In the past, bizarre and quirky animal sideshows were part of everyday life. You could expect to witness dead whales showcased in car parks, have your mind read by learned pigs (supposedly!), and participate in octopus wrestling. Today, we have fun attractions like the Moscow Cat Theater or bee bearding. But can anything today top the weird and fascinating attractions of bygone days?

10 Lion Drome

In the 1930s, motordromes turned into extremely interesting (and often dangerous) places. Some motorbike stunt riders trained their pet lions to sit in specially built sidecars and then raced madly with the animals by their side. This racing was done at 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph) around the almost perpendicular wall of the motordrome track known as the “Wall of Death!”

Believe it or not, sometimes this mad activity was not exciting enough for the participants and spectators. In those cases, an additional element of thrill, known as the “Race For Life,” was introduced. Trained lions were deliberately released and would charge after the zooming motorcycles trying to swat them with their huge paws.

The last lion drome closed in 1964 when a drunken carnival worker placed his hand inside a lion cage and had it bitten off by a male lion named King.

9 Learned Pigs

In the 18th and 19th centuries, “learned pigs” were a popular type of entertainment and attracted huge numbers of curious spectators in both England and the US.

The owners taught their “learned pigs” a number of impressive tricks, such as spelling and counting with cards, telling the time of day, distinguishing the sexes, and supposedly even reading the thoughts of members of the audience. Through fees and wagers, the owners made quite an income. But it was well deserved since training a pig could take up to two years.

Many published works concerning the training of pigs have exposed the tricks used by the pig trainers. For example, the pig was encouraged to move in a specific direction by stick-prodding and was taught to retrieve cards that were scented with food.

8 Flea Circus

The “flea circus,” otherwise known as the “smallest circus in the world,” was a popular Victorian sideshow attraction. The fleas were dressed in miniature costumes and could be seen performing various circus stunts such as tightrope walking, racing, juggling, and pulling miniature carts.

Flea circuses took place in a ring that was the size of a dinner plate. It was surrounded by small boxes that served as the houses of the performers and the stables for their carriages. The audience consisted of one person with a magnifying glass and the proprietor who stood nearby, armed with a pair of pincers in case any of his fleas misbehaved.

It was thought that circus fleas were of remarkable intelligence, but training them was no easy feat. However, recent reports suggest that these fleas were most likely “mole fleas,” a less energetic variety of the insect. Mole fleas were harnessed with a thin piece of gold wire and stimulated into movement with a heat lamp.

7 Geek Show

In the early 20th century, “geeks” were circus “freaks” whose specialty was biting off the heads of animals (usually those of chickens or snakes) and drinking their blood. Geek shows often inspired the fear that normal people in the audience could also become freaks because geeks were ordinary people otherwise. Geeks were mostly men, although the few women geeks were especially prized because it was uncommon for women to be part of such a violent act.

Geeks frequently suffered from broken teeth and jaws, and the constant interaction with animals in close proximity meant that geeks often suffered from animal-related sicknesses. Geeks were also paid the lowest wages because they could be replaced easily.

6 Bear Wrestling

In the early 1900s, bear wrestling was a popular sport that attracted large crowds of people, particularly throughout the southern United States. Often, the bear wrestled with a specific wrestler, usually his owner and trainer. Together, they perfected a choreographed match that they took on the road for everyone to see.

Other times, the bear was trained to wrestle with a different person who would play the coward and lose the match to the bear. Still other times, audience members were invited to wrestle the magnificent beast. If the audience member succeeded, he received a cash prize. Of course, most wrestling bears were declawed and detoothed.

5 Diving Horse

A “diving horse,” a popular attraction in the mid-1880s, consisted of a horse diving into a pool of water, sometimes from as high as 20 meters (60 ft). William “Doc” Carver came up with this idea when he crossed a bridge which partially collapsed and his horse fell into the water below.

Following World War II, the popularity of the diving horse act declined due to criticism from animal welfare activists. Sometimes, the horses were forced to dive four times a day, seven times a week. The owners of the shows were also accused of using electrical jolts and trapdoors to force the unwilling horses to dive.

4 Octopus Wrestling

Octopus wrestling was a curious sport that was popular in the Puget Sound in Washington in the 1950s and 1960s. The World Octopus Wrestling Championship took place there in 1963 with 111 divers taking part in the match.

The sport involved divers wrangling octopuses to the surface of the water and receiving points on the final weight of the octopuses wrestled and the amount of equipment used (snorkels versus breathing tanks). Octopus wrestling was not really “wrestling,” however. Divers simply stuck their hands into the ocean caverns and groped for the heads of the octopuses.

Then the diver would pull on the octopus until the suction created by its tentacles was released, allowing the diver to bring the octopus to the surface. Giant Pacific octopuses are timid creatures, so most cases of provocation ended with the octopus giving in or fleeing.

3 Ferret-Legging

“Ferret-legging” was a game that consisted of participants shoving live ferrets down their pants. The pants had to be tied at the ankle so that the ferret could not escape. They also had to be spacious enough to allow the ferret to move about freely, and no underwear was allowed. The ferret had to have all of its teeth and claws intact, and neither the ferret nor the participant could be drugged. The winner of the game was the person who could stand the pain from the ferret’s teeth and claws the longest.

In the past, hunters sent muzzled ferrets into the burrows of rabbits and moles to scare them out. However, ferreting became illegal during the Middle Ages, and hunters began hiding ferrets in their pants to get past game wardens. Eventually, ferret-legging became a sport practiced widely in the United Kingdom, especially among Yorkshire miners in the 1970s.

2 Dead Whales

Throughout the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, tours showcasing dead whales were a popular attraction that lured thousands of people in the United Kingdom and the United States. The three main preserved whales in the UK were named Goliath, Jonah, and Hercules and were displayed in car parks and large grassy areas such as racecourses.

For an entrance fee, the curious spectators could view the whale and various instruments of death such as the harpoon and other whaling tools. The whales were originally caught off the coast of Norway and driven around Europe to promote the whaling industry after World War II. They were eventually sold to showmen who realized their financial potential. The whales were then preserved and scooped out, and their insides were decorated with lanterns.

1 Goat Throwing

On the fourth Sunday in January, goat throwing used to take place in the Spanish village of Manganeses de la Polvorosa in honor of Saint Vincent, the town’s patron saint. The tradition was to carry a live goat to the top of a 15-meter (50 ft) church tower and throw it to the crowd below, who would then catch the goat with a canvas sheet.

According to local legend, a priest once had a special goat that could feed all the poor in the village with its milk. One day, the goat accidentally climbed atop the church tower and was so frightened by the church bells ringing for Sunday mass that it fell onto the street below.

Amazingly, the goat was caught in a blanket and survived. Thus, the tradition of goat throwing was meant to represent the miraculous survival. Nowadays, the tradition is no longer practiced due to complaints from animal rights activists. As one can imagine, the villagers complained extensively. Supposedly, the mayor of the town also said that having a fiesta without goat throwing is like having Christmas without a Christmas tree.

Laura is a student from Ireland in love with books, writing, coffee, and cats.

Pica is defined as “the persistent eating of substances such as dirt or paint that have no nutritional value,” and it’s just one of the conditions that cause some people to eat the most bizarre and unbelievable things. Some do it for comfort or as a coping mechanism, while others picked up the strange habit following a traumatic or stressful event in their lives. Whichever the case, it makes for some pretty odd reading for the rest of us.

10 Heavy Metal

Q: What do 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, seven television sets, six chandeliers, two beds, and a coffin all have in common?

A: They’ve all been eaten by 57-year-old Michel Lotito of France. And you can add an entire Cessna 150 airplane to that list, too.

Lotito is another in the list of people with pica, and doctors claim he has an especially strong stomach lining and intestinal tract. Breaking objects into small, consumable pieces, he eats them with massive amounts of water to help his system to digest the metal. Despite his Superman-like stomach, Lotito has problems digesting some normal foods like bananas and hard-boiled eggs. “Monsieur Mangetout,” (“Mr. Eats All” in French) has even wolfed down a small section of the Eiffel Tower.

9 Street Meat

Cooking Instructions: Remove cat from side of road. Place smelly meat under running water for up to four days, or until odor dissipates. Cook well and serve.

That’s the formula and philosophy of Arthur Boyt of England, who says he’s been eating roadkill meals for over 35 years. He’s a taxidermist who prefers to eat the bodies of badgers, cats, and barn owls rather than throw them out after a stuffing job. It has never made him ill. Arthur keeps a freezer in his garage stocked with the likes of dead polecats, swan, buzzards, and even reptiles. And according to the 72-year-old, the best roadkill he ever ate was . . . (drum roll) . . . a Labrador.

“It has a pleasant taste and flavor that is a bit like lamb,” he says. Yeah, except a lamb probably wasn’t some poor little boy’s favorite pet.

8 The Human Leech

Have you ever drunk another human being’s blood? You have? That’s just all types of sick! Okay, I’m kidding, but a 45-year-old woman from Pennsylvania isn’t. Each month, Julie Caples drinks up to half a gallon of the vital life force, which she acquires from willing donors who apparently come over to her house and let her slice them open. She says the blood makes her feel “stronger and healthier,” and she finds that she has an abundance of energy afterward. One wonders how healthy and full of energy she’ll feel when she catches a blood-borne disease.

7 Gas Guzzler

Chen Jejun will make you glad you have a locked gas cap on your vehicle. The Chinese man, 71, gets his motor running each day by downing gasoline, a habit that adds up to roughly 3.5 liters of petrol a month. Back in 1969, when Chen was experiencing a rough cough and some chest pain, the elders in his village suggested he try taking a shot of kerosene to soothe himself. The next day he was back to his normal self, except that he’d also picked up a nasty addiction—one that has caused him to drink about 1.5 tons of gasoline over the past 42 years.

