vehemently denies all charges.

5 North Carolina’s 9th District Voter Fraud Case Got Even Bigger

Remember the 2018 midterms? After all the dust settled, the House races were left with a puzzling postscript. North Carolina’s 9th district race remained uncertified, despite the Republican candidate, Mark Harris, winning by 905 votes.

This was because credible allegations of voter fraud began to swirl not long after. Harris, it was alleged, had used a firm to go around various towns and collect absentee ballots by hand. This is already illegal under NC law, but then came accusations that Harris’s operatives had gone further by potentially “misplacing” or agreeing to pick up and then not picking up absentee votes for Democrat Dan McCready. There’s even been talk that Harris’s people may have filled in absentee voter ballots themselves.

On Monday, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections laid out the state’s evidence that voter fraud did take place. While far from conclusive, it certainly looks plausible. It was enough that the five members of the election board unanimously ordered a new election on Thursday afternoon.^[6]

4 A Bangladesh Fire Killed Around 80 People

Chawkbazar is a centuries-old district in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, that houses just about everything from residential homes, to shops, to businesses storing propane in super-unsafe conditions. That last item is exactly why you’re reading about it right now. Late Wednesday night, a fire broke out in Chawkbazar. In no time at all, it had killed somewhere in the region of 80 people.^[7]

Buildings in Chawkbazar are built insanely close, with mere inches separating them. It’s this that allowed the fire to spread with such speed. After a minibus caught fire outside a chemical shop, it caused an explosion that set half the district ablaze. By Thursday morning, 78 had been confirmed killed, with many more still missing.

Dhaka is no stranger to devastating fires. A 2010 fire that killed over 100 people was similarly blamed on the storage of dangerous chemicals in residential areas. It’s just a shame that no lessons were learned.

3 Bernie Sanders Unveiled His 2020 Presidential Bid

In the febrile atmosphere of 2016, it briefly looked like both major parties were going to have a populist outsider running as their candidate: Donald Trump for the Republicans and Bernie Sanders for the Democrats.

Clearly, this didn’t happen. Hillary locked down Southern Democrats’ votes and, with a little help from the anti-Bernie DNC, first sealed the nomination and then went down in flames in the election. Ever since, many Democrats have wondered, “Could he have done it? Could Bernie have beaten Trump?”

Well, they may soon have an answer. On Tuesday, the Democratic Socialist from Vermont announced he was running for the Democratic nomination again. Less than 24 hours later, he’d already raised over $5.9 million in donations.^[8]

Sanders is a known quantity with a fervent fan base and amazing fundraising prowess. Should he get the nomination, he could also do well in the Midwest states Trump won in 2016. However, Bernie’s also getting challenged from the left this time, something he definitely didn’t have to worry about in 2016.

2 The Supreme Court Slapped Down Civil Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture has long been one of the craziest things that a supposedly pro-individual rights country like the US allows to happen. In short, state and local governments can seize your stuff if they think you’ve committed a crime. In some cases, this has meant states grabbing everything they can get their hands on, even when the crime in question has been on the petty side, or even if the suspect has never been proven guilty.

The basic unfairness of all this still hasn’t gone away, but it’s gotten a little more palatable. This week, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that civil asset forfeiture was covered by the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause, which prevents governments or corporations issuing disproportionate fines.^[9] From now on, anytime the state seizes your stuff, they will have to go to court to explain why they did so and why it was fair.

Some of the abuses of civil asset forfeiture have been jaw-dropping. The plaintiff in this case had been fined $1,200 for selling $225 of heroin but also had his $42,000 Land Rover seized. The Rover had been bought using his dad’s life insurance policy, not drug money.

1 A Shocking Attack Derailed Nigeria’s Elections

Last Friday, Nigeria’s government made a surprise announcement. They were delaying the country’s elections by one week due to violence. When asked why, they pointed to an attack on a Muslim minority community in Kaduna state earlier in the week.

At first, the attack was reported as having killed scores. By last Friday, the number had climbed to 66. On Tuesday, we got a final body count that was shocking. Over 130 people had been killed in the assault, making it equal in death toll to the horrific 2015 Paris attacks. According to the state governor, the attack had been intended to “wipe out certain communities.”^[10]

Last October, violence in the region led to the deaths of 55 people, mainly from the local Christian communities. This latest attack, which hit two villages at once, was apparently revenge-driven.

If that’s the case, it’s certainly upped the ante. With 130 dead, it seems the region of Kaduna could now be trapped in a cycle of bitter ethnic violence.