Chen’s favorite pick-me-up has also cost him his marriage and family. After his wife and kids tried unsuccessfully to make him quit, he was forced to move into a cottage by himself, where he can now indulge in the go-juice as often as he pleases. Experts say they believe Chen’s body has built up a tolerance to gas over the years—which explains why he hasn’t dropped dead yet.

6 Scorpion Scarfer

In most places, scorpions are a feared predator. Especially the little ones, which haven’t yet learned how to regulate their venom, and will sting you until their supply is depleted.

Apparently, it’s the venom that has Li Liuqun addicted to eating 30 of these rotten suckers in one sitting. The 58-year-old from China says that, after being stung by a scorpion one day, he became so upset that he picked it up off the ground and bit its head off.

“It tasted sweet and nutty and I never looked back. To me, they’re delicious,” he said. Chinese doctors believe he has become immune, and even addicted to scorpion venom (and you thought heroin was bad).

5 Foam Party

You might want to think twice about inviting Adele Edwards over for a visit—or at least make sure you keep an eye on your furniture if you do. The 31-year-old woman from Florida has spent over two decades unzipping couch cushions and snacking on the foam inside. Her favorite preparation method is to take pieces of the foam outside, rub it in dirt, then eat it. She says it began as a coping mechanism when, at the age of 10, she witnessed her parents going through a rough divorce, and it has since escalated into a full-blown addiction.

She now eats her way through an estimated seven couches and three pillows per year, a fact that has doctors concerned she might die from her bizarre condition. After a week-long stay in hospital for an intestinal blockage, Adele was found to have an iron deficiency and has begun taking supplements in the hopes of curbing her foam-eating habit.

4 Love You To Death

A 26-year-old woman named Casie, who recently appeared on an episode of TLC’s My Strange Addiction, takes the bizarre eating thing to a whole new level. After losing her husband Shawn to a sudden asthma attack, Casie became obsessed with carrying his ashes around with her everywhere she went. It led to an accident one day when some of them spilled onto her hand.

“I didn’t want to wipe them off because that’s my husband and I don’t want to wipe him away,” she said. “So I just licked it off my finger.” She has already eaten around one pound of Shawn’s ashes, and describes the taste as being reminiscent of “rotten eggs, sand, and sandpaper.”

3 Soap

Remember when you were a kid and you used the F-word so constantly that your mom had to wash your filthy little mouth out with soap? No, wait a minute, that was me. Either way, that old-school method of punishment would have been even more brutal if it had involved swallowing five bars of soap a week, Tempestt Henderson’s bizarre choice of snack.

The 19-year-old from Florida can easily go through five bars each week, and even has a love for laundry detergent. She believes it began as a coping mechanism when her boyfriend Jason left her for college, and says she just feels all-around “cleaner” when she eats soap instead of just washing with it. Diagnosed with pica, Tempestt underwent cognitive-behavioral therapy and is working toward recovering from her addiction.

2 Urine

These just keep getting creepier and creepier. Meet Carie, a 53-year-old woman who drinks her own urine. Gross! She might as well use it to brush her teeth, take a bath in, and wash her eyes out with, too. In fact, you guessed it, she actually does. Carie drinks around 80 ounces of her own urine a day and even uses it in a neti pot for nasal irrigation. She’s in a fight against cancer and believes that drinking her own urine helps her to cope with the disease.

1 Milk Of My Daughter

Tim Browne of London drinks his daughter’s breast milk with cereal in the morning, but not because he has pica or is an oddball pervert. The 69-year-old was recently diagnosed with colon cancer and began drinking his daughter Georgia’s breast milk after hearing about an American man who did the same. Having gone through chemotherapy, Tim sides with the experts, who say there is promising research suggesting the cure for cancer just might be in human milk. He describes the taste as “not unpleasant, but slightly pungent.”

Shawn Larson is a former music producer, who now spends his time writing, mastering photography, and raising a family.

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.

History is littered with stories and anecdotes about how seemingly insignificant details changed the world. While many of these stories are just apocryphal, strange circumstances and coincides cannot be discounted. Because in the face of extraordinary events, anything could be possible.

10Joan of Arc’s Epilepsy

Joan of Arc is famous today for using divine guidance to fight against invading English armies during the Hundred Years War. However, the fact that Joan claimed that heavenly voices inspired her actions has caused many modern researchers to suggest more organic causes. Namely, epilepsy.

Joan of Arc may have suffered from a particular type of epilepsy called idiopathic partial epilepsy with auditory features, or IPEAF. She claimed to have heard and occasionally saw saints like St. Catherine and St. Margaret, which is the sort of episode common in epileptics with IPEAF. Joan also said that many of her experiences were preceded by the “sound of bells,” which is similar to other epileptics who say that certain noises trigger episodes.

Unfortunately, this diagnosis can’t be affirmatively diagnosed. Tests could be done on Joan’s DNA, but there are currently no DNA samples from Joan known to exist.

9Moses’s Burning Bush

Moses remains one of the most important figures of all time, but the Moses of tradition may actually be quite different from the historical Moses. The acacia tree, frequently mentioned by Moses throughout the Old Testament, contains the powerful hallucinogen dimethyltriptamine, or DMT, which is used in a concoction known as ayahuasca. This could mean that Moses’s famous “burning bush” may have fueled his religious experiences through hallucinogenic drugs.

During the events at Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, he may have been high on DMT, which causes flashes of light similar to the account described in the Bible. Ayahuasca’s effects have been studied extensively in the Amazon region, where it is used as part of religious ceremonies, and most data suggests that Moses may have been tripping the whole time.

8The Hatfield And McCoy Anger Disorder

The Hatfield and McCoy family feud is so famous that it has almost permanently become part of American folklore. While the violence between the two clans has long since ended, one of its causes has lived on in the form of Von Hippel-Lindau disease.

Von Hippel-Lindau disease is a rare disorder which can cause tumors on the adrenal gland. Because of the stress on the adrenal glands, those who suffer from the disease have symptoms including high blood pressure, severe headaches, and excessive production of the “fight or flight” hormones. All of this combines to make a short temper and aggression. It is found in three-fourths of the McCoy family, and past ancestors are also textbook cases.

Could this rare disorder have caused the ferocity that fueled the Hatfield-McCoy feud? It seems likely, because many of the McCoys today display similar symptoms, even down to the tumors.

7Anthony Eden’s Sickness And The Suez Crisis

Soon after Winston Churchill’s resignation as Prime Minister of England in 1955, a crisis erupted in Egypt when Abdul Nassar seized the Suez Canal, the most important route by which oil was shipped to Europe. Anthony Eden, Churchill’s successor, was forced to take on the situation, but a lingering illness could have compromised his leadership.

In 1953, Eden had undergone an operation on his gallbladder, but there was a complication when a knife cut his bile duct. This left Eden with long-term pain that he used painkillers, barbiturates, and amphetamines to deal with. Eden’s behavior was extremely erratic during much of the Suez crisis, and he made a series of poor decisions that ultimately caused Great Britain’s decline as a world power. He was eventually forced to resign in shame in 1957.

6Fashion And Tuberculosis

During the Victorian era, attractiveness and fashion were linked to many bizarre trends, but one fad was influenced by a curious factor—tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was so romanticized during the time that many considered it the standard for feminine beauty. From 1780 to 1850, cosmetics and clothing were actually made to emulate the appearance of someone dying from the dreaded disease. Things changed after Robert Koch isolated the tuberculosis bacteria in 1881 and the germ theory began to gain traction.

Widespread hysteria took over and many trends began to radically change. The iconic flowing gowns and hoop skirts worn by women in the 19th century changed to become less regal, because it was believed that the extra fabric could hold tuberculosis microbes. The bushy beards and facial hair kept by men of the time were also said to aid the spread of tuberculosis, so by the 20th century most facial hair had all but disappeared. Whether these measures actually worked is anyone’s guess.

5The Seven Day War And Divine Intervention

When Arab forces announced their intentions to invade Israel in 1967, it was widely believed that the Israelis didn’t have a chance. Through amazing coincidences—which most Israelis attribute to spiritual influence—the war was flipped on the Arabs with Israel eventually gaining three times the territory it had possessed previously.

Before the invasion was even set to begin, the commander of the Egyptian forces in Sinai was ordered to change officers, but the replacements knew next to nothing about Israel’s terrain. Three hours before the Israeli air strike that would cripple the Egyptian Air Force, Egyptian intelligence actually tried to notify forces on the ground of the attack, but for some unknown reason, no one informed the commanding officer.

When the actual presence of an Israeli fighter jet was detected by intelligence in northern Jordan, a red alert was sent to Cairo but, again for some unknown reason, the message couldn’t be decoded. Finally, when the Israeli air strikes actually occurred, no senior officers were around to do anything about it because they had spent the previous night watching a belly dancing show.

4Charles Whitman Was Influenced By A Tumor

On August 1, 1966, ex-marine Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the clock tower at the University of Texas campus in Austin. He proceeded to kill 13 people and wounded 32 others. In addition, he killed his mother and his wife. What led Whitman to commit such a senseless, destructive act? During an autopsy on his brain, a possible explanation was found.

A type of tumor called a glioblastoma the size of a nickel was found growing from his thalamus, impinged on his hypothalamus and compressing his amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for regulating emotion, and his tumor no doubt played a role in Whitman’s mental deterioration. While his actions were completely reprehensible, the finding does shine some light on how biological factors could play a role in criminal actions.

3Henry VIII’s Insanity And CTE

For much of Henry VIII’s early reign, he was a highly intelligent and capable leader, but his mental state eventually fell apart and he became paranoid, tempestuous, and deranged. Henry VIII was a well-known sportsman, and this could have led to his own demise.

In 1524, Henry received a head injury during a jousting tournament that left him with migraines. In 1536, Henry was knocked unconscious for two hours after his armored horse fell on him. It was after these accidents that he began experiencing symptoms of mental instability. While there is no way to test him any longer, the recently discovered illness Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) matches many of Henry VIII’s symptoms.

CTE, common in athletes who experience repeated head injuries, cause symptoms similar to dementia and Parkinson’s. Henry became forgetful and was prone to mood swings which could explain his infamous poor treatment of his wives, along with his inability to perform sexually despite being a womanizer in his youth.

2Sir Thomas Bludworth And The Great Fire Of London

In 1666, a massive fire destroyed much of old London. At the time, Sir Thomas Bludworth was the mayor of the city, and his desire to sleep could have caused an easily preventable tragedy.

At 2:00 AM on September 2, the house of the royal baker on Pudding Lane caught fire. Located on a narrow street and surrounded by crowded wooden buildings, the fire quickly spread. When Sir Bludworth was woken up and informed of the fire, he brushed it off and went back to sleep, reportedly saying, “A woman might piss it out.” He ignored the warnings to knock down surrounding buildings until it was too late, and by the time the fire ended, London was entirely up in smoke.

Samuel Pepys was unimpressed by Bludworth, and there are even suggestions that the mayor had been drinking the night the fire broke out. Bludworth, however, remained in government positions until his death.

1The French Revolution And Ergot Mold

In 1789, word began to spread around France that brigands were hiding in the woods, causing many peasants to take up arms. This event became known as The Great Fear and served as one of the catalysts for the French Revolution. However, the reason for the Great Fear remains mostly unexplained.

In the 1980s, Mary Kilbourne Matossian of the University of Maryland proposed that a bad crop could have been the cause of the paranoia. Earlier, in 1974, a historian announced that the rye grown throughout the late 1700s was afflicted with ergot. Ergot, a mold that grows on rye, is known to cause symptoms like paranoia and hallucinations and contains the chemical by which LSD is synthesized. Around one-twelfth of all rye crops were affected due to cold winters and wet springs, so widespread ergot poisoning could have been behind the beginning of the French Revolution.

Gordon Gora is a struggling author who is desperately trying to make it. He is working on several projects but until he finishes one, he will write for for his bread and butter. You can write him at [email protected].

Man has always striven to expand his knowledge and the study of food is no exception. Our current technology has enabled us to push the boundaries of food development further than ever before, and the entries on this list are just some of what we might see in the future.

10Headless Chicken Farms

In 2012, Andre Ford, an architecture student at the UK Royal College Of Art, looked at the problems presently plaguing the broiler chicken industry and proposed the Center For Unconscious Farming as a solution. His objectives were to satisfy the demand for chicken meat while affording the animals more humane treatment. While his goals seemed noble enough, Ford’s methods were arguably dystopian in nature. He suggested that the chickens’ cerebral cortex be removed so that they wouldn’t feel any distress. To accommodate more chickens, their feet would be removed as well. To allow them to grow, the chickens’ brain stems would be kept intact, while regular electric shocks would provide muscular stimulation.

These unconscious chickens would then be tightly packed together in Matrix-like pods, where they would be fed through a series of tubes. In this system, nothing would be left to waste—Ford also suggested that chicken blood be used as plant feed. While many viewed his proposal as controversial, Ford defended it, stating that “the realities of the existing systems of production are just as shocking.”

9Food Would Be Delivered Through Skin Patches

While we are already used to taking various medications with transdermal patches, scientists with the Department of Defense’s Combat Feeding Program are taking things to the next level with the Transdermal Nutrient Delivery System (TDNDS). This food patch contains essential nutrients and can be used by soldiers stationed in warzones. The patch itself has a microchip processor which calculates a soldier’s nutritional requirements and releases the corresponding nutrients. While not a substitute for food, officials hope that these patches will help soldiers work well in the field until they can eat a real meal. It is estimated that the technology will be available by 2025. Dr. C. Patrick Dunne, a scientist with the program, believes that the innovation will also be useful for civilians who work in high-pressure occupations, such as miners and astronauts.

8Human Waste Will Be Made Edible Again

In 2009, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they were working on improving a system which they believed would one day be used to sustain people living in space or even on other planets. The move came after NASA developed a similar system aboard the International Space Station which could turn human waste into drinkable water. ESA’s program, called Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) is far more advanced and is designed to recycle every bit of human waste into oxygen, food, and water. The first MELiSSA pilot plant was built in 1995, and researchers said that they expect that second-generation plant will be fully operational by 2014.

7A Dash Of Music Enhances The Flavor

A recent study conducted by Oxford University discovered that sound really does influence the way we taste food. For example, high-pitched sounds added more sweetness to the food, while low, brassy sounds made it taste bitter. A participant in the experiment, Russel Jones, said that this discovery would have wide-ranging applications. He pointed out that it could potentially make foods healthier by reducing the sugar content—without sacrificing the perceived sweetness.

Even before the study came out, some restaurants had already added sonic-enhanced repertoire to their menu. Chef Heston Blumenthal, of UK restaurant The Fat Duck, provided an iPod that played soothing ocean sounds while his diners ate seafood dishes; they later attested that their food tasted saltier.

6Food That Can Be Inhaled

A bizarre trend of people literally inhaling their food has been on the rise since 2012. It started when Harvard professor David Edwards invented a device called Le Whif, which sprayed out breathable dark chocolate. The product became a best-seller for European dieters, who claimed that it reduced their appetites. The trend has since gained a foothold on North American soil, where Canadian chef Norman Aitken improved the invention and came up with Le Whaf. His device is essentially a vase with an ultrasound implanted underneath. The food, usually a soup, is placed inside the vase and is shaken by ultrasound until it becomes a cloud, at which point the customer uses a straw to inhale it. One customer who tried it described the experience as “a taste sensation without something in your mouth.”

5Space-Bred Seeds

Since the 1980s, China has been sending seeds into outer space, and its scientists have claimed amazing results. These space-exposed seeds, they reported, bred faster and produced larger crops than their earth-based counterparts. Professor Liu Luxiang, head of the program, said that their work has enabled the creation of stronger seed strains, which are currently being used nationwide.

While it’s hard to authenticate such claims given the secretive nature of China’s science programs, NASA has attempted the same feat—with less-than-favorable results. Western scientists also noted the lack of hard data, which they suspected is being kept secret by the military. Professor Liu himself lamented the media obsession with the oversized crops and said, “Size isn’t the point of the program . . . I care more about increasing yields.” While the effect of cosmic radiation is not yet clear, Professor Liu currently has two published works being reviewed by respected journals, which he hopes will lend his program an air of legitimacy from his Western counterparts.

4Peanut Butter And Jellyfish Sandwiches

“If you can’t fight them, eat them.” Those were the exact words of a 2013 report prepared by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In the study, titled “Review of Jellyfish Blooms In the Mediterranean and Black Sea,” officials noted the world’s dwindling fish population and growing jellyfish blooms, and suggested a number of methods to solve the problem. Aside from the use of bio-control agents and cutting nets, they also proposed the use of jellyfish in food and medical products. The report pointed out that some jellyfish species have been part of the Chinese diet for a long time and encouraged research into the medicinal properties of jellyfish, which they believed might hold huge biological and industrial potential.

3Edible Plastics And Wrappers

In 2012, a Brazilian burger restaurant named Bob’s garnered plenty of attention when it released its burger wrapped in edible paper. People didn’t need to unwrap the burger—they just ate the whole thing! A year later, Professor David Edwards introduced his new invention, Wikicells, to the American public. Edwards got his inspiration from the way a cell stores water and set out to create a food wrapper based on that idea. The wrappers are made from natural skins and are designed to be insoluble to prevent bacteria and other particles from entering. They can be used to wrap foods and beverages of any kind. Best of all, they can be consumed along with the packaged food. Edwards hopes that his inventions will shift people away from the use of plastic and conventional wrappers—which will lead to much less waste clogging up landfills.

2Everyone Will Eat Bugs

A May 2013 report by the UN has advocated the eating of insects as a viable method to combat world hunger. According to UN officials, at least two billion people in Asia and Africa regularly eat 1,900 different kinds of insects. Of the edible bugs, beetles were on top of the menu, followed closely by caterpillars and bees. They also found lots of edible potential in the larvae of various flies. The UN noted that the challenge now would be to change Western attitudes regarding eating these creepy crawlies.

The consumption of bugs would have wide-ranging benefits. Insects are rich in proteins and minerals, reproduce quickly, and do not damage the environment as much as traditional livestock. Aside from that, an insect-farming industry could present a lucrative business opportunity, especially for those living in poor countries.

1Three-Course Meal Chewing Gum

For those who never quite got over Willy Wonka’s famous chewing gum which tasted like a three-course meal, take heart! Scientist Dave Hart of the UK’s Institute of Food Research is bent on turning that children’s fantasy into reality. Since 2010, Hart and his team have been using nanotechnology to reproduce the legendary chewing gum. He has already designed a method that can encapsulate specific flavors and essentially keep them from mixing. He explained that the chewer would experience each flavor sequentially. Initially, he would taste the appetizer capsule; as he chews harder he would taste the main course and dessert. Hart has acknowledged the intricacies of completing the elaborate chewing gum. He has also been tinkering with a much older method called the boiled sweet, where different flavors are layered separately by flavorless gelatin, with the climactic flavor wrapped right in the center of the chewing gum.

+Human-Algae Hybrids

Algae has many proponents as the best solution to world hunger. But one man has suggested an even crazier use for the organisms. On the BBC’s 60 Second Idea segment, Chuck Fisher shared his bizarre idea for integrating algae into the human skin. Just like a real plant, these hybrid humans would absorb sunlight to get their nutrition. A biologist by trade, Fisher got his idea by observing the symbiotic relationship between the corals (which are animals) and algae. Fisher admitted his proposal was far-fetched for now, but remains positive that that his dream to eradicate world hunger via photosynthesis will soon become a reality.

Marc V. is always open for a conversation, so do drop him a line sometime.

Musicians are just as corruptible as the rest of us. It is commonplace now to see your favorite musicians in trouble with authorities for drug charges or drunken stupors. Drug- and alcohol-related arrests have become something of a staple of the music industry.

However, in rare circumstances, musicians get into trouble for the unlikeliest of transgressions. These strange criminal blunders are undoubtedly rare among musicians, but they are so puzzling and hilarious that they deserve a light shining on them.

10 Paul McCartney

In 1960, former Beatle Paul McCartney was arrested in Hamburg, Germany, for attempted arson. McCartney and then–Beatles’ drummer Pete Best pinned a condom to the wall of the Bambi Kino, their accommodations while playing in Hamburg, and set the condom on fire.

After living in filthy conditions during the early string of shows, Paul’s arson was a boyish act of protest against the Bambi Kino owner Bruno Koschmider. Renowned for beating customers with a chair leg, Koschmider had put up the Beatles in the back of his porno cinema while they tirelessly played for him in his run-down strip club known as the Indra.

As George Harrison, then 17, was already being deported from Germany for flouting Hamburg’s curfew laws for minors, the Beatles were ready to go home—but not before McCartney and Best set the condom alight.

Koschmider subsequently rang the police, who arrested and detained Best and McCartney before deporting them.^[1]

9 Barry White

Before he had a music career and was nicknamed the “Walrus of Love,” Barry White was something of a criminal in his teens (by his own admission). However, White was hardly a master criminal as evinced by his arrest in 1960 for the theft of car tires which led to subsequent jail time.

As a teenager, White often got into trouble with his brother, Darryl. Barry stated that they were a “two-man gang, respected and feared [who] ran and ruled the streets of our neighborhood.” However, the theft of $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires landed him in prison.

Barry White served four months in prison in 1960. While he was incarcerated, the seeds of the Walrus of Love were sown because White vowed to do away with his minor criminal past and focus on music.^[2]

8 D’arcy Wretzky

D’arcy Wretzky, former bassist for the Smashing Pumpkins, was arrested and eventually imprisoned in 2011 due to her horses escaping her home. Wretzky’s neighbors contacted the police after her horses were left to wander from her farm onto their land. Although she was notified of the offense in 2009, it took until 2011 before her antics led to prison time.

Michigan has an “animals running at large” law that Wretzky breached. However, the law is only a minor offense. It was Wretzky’s repeated absence from four consecutive court dates related to the incident that eventually landed her in jail.

Otherwise, Wretzky would have only had to pay a fine. Nevertheless, she was sentenced to six days imprisonment.^[3]

7 Gary Numan

New wave singer and songwriter Gary Numan found himself on the wrong side of Indian police in 1981 when he was arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. As an air display pilot as well as a musician, Numan was flying with a friend over India. After the plane’s engine gave out, they were forced to land.

The pair sought help in a local Indian village but instead were arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. As the two men were wearing two watches each, the police thought they were smuggling. Worse still, the pair had cameras on them which gave the police grounds to believe that they were spying.

Little did Numan know, there was actually a Russian submarine base 32 kilometers (20 mi) from where they had landed. Therefore, the Indian police thought that they were taking photographs of that base.

Both Numan and his friend were arrested and detained for four days. Eventually, the pair contacted the Home Office, and they were duly released.^[4]

6 Vanilla Ice

Rapper (sort of) Vanilla Ice got in trouble with authorities in 2004, albeit for something far less sinister than his arrest for burglary in 2015. In fact, it was animal control officials that landed Vanilla Ice in difficulty.

Vanilla Ice’s pet wallaroo, Bucky Buckaroo, and his pet goat, Pancho, decided one day to escape Vanilla Ice’s domicile in Florida. Pancho managed to headbutt open the latch of the gate of their enclosure, and the two went for a ramble in Florida.

The rebellious animals actually scratched one woman and kicked her car after she tried to feed them. Animal control officials eventually captured the two, and their days on the lam were cut short.

Animal control officials caught Vanilla Ice with an expired permit and duly fined him $220. Pancho and Bucky were eventually reunited with their owner.^[5]

5 Peter Buck

REM’s guitarist Peter Buck was arrested for an air rage incident in 2001, but the story was far sillier than it sounds. After allegedly making the mistake of mixing a sleeping pill with alcohol, Buck went on a drunken rampage, much to the chagrin of his fellow passengers.

After being refused any more alcohol, Buck in his already-drunk, loutish state overturned a flight attendant’s trolley and demanded to leave the airplane mid-flight. He had to be pulled away from an exit door. As a pilot attempted to calm the situation, Buck responded that “he was just a f—king pilot and [Buck] was REM.” Even stranger, Buck sprayed flight attendants with yogurt and tried to steal cutlery from the plane.

The guitarist was later cleared of all charges, and he did help to clean up the yogurt mess while on the plane.^[6]

4 Bob Dylan

New Jersey police detained poor old Bob Dylan in 2009 over a simple case of mistaken identity. The icon of folk music was set to headline a concert alongside Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. But it nearly didn’t happen thanks to New Jersey police officer Kristie Buble, who believed that Dylan was a mad pensioner who had escaped from a hospital.

Dylan went for a stroll around the Long Branch area on his own in the pouring rain when a concerned citizen rang the police about the suspicious-looking character. When Buble arrived to determine what was going on, Dylan told her that he was indeed Bob Dylan. But for the police officer, that just confirmed her suspicions of a madman on the loose.

Apparently forgetting that people age, Buble expected Dylan to look like her memories of him from his younger years. As a result, Buble believed that the man in front of her was a rambling lunatic and not Bob Dylan.^[7]

Detained by the police, the musician was taken to his nearby tour bus to confirm his identity. When they reached Dylan’s manager, he showed Dylan’s identification to the now-embarrassed police officer. In her defense, it was a little strange that Dylan was wandering around in the rain, but he’s never been one for conventional behavior.

3 Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, And Brian Jones
The Rolling Stones

Although two of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, were infamously arrested and charged with drug offenses in 1967, it was public urination that saw three of the Rolling Stones—Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, and Brian Jones—arrested in 1965.

After being refused access to a petrol station lavatory in London, three of the Rolling Stones took it upon themselves to relieve their full bladders by urinating on the petrol station itself. The unsympathetic station owner had denied Bill Wyman the key initially. However, Jagger and Jones also took offense at this.

All three began chanting “we’ll p—s anywhere, man” to the station owner and a nearby mechanic who had witnessed the scene and was merely attempting to move them on. When the owner wouldn’t concede, Jagger, Wyman, and Jones urinated on the wall of the petrol station while still chanting.

After the trio was arrested, they were charged with public indecency and subsequently fined £5 each.^[8]

2 Frank Zappa

In the early years of Frank Zappa’s career, he was not too discerning about where his much-needed money came from. This became painfully apparent in 1962 when Zappa was duped into making porn for an undercover San Bernardino police detective in California.

After creating several scores for low-budget films, Zappa was offered work by a supposed used car salesman to produce a porn film. As the “used car salesman” knew of Zappa’s amateur film credentials, he turned to Zappa for help.

Though Zappa refused to outright make a porn film for the man, Zappa did offer to record audio-only porn with his friend Lorraine Belcher in a studio owned by Zappa. The recording was essentially a mock-up of a couple having sex.

After Zappa made the recording, the “salesman” refused to pay him. Instead, the police raided the studio and seized the tapes. Of course, the “used car salesman” was simply an undercover detective hoping to entrap an unwitting “criminal.”

Zappa was charged with conspiracy to make pornography and given a 10-day prison sentence. This made Zappa a lifelong cynic toward authority.^[9]

1 Ozzy Osbourne

Yet more public urination from a beloved rock star. Throughout his lengthy career, Ozzy Osbourne has been a staple of the typical rock and roll antics that define the genre’s more reckless practitioners.

Ozzy is the epitome of the drunken, drug-induced wild behavior of rock stars. Some of his most outrageous behavior included biting the head off a bat and snorting a line of ants. But in 1982, a drunken Ozzy was arrested for urinating on a historic landmark.

In a drunken stupor, Ozzy stumbled around San Antonio, Texas, looking for a place to relieve himself. Unfortunately, he chose the city’s Cenotaph dedicated to the fallen soldiers in the Battle of the Alamo.

To make this story even stranger, Ozzy was wearing the clothes of his wife, Sharon, the whole time because she had denied him access to his own so that he could not go out and drink. Obviously, it didn’t work. The police arrested Ozzy for public intoxication. He was freed on $40 bond the same day.^[10]

Edward is a writer and musician.

Religion, retail therapy, a meat-free diet—the Internet is full of people trying to shill “cures” for depression with all the grace of a salesman hawking his last bottle of snake oil. Google “ways to be happy” and you’ll find a million lists reassuring you that all it takes to reach nirvana is a cup of green tea and plenty of fish. Aside from the fact that depression is far too complex to be treated with something as dumb as, say, getting a new pet, most of these so-called cures aren’t even cures at all. In fact, there’s a very real chance that they’re making things worse.

10 Having Lots Of Sex

Having a great sex life is supposed to be the high score bonus on the game of life. Not only are you obviously charming, attractive, and witty enough to be bedding a string of supermodels, you’re also having lots of really good sex. So let’s say you looked at the psychological makeup of a modern Casanova, what would you expect to find?

How about a seething mass of anxiety and depression? A recent study surveyed 3,900 college students about their mental well-being as well as their tendency to leap into bed with strangers. They found elevated levels of anxiety, social anxiety, and depression among those who frequently engaged in casual sex.

Before you all write in complaining we’ve ruined yet another pastime for you, we should point out that this is a bit of a “chicken and egg” scenario—the researchers didn’t determine whether sex caused depression or depression triggered a desire to lose yourself in sex. Whichever way around it is, it means there’s a very real possibility that Hugh Hefner is the most miserable man on Earth.

9 Being Filthy Rich

Right after “an incredible sex life,” the second thing most of us would probably wish for if we ever met a genie is to be absolutely, stinking rich. After all, money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure makes misery a lot more comfortable, right?

Sorry, wrong again. We’ve all heard the horror stories about the lottery winners who wound up utterly miserable, but current research suggests even those who start out rich are prone to mental illness. Specifically, children of parents earning over $159,000 a year have been found dangerously prone to anxiety, depression, self-harm, and drug abuse. Only kids from the very poorest families were found to be more at risk than these real-life Richie Rich’s, so what’s going on?

It comes down to the sort of people who are likely to wind up earning over $150,000 a year—highly motivated, ruthlessly driven types with little time for failure in others. In other words, the exact sort of people who are likely to gift to their children a great big bag of neuroses from their first Little League game onward. All this pressure to do well and become a major stockbroker like Daddy manifests itself in a crippling fear of failure.

8 Being Vegetarian

While it may not quite rank up there with winning the lottery or being chased by crowds of screaming groupies, a vegetarian diet is thought of as shorthand for “wholesome and healthy.” By circumnavigating the excess fat and cancer-giving properties of meat, vegetarians seem to be in an ideal position to live long, happy lives making tie-dye shirts and voting Democrat and whatnot—except science suggests otherwise.

A recent German study analyzed the diets and mental health of 4,000 participants using people from all walks of life. The results were surprising, to say the least. Vegetarians were more likely to suffer from anxiety, hypochondria, depression, and even stuff like body dysmorphia than their meat-eating counterparts.

This wasn’t just a mild statistical anomaly, either—the study participants were twice as likely to be mentally ill as the general population, and three times more likely than the study control group. Again, no one’s sure if vegetarianism causes all this misery, or if miserable people are just more likely to ditch the meat, but if you’ve ever needed a scientifically-backed excuse to justify your five-steak-a-day habit, this is it.

7 Not Getting Drunk

Alcohol and depression go together like Glenn Beck and populist extremism. Aside from being a depressant, our favorite liquid drug is also highly addictive, incredibly damaging to the body, and more socially damaging than even crack or heroin. It makes sense to assume, then, that teetotalers will be free from the fog of guilt and misery that binge-drinkers are forced to wade through every Saturday morning. Well, prepare to be shocked.

A Norwegian study recently compared the mental health and drinking habits of an astonishing 38,000 people. Although the research team found that heavy drinking corresponded to high levels of anxiety, the opposite was true of depression. The respondents who exercised rigorous self-control were apparently less happy than those who woke up each morning in a pool of vomit.

The theory goes that those who never drink but live in “drinking cultures” are less likely to forge strong social bonds with people than those who are happy to relax a little with a beer. While we’d never recommend that anyone do a Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, it does seem that total abstinence is a recipe for disaster.

6 Being Religious

We’re used to thinking of religion as a great comfort. After all, when little Timmy’s dog dies, is he gonna feel better hearing that he’s now in doggy heaven, or that he’s a cold and lifeless husk you’ll probably throw out with the trash? For all atheists like to find fault with all aspects of it, surely religion at least has a net effect on happiness.

It’s a nice thought, but that’s sadly all it is. A study published earlier this year followed 8,000 people from different religions, countries, and socioeconomic backgrounds for over six months and charted their vulnerability to depression. It found that the more strongly religious someone was, the more likely they were to experience major depression. At the same time, those whose beliefs changed during the course of the study were also assessed. The ones who dumped their religion to become atheists generally got happier, the ones who dumped their atheism to become religious generally got sadder. On almost every criteria, the devout were shown as being worse off than those who were either secular or “weakly” religious. In short, it seems that any faith claiming to be a path to happiness is unfortunately mistaken.

5 Playing Sports

Exercise is supposed to have a positive effect on the brain, and team sports are surely good for at least making friends and feeling part of a group. So what’s all this nonsense about sport causing depression?

Specifically, researchers looked into the mental health of current and former college athletes and found that those still “in the game” were up to twice as likely to be depressed as those who had graduated. In their hypothesis, the researchers stated that they expected to find former stars—now deprived of their teammates, coaches, and the thrill of the game—struggling with major depression. But their findings suggested the complete opposite.

Like the rich kids one above, it more than likely comes down to the insane pressure college athletes are under. Aside from having to deal with studying, they’ve also got to play their best, not let their team down, and try to reach the very top—all goals that can cause major stress if missed. In spite of what common sense may tell you, sport is no more a guaranteed key to happiness than, say—buying a new pair of Levi’s.

4 Going Shopping

You’ve probably heard of “retail therapy,” the idea that the best way to unwind from a stressful week is to go and splurge your paycheck on a really expensive pair of shoes. It’s a staple of consumerism, the driving force behind stuff like Christmas and 80 percent of all Sex and the City storylines—and according to science, it’s making you totally miserable.

A recent study in the Netherlands followed 2,500 people over six years to gauge their shopping habits and happiness. They found that materialistic people were more likely to be lonely, because shopping creates a “loop of loneliness” that makes them more depressed the more they do it.

The problem comes down to our culture of consumerism. Thanks to decades of advertising, we’re taught to associate certain values with certain products. When we’re unable to afford one of these items or have to spend more than we should to get it, we wind up feeling anxious, isolated from our peers, and miserable. It turns out that retail therapy is less cathartic and more systematically destroying any chance you have at happiness.

3 Listening To Music

It’s not uncommon to hear nostalgic music critics talking about the song or album “that saved their life.” It’s a feeling everyone can understand—that moment when you hear a snatch of song that somehow reminds you that things aren’t quite as crappy as they often seem. Therefore, it can come as a bit of a shock to learn listening to music can apparently make you prone to depression.

In 2011, a University of Pittsburgh study categorized teens by the amount of time they spent listening to music and compared it to their mental well-being. They found that for every increased level of listening, their risk of depression increased by 80 percent. This is almost the exact opposite effect that reading had, with teens becoming 50 percent less likely to be miserable with each level of increased reading time. In fact, music was found to be the pastime most linked with depression, beating out even TV in the sadness stakes.

Why would this be? Are all the teens in Pittsburgh listening to non-stop Radiohead or something? Well, that’s the thing—we don’t know. Perhaps modern music is just too consistently miserable, or perhaps depressed teenagers are simply more likely to try to escape through music. All we can say for sure is that the bouncy guy on the bus with happy hardcore blaring out his earphones is probably more depressed than the girl sat next to him reading the collected works of Franz Kafka.

2 Voting Democrat

According to The New York Times, conservatives are measurably happier than liberals and have been for years. A 2006 Pew study found self-professed conservatives were 68 percent more likely than left-leaning Democrats to say they were “very happy,” with single, childless liberals being the most miserable of all. A similar partisan happiness gap has been consistently reported for decades (LINK 16). In other words, the simple fact that you’d take Ronald Reagan over Bill Clinton means you’re less likely to be depressed.

So what causes all this liberal misery? Well, no one’s really sure. In 2008, Pew suggested it might be because Republicans are more likely to be rich and religious—a statement that flatly contradicts two items in our list so far. Others have claimed conservatives simply have a sunnier outlook, while yet others have noted that liberals are statistically less likely to get married.

However, before you GOP types start celebrating, you should be aware that there’s one type of liberal happier than you are. According to the same studies, people on the extreme left are happier than everyone except the craziest right-wing extremists, meaning that both the Tea Party and Occupy are enjoying life far more most of us in the middle.

1 Being Social On The Internet

Are you the type of person who will finish reading this, scroll down, and leave a comment? We’ve got some bad news—you’re objectively more likely to be lonely and miserable than the guy who just skims and moves on.

A recent study analyzed the Internet usage of a cohort of depressed and non-depressed people and found that unhappy people use the Internet differently from anyone else. Specifically, they were more likely to engage in peer-to-peer usage like sharing photos, music, and opinions through Facebook, chat rooms, and message boards. Healthy people, on the other hand, were less likely to obsessively check their email, spend time on social networks, and sit up late at night reading list-based articles.

This kind of goes against everything we think we know about the Internet. The whole social media interaction thing is supposed to make us less lonely and more connected—hence, everyone seeming to have more Facebook friends than there are people on the planet. However, a huge body of research suggests this view is outdated nonsense. So there you have it: The secret to happiness on the internet is to simply ignore all the angry idiots out there and get on with own thing. Who’d have thought it?

In the heat of video game competition, people will do strange things and may even act violently. Sometimes, they don’t think before they act. Other times, people are already violent and use video games as a means to let out their aggression.

This is certainly not exclusive to video games. But as a relatively new medium, they have come under extreme scrutiny in the media due to the violence portrayed in many games.

However, most media—from books to movies—was analyzed by the public when first introduced. The more unfamiliar something is, the more frightening it can be. In the same way, the more immersive media has become, the more concerned people have felt over its effect on the human mind.

10 Pavel Mateev

A 15-year-old Russian boy named Pavel Mateev was quite fond of video games. Some might say he was addicted to them. Or at least that’s what Russian new sites claimed after Mateev seemingly inflicted fatal wounds to his own head with a chainsaw after losing at a computer game. Apparently, Mateev spent several hours at the computer at a time playing the game that his mother had bought for him.

Russia has several “death groups” that try to convince young teens and children to commit suicide while playing video games. So investigators are currently looking into whether Mateev was goaded into committing suicide. According to reports, he went into his yard, “switched on a chainsaw, and sawed off his own head.”^[1]

9 David Katz

David Katz was a 24-year-old man from Baltimore, Maryland, who was participating in a “Madden NFL 19” video game tournament in Jacksonville. According to the authorities, Katz pulled a gun and opened fire on the other tournament goers after he lost.

He murdered two innocent men—22-year-old Elijah Clayton and 28-year-old Taylor Robertson—and injured several other people before turning the gun on himself. Authorities said that Katz intentionally targeted the competitive gamers because he walked past other patrons without shooting them.^[2]

The tragic event was broadcast on Twitch.

8 Tyrone Spellman

“I’ve been doing this 13 years, and this is one of the few cases that’s ever left me at a loss for words. There’s never a good reason for [murder], but this is just the pettiest of reasons,” said prosecutor James Berardinelli.

Tyrone Spellman was a 27-year-old man living with his children and girlfriend in 2006. He was playing video games when his one-year-old daughter Alayiah Turman was crawling around on the floor and pulled down his Xbox console.

Spellman flew into a rage and beat the infant in the head five times. He cracked her skull in several places, which resulted in her death. Spellman was charged with murder and sentenced to the maximum 22.5–45 years in prison. Initially, he had confessed to the police. Later, he said that his statement was coerced and that he was trying to protect his partner, Mia Turman.^[3]

7 Johnathan Fair

Johnathan Fair was babysitting four-year-old Skylar Mendez for his girlfriend. When Skylar died under his watch, her family had an autopsy done. It revealed that she had been brutally beaten to death.

The 19-year-old Fair claimed that the toddler had just hit her head, but he also admitted to shaking her hard. He took her to the hospital after she passed out. Skylar died a few days later.

Fair was charged with murder and is currently being held on a $5 million bond. Authorities stated that they believe Fair beat the child because she spilled juice on his Xbox. If convicted, he could face 60 years to life in prison. Fair’s defense attorney, Sam Amirante, stated that his client “will be acquitted [when] the real facts come out.”

The family set up a GoFundMe page for Skylar’s funeral expenses. On the page, her family stated, “Our beautiful niece Skyler only 4-year-old had a tragic accident. At her early age, God had called for her. Unfortunately for a tragedy like this, we were not financially prepared.”^[4]

6 Alexandra Tobias

Alexandra Tobias and her three-month-old son, Dylan Lee Edmondson, were living together in Jacksonville, Florida. Dylan started crying while Alexandra was playing FarmVille which caused Alexandra to fly into a rage. She picked up the baby and started shaking him violently. Then she went outside and enjoyed a cigarette before going back inside to shake the baby again.

He was later taken to the hospital for his head injuries. There, he passed away from head trauma.

At first, Alexandra told the police that Dylan had fallen and hit his head after the dog knocked him off the couch. The police didn’t buy it, and Alexandra was arrested. She pled guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The judge presiding over her trial said, “He who is the most defenseless among us was murdered by his own mommy. And why? Because he was crying during a game of FishVille or FarmVille or whatever was going on during Facebooking time that day.”^[5]

5 Chuang

Chuang, an 18-year-old living in Taiwan, had booked a private room at a Taiwan Internet cafe to play the game Diablo 3 for the next 40 hours. He didn’t eat and fell asleep at his table. An attendant woke him. Chuang stood up and took a few steps before collapsing on the ground. He was taken to the hospital and declared dead soon after arriving. It is believed that he had suffered from a blood clot after sitting for so long.

Afterward, a spokesman for the game developer Blizzard stated:

We’re saddened to hear this news, and our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time. We don’t feel it would be appropriate for us to comment further without knowing all of the circumstances involved. While we recognize that it’s ultimately up to each individual or their parent or guardian to determine playing habits, we feel that moderation is clearly important and that a person’s day-to-day life should take precedence over any form of entertainment.^[6]

4 Patricia Waible

Patricia Waible, a nurse’s aide at a VA hospital, was responsible for checking up on Vietnam vet Bill Nutter. He had heart problems that put him at high risk for cardiac arrest. He could barely whisper after a surgery, he had both legs amputated due to diabetes, and he suffered from neuropathy in his hands. As a result, he couldn’t press a call button.

Waible was supposed to look in on him hourly, but she spent hours playing video games instead. She never looked in on Bill even once. After his death, Waible was transferred to a job in the cafeteria. Later, she was suspended with pay. A criminal investigation was opened on the VA hospital after multiple families came forward, suspecting the hospital of mistreating or neglecting patients.

“My dad might not have lived another five months, who knows? But if we could have had another month with him—this lady took that away,” Bill’s daughter stated.^[7]

3 Kim Jae-beom And Kim Yun-jeong

Kim Jae-beom and Kim Yun-jeong were a couple who had met in an online chat room. After the birth of their daughter, Kim Sa-rang, whose name means “love” in Korean, the couple began to frequent Internet cafes for up to 10 hours at a time. During this time, the infant would be left almost completely unsupervised, although the couple would drop by occasionally to give the infant powdered milk.

Kim Yun-jeong began to notice that her daughter was losing weight but didn’t do anything about it. The couple came home one day after a 12-hour gaming session to find Kim Sa-rang dead.^[8]

They reported her death to the police. The officers immediately became suspicious due to the three-month-old’s malnourished body. Kim Sa-rang had weighed 2.9 kilograms (6.4 lb) when she was born. When she died, she was 2.5 kilograms (5.5 lb). The couple was arrested and pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.

When asked if he had anything to say, the father responded, “I think of our baby in Heaven. I will be guilty until the day I die.”

2 Hsieh

In an Internet cafe in Taiwan, a 32-year-old man called Hsieh booked a room in 2015. Hsieh was a regular at this cafe. According to his family, he would disappear for days at a time.

When staff at the Internet cafe saw Hsieh lying down, they initially thought he was sleeping. But he had actually been dead for several hours. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. It is believed that Hsieh experienced cardiac arrest caused by exhaustion.

An Internet cafe attendant told reporters: “Hsieh was a regular customer here and always played for consecutive days. When tired, he would sleep facedown on the table or doze off slumped in his chair. That is why we were not aware of his condition in the beginning.”^[9]

1 Malik Terrell

Malik Terrell was a 21-year-old man living in Milwaukee. Terrell’s brothers believed that 15-year-old Dennis King had conspired with another boy to steal their video game system. The siblings questioned King about their missing game system and started beating King to get him to confess.

Malik Terrell beat King over the head with a hammer and stabbed him in the neck.^[10] Then they used a garbage cart to move King’s body to an abandoned house and set the corpse on fire.

The 15-year-old’s family reported him missing. Just a few weeks later, King’s body was found. Malik Terrell had fled from Milwaukee to Chicago but was arrested nonetheless. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole.

The humble sausage, or “banger” as the British have fondly named it, is eaten and enjoyed by millions worldwide. Sometimes people do more with sausages than just eat them, though—to the point where it becomes bizarre and entertaining.

10Sausage Addiction

It takes insight and strength of character for a drug addict to admit his problem and try to turn his life around. One such brave soul is David Harding, who has come out as hopelessly addicted to sausages. Harding says he urgently needs counselling to save him from the dire consequences of sausage abuse.

Like many an addict, David has a stockpile of his forbidden fix stashed in his freezer. This precaution mostly keeps withdrawal symptoms at bay, but when his stock runs low he flies into panic mode. According to David: “I genuinely cannot bear the thought of living without sausages.”

Determined to duel with his demons, David has spent over $2,000 to treat his addiction, unhappily without complete success so far. He eats up to 13 sausages a day and is often left guiltily searching for more. Addicts tend to have their favorite drug and David’s favorite sausages are McWhinney’s Irish Pork Sausages.

David’s psychiatrist, who appears quite knowledgeable on what he should do with his sausage, has given his professional opinion that the addiction is not physical. But the real expert is Kevin McWhinney, the managing director of McWhinney’s Sausages. He has displayed his sausage to millions of people around the world and stated: “We are pleased that this gentleman likes our sausages, but wish him well in his quest to control his habit.”

9Sausage Worship

Krod Yotchomrang was preparing her family’s evening meal when she discovered the corpse of a kitten inside a sausage, later saying that she almost threw up at the sight. Most Thai grannies would throw a fit and demand compensation, but Krod was no ordinary old lady. She decided to make a small shrine for the poor dead kitten, then light some sweet-smelling incense and pray before it.

Word spread and friends, neighbors, and even people she didn’t know turned up to visit the shrine. Unexpectedly, they started reporting amazing turns for the better after praying there. Krod and her friends allegedly won money on several lottery tickets, proving that the Shrine of the Holy Sausage brought good luck.

Local sour-puss officials soon began an investigation into the incident. They were skeptical about the good luck angle and perplexed as to how the kitten became sausage-ified. After initial suspicions that the manufacturer was mixing unwholesome ingredients in their sausage, investigators came to the conclusion that the kitten had somehow managed to sneak into a pipeline at the sausage factory.

What could have been a serious matter somehow resulted in a fairy-tale ending, and the shrine is likely to remain a lucky tourist attraction for a long, long time. Way to go, Saint Kitty.

8Sexist Sausage

What does a male sausage look like? Would you be offended if male sausage was on display in your supermarket? These are valid questions, believe it or not, because the German Edeka supermarket chain now has male and female sausages for sale. This has caused offense to sensitive souls, who are incensed that Frauen (female) sausages are “lean” and half the size of their Männer (male) counterparts. To make matters worse, the female sausages are more expensive. Female sausage apparently has higher quality meat.

Among those who object to this gender-specific marketing is the political scientist Antje Schrupp, who explained: “Of course you can react to it as if it’s just a joke, and presumably most sausage-buyers will do that. But your choice of name and accompanying advertising is still the expression and promotion of a—in the best case—thoughtless normative sexism, which gives each gender a ‘right’ role to play, with a built-in hierarchy.” It is alleged that the sausage campaign suggests that men should eat large quantities of meat, while women should eat less and watch their weight.

Journalist Susanne Enz also complained, stating that the implication is that: “Women are there to please, while men are allowed to enjoy.” Some observers were perplexed at all the fuss, pointing out that women could just as easily buy the Männer sausages.

Will Edeka supermarket relent and equalize the sexes? Only time will tell. For now, male and female sausages remain on the shelves, but you should make sure to be seen eating both so you don’t look sexist.

7Sausage For The Birds

A barbecue is a great way to entertain friends and share a meal. Uninvited guests are normally welcome—when the guest is a bird looking for a free handout. In Australia the bird is often a meat-eating kookaburra. This weird bird looks somewhat like an over-sized kingfisher, but is probably best known for a call that sounds like laughter. But don’t take it personally if a kookaburra laughs at you. Perhaps she just wants a piece of sausage.

In 2010, a kookaburra was found unable to fly and taken to Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Although it was initially assumed that the bird had a broken wing, further investigation revealed that Kookie weighed a hefty 540 grams (19 ounces)—40 percent heavier than a normal kookaburra. She was simply too fat to fly and this time it was, for a change, humans who laughed at the kookaburra.

But the situation was really no laughing matter. Kookie became obese from eating too many sausage barbeque handouts and had to be saved when attacked by dogs. Zoo officials warned that people are killing creatures with kindness: “I’ve seen many kookaburras, but never before have I seen one so fat. In the wild she’d eat a whole small animal [and] get a balanced diet. Butchers’ sausages are just too much of a good thing.”

The bird was put on a sausage-free diet to shed the excess weight and learn to fly again. Perhaps Kookie simply thinks there’s nothing unusual about lazing at a barbecue, stuffing her mouth with sausage, and laughing at corny jokes. Anything else is for the birds and Kookie seems quite human.

6Sausage Duel

A man brandishing his sausage like a weapon is normally just looking for trouble, but in the case of Rudolf Virchow, using sausage in a threatening manner may actually have saved his life when he was about to be killed in a duel. But let’s backtrack a little to explain.

Otto von Bismarck was a Prussian statesman who dominated European affairs from about 1860 to 1890. But in 1865, a pesky scientist and opposition politician, Rudolph Virchow, had challenged his authority by protesting against Bismarck’s excessive military budget.

We all know people like Virchow, who are always pouncing on every little detail to make you look stupid. When Virchow investigated a typhus outbreak he conducted a statistical analysis of who became ill and where they lived. He also collected details on their education, income, housing conditions, etc. After much serious analysis Virchow concluded that the spread of typhus was caused by overcrowding—which was in turn caused by poverty, which was caused by limited education opportunities, which were caused by the lack of democracy in a Germany led by Otto von Bismark. Therefore Bismark, by Virchow’s inescapable logic, was causing typhus epidemics. How could Bismarck defend his honor against such accusations?

In frustration, Bismarck challenged Virchow to a duel. This was not good news for Virchow. Bismark was an excellent shot and Virchow’s knowledge of pistols was shaky at best—he was surely a dead man. But Virchow wasn’t finished yet. He had intelligence…and sausages!

Details are sketchy, but several biographies relate that Virchow, being the challenged party, was entitled to choose the weapons for the duel, and that he prepared two sausages to be used for the event.

One sausage was normal and the other, though appearing identical, was loaded with deadly Trichinella larvae. Bismarck was to choose a sausage and eat it and Virchow would eat the remaining sausage. With his cunning sausage strategy, Virchow had improved his survival chances to an even 50 percent. Bismarck, perhaps reluctantly, withdrew his challenge and Virchow’s sausage saved his life.

5Degree In Sausage

The sausage capital of the world is now officially Germany after the establishment of a “Sausage Academy,” where students may earn a certificate in their favorite meaty treat. The sausage Hogwarts is based in Neumarkt and offers the opportunity to become sausage experts, knowledgeable about the ideal lagers, mustards, and music to best accompany different varieties of sausage. Dedicated students may even proceed to take a master’s course in Germany’s holy grail of sausage: the Bavarian White. Are you also drooling at the mere thought of education?

It’s unclear whether regular free samples to students are a major reason for enlisting, but to date 1,300 students have earned certificates and academy principal Wittmann boasts: “I have students from all over the world and I am glad to be spreading the good news about German sausage.”

4Sausage Museum

Tourists can visit museums of natural history, law enforcement, computers, and a thousand other fascinating exhibits—but the very latest in cool and awesome is to be found in Berlin, where a typical takeout food is currywurst, a pork sausage served with spicy curried ketchup. This popular sausage has a fascinating history and now tourists can learn all about this cultural wonder at the Currywurst Museum.

The sausage museum is interactive and assails all the senses. There is a spice chamber, sniffing stations, and a sausage sofa in the middle of a sauce stream where one may indulge in gigantic fries and, of course, samples of currywurst.

There are exhibits of ways the sausage is sold, from street vendors to the counters of clubs and bars. You can learn about the origin of spices matched to particular types of sausage and about eating habits, biodegradable disposable tableware, and how film and television has portrayed this legendary Berlin specialty. The museum is clearly the ultimate in cool, whether you are a novice or a big-time sausage expert.

3Longest Sausage

It’s official. It’s unbreakable. It’s ridiculous. The record for the longest sausage ever made is 59.14 kilometers (36.75 mi) long. At normal walking pace, it would take you 20 hours non-stop to walk from beginning to end.

The proud maker of this record-breaking sausage was J.J. Tranfield of Sheffield, UK, on behalf of Asda Stores. The work took three days to complete, from October 27–29, 2000. A spokesperson for the Guinness Book of Records, Sara Wilcox, said they still get many hopefuls interested in breaking the record, but, “There are some records that have remained unbroken for many years, and this is one of them.”

Wilcox noted that Guinness distinguishes between the world’s largest sausage based on weight and based on length. There are also other variations such as the “longest vegetarian sausage” (100 meters/331 ft 4 in), “longest smoked sausage” (482 meters/1,581 ft 5 in), and “longest sausage chain” (1,500 meters/4,921 ft 3 in).

2Most Sausages Eaten In One Minute

Some people love to eat slowly and savor their meal like a fine wine. Others devour their food like pigs. Of course the latter is usually seen as a social faux pas—unless you’re seeking fame and fortune, in which case it is high time to stuff your face with sausage.

In particular, this is the basis of the world record for the most sausages eaten in one minute. The current record-holder is Stefan Paladin of New Zealand, who ate a whacking eight whole sausages at the Ericsson Stadium in Auckland on July 22, 2001. That’s a complete sausage every 7.5 seconds! Each sausage was 10 centimeters (4 in) in length and 2 centimeters (0.8 in) wide.

Whether Stefan is some sort of mutant or just has a tin throat is unknown, but all subsequent attempts to beat his record have failed miserably. One such attempt, also in New Zealand, found most contestants unable to eat even two sausages in a minute. The winner of that particular event managed a whopping four sausages to win a prize, but it is clear that even dedicated sausage addicts balk at the prospect of eight sausages a minute. Becoming world famous is not as simple as it used to be, but if you love sausage, it’s still fun to try.

1Hairy Sausage

The weirdest-looking sausage on the planet has to be the haired sausage, first made in Russia. It’s very unusual and just plain ugly, but people seem to love this new dish, which became popular after Russian bloggers spread the word online. Who invented it is unknown, but it is made by sticking lengths of hard spaghetti into a sausage, making it look somewhat like a hedgehog. This marvelous gastronomic masterpiece is then boiled in water and voila! The hairy sausage has been created.

The appearance of the haired sausage on the internet has caused a wave of interest and it’s surely only a matter of time before you find this shaggy delicacy on your plate. More and more people are experimenting with their own versions of the haired frankfurter. Perhaps you should too. Bald sausage is so boring.

+Racing Sausage Stolen

In 2013, some hardened criminals stole the costume for Guido, an Italian sausage which belongs to the Milwaukee Brewers’ beloved Racing Sausages. These larger-than-life sausage costumes are worn by people who race around a track to the cheers of sausage lovers in the stands. The stolen sausage costume was spotted in several local bars before disappearing.

The news caused consternation in Milwaukee and a year’s supply of mustard was offered as a reward for whoever returned the costume. Detectives undoubtedly worked day and night on the investigation, but the sausage-napping case of the century remained unsolved for two weeks.

Then, possibly because the police were closing in on the culprits, the $3,000 sausage costume was dropped off at a bar by two people, who warned witnesses that they “did not see anything.” It appears the sausage thieves will not claim the reward. The case of the missing sausage may be forever unsolved and may yet join the ranks of Jack the Ripper and Atlantis.

Think on this at your next barbecue or duel to the death, or when next a kookaburra laughs at you: Sausage has become an integral part of our culture and way of life. After all, every young man loves his sausage and every young woman likewise.

It is interesting that we deem a disorder or disease “bizarre” precisely because of its rarity. One disease may be more visually repulsive than another, but in the end, we’re most impressed by whichever rare disorder we just don’t understand. If brains that block fear or stomachs that brew beer were as common as the cold, maybe they wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. But for now, they seem like examples of some of the very strange conditions that the human body can experience.

10 Walking Dead Syndrome

When the brain is injured in any way, the result can very easily become the stuff of science fiction or horror. Walking Dead syndrome (also called “Cotard Delusion,” after French doctor Jules Cotard) makes sufferers think they have died or are rotting away. The delusion is caused by the degeneration of neuronal synapses due to Alzheimer’s, brain trauma, or any of quite a few other disorders. The decay leads to a breakdown in the neuron chain between the facial recognition and emotion centers of the brain. Some victims of this delusion become convinced that because they are dead, there is no longer any point in eating, and they starve to death.

One of the best known recent examples is that of a Scotsman, identified as “WI,” who suffered severe brain trauma in a motorcycle accident. After receiving a clean bill of health and leaving an Edinburgh hospital, he went to South Africa for a vacation. By the time he arrived, he had convinced himself that he was dead and had gone to hell. South Africa’s heat seems to confirm the idea.

WI figured he had died from the brain injury, or from septicemia, or from AIDS—he considered AIDS a possibility only because he’d read an article on it not long before his accident. He even believed that his mother, accompanying him during the trip, was not actually with him. He thought that she was asleep in Scotland, and he’d stolen her soul to use as transportation around hell.

9 Pediatric Myelofibrosis

This disease is not particularly weird, but it’s extremely rare. Myelofibrosis is a bone marrow disorder, and though it affects thousands of adults, only 50 cases of its pediatric version have been documented throughout all of history. The disease causes bone marrow to produce excess fibrous connective tissue, which inhibits the marrow’s production of blood cells. The symptoms include general and severe fatigue, infection susceptibility that usually results in pneumonia, gout, shortness of breath, easy bruising, enlarged spleen, and—at all times—bone pain.

One of the disease’s rare sufferers is 16-year-old Lukas Larsson of Colorado, who was not born with myelofibrosis but acquired it at about the age of 15. He was not diagnosed for a full year, and there is now only one way for him to survive: a complete bone marrow transplantation. Without a transplant, this disease is nearly always fatal, so all the marrow in every bone in his body must be taken out and replaced with marrow from donors.

8 Encephalotrigeminal Angiomatosis

This is also called Sturge-Weber syndrome, and although doctors know precisely what causes it, they are powerless to stop it from happening. A gene mutation hits the sufferer while still in the womb, leading to excess blood vessels just under the skin on the side of the face. The classic symptom for a newborn is a “port wine” birthmark across the forehead and one eye (similar to Mikhail Gorbachev’s famous birthmark, though he does not have this disorder).

The extra blood vessels under the sufferer’s skin surround the trigeminal nerve, which happens to be the primary nerve responsible for headaches. Other symptoms include excess blood vessels in the brain’s inner lining, severe mental retardation, and intense glaucoma in about half of cases. Glaucoma is excessive pressure in the eyes, which eventually leads to blindness by squeezing the eyeball. In cases of Sturge-Weber, the pressure can become so great that it forces the eyeball out of the socket.

The excess blood vessels over the brain kill large tracts of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex. This causes severe convulsions that can make the victim to “jackknife” or bend sharply backward, risking damage to the spine and back muscles. The only treatment to combat these convulsions is surgery to remove the affected brain areas.

7 Gut Fermentation Syndrome

This may sound wonderful on the surface. Eat anything you want, and that food will make you drunk—very drunk, if you eat as much carbohydrates as most of us. But extreme drunkenness precedes extreme hangovers. Add in the frustration of everyone thinking you’ve been drinking and are lying about it, and you have the case of a 61-year-old Texas man from earlier this year. For five years, he’d routinely gotten drunk without actually imbibing any alcohol at all. His and his wife were both baffled and even bought their own home Breathalyzer test.

In September, he checked into the emergency room with a blood alcohol level of 0.37, nearly five times the legal level for intoxication. He insisted he was a teetotaler, and the doctors laughed, but they placed him under observation. Twenty-four hours later, having had no alcohol, he was still falling-down drunk.

Then the doctors found out why. His stomach does not digest the sugars in carbohydrates; it ferments them. Excess yeast grows in response to any starchy food and then converts the starch into ethanol before his stomach digests it. Assuming a healthy diet, this would enable a person to stay drunk almost all the time without developing a beer gut from booze’s empty calories. Alcohol’s effect on the liver, however, would very much still be a problem.

For now, “auto-brewery syndrome” syndrome is so rare that the few papers written on the subject have to specifically request that doctors take it seriously.

6 Microcephaly Capillary Malformation Syndrome

There are only 11 known cases of this disorder. One of its victims is Finn Straub of Connecticut, whose parents were told he would die before his first birthday. He had his second birthday in September and is still alive, which is almost unheard of given the disorder. But if he should survive well into his childhood or beyond, he will never have an IQ much higher than 30.

“Microcephaly” means Finn’s brain and cranium did not develop completely in utero. “Capillary malformation” means his blood vessels have branched excessively and lie too close to the epidermis, giving his whole body small “port wine” birthmarks. These capillary malformations aren’t fatal, but a brain so severely underdeveloped results in a wide variety of problems we don’t normally think of. His heart can’t carry fluid away from the chest cavity, his body is so weak that he can barely move his head, and he doesn’t even have the energy to cry.

This syndrome is totally genetic and yet so rare that it is impossible to predict before conception.

5 Osteogenesis Imperfecta

You might recognize this disorder from the Shyamalan film Unbreakable, but it’s real and affects one in 20,000 people. With this disorder, the body manufactures insufficient or defective collagen. Bones therefore break very easily, giving the disease the nickname “brittle bone disease.”

Samuel L. Jackson’s Unbreakable character suffers from Type 1 of OI. He tells Bruce Willis’s character that there are four types, and those with Type 4 “don’t last very long.” Actually, there are eight types, and Type 2 is the most severe. With Type 1, bones form but break as easily as glass. The body grows slowly and rarely attains average height, the spine permanently curves from weak joint tissue, and the sense of hearing often breaks down. Type 2 has more intense versions of all these symptoms, and most victims die within their first year of life.

Adults with Type 2 are extremely rare, but all sufferers have to take extreme precaution in their daily lives. Such is the case with Ellen Dollar, who broke three dozen bones before turning 12 and then went on to have a daughter who also suffers from the condition. Her daughter one day tried holding a laptop with one hand. Its weight snapped both of her forearm bones.

4 Body Integrity Identity Disorder

People with this disorder want a body part amputated because they feel a constant sense that it doesn’t belong to them. Unlike apotemnophilia, a sexual fetish involving oneself as an amputee, BIID is likened to gender identity disorder, which seems to be more common. It may also be a psychosis linked to a fault in the brain’s body mapping center. This center in the right parietal lobe determines our definitions of “personal space,” and if anything undesirable ventures into your personal space, alarm bells sound. Those who suffer from BIID feel as though a body part, usually a limb, is an alien object that has invaded their space.

Most victims don’t go all the way with this delusion and have the body part cut off, and even fewer do the surgery themselves—this would set off entirely different alarm bells in the brain’s fear centers. But it does happen. In 2000, Scottish surgeon Dr. Robert Smith agreed to cut off the healthy legs of two different people who threatened to otherwise do the deed themselves. He claimed that to defy such a threat would be a crime against the Hippocratic Oath.

3 Cancer Of The Teeth

It is difficult to determine the very rarest form of cancer, but it may be malignant primary cardiac sarcoma, or heart cancer. It is theoretically possible to develop cancer in any part of the body made up of living tissue, from red or white blood cells to the neurons of the brain. Cancer of the teeth is also perfectly possible, since the teeth receive blood flow. But it’s so rare that any case receives global medical scrutiny, fascinating doctors the way the moon landing thrilled the public.

Tooth cancer’s technical term is “gigantiform cementoma.” It begins as a tumor in the tooth and, if unchecked, grows until it takes over the entire face. Because of its rarity, it almost always remains unnoticed until it manifests itself as a grotesque swelling around the mouth, either in the chin or jaw, or in the cheek.

The most well-known case is that of Novemthree Siahaan from Batam Island, Indonesia, who died at the age of six. When his family took him to Taiwanese doctors, the nearest ones who handle the problem, they immediately undertook surgery to remove the tumors. These four tumors had spread from tooth to tooth and then to all facial tissues and bones. They’d become so large that they completely obscured Siahaan’s sight in both eyes and shut off his sinus cavities. He could only drink water by looking straight up so the fluid would run down his throat on its own.

2 Crimean-Congolese Hemorrhagic Fever

CCHF’s pathology is similar to that of Ebola, but virologists who have observed its firsthand claim that Ebola pales in comparison. The CCHF mortality rate if treated is an extraordinarily high 30 percent. This is because CCHF, like Ebola, kills by liquefying the insides, but it gestates much faster than Ebola. It melts organs, especially the liver, and it typically does this faster than the immune system can get a handle on it.

The disease is spread by Hyalomma ticks. It’s the only viral disease on this list, and antibiotics are useless against a virus. After only one to three days, flu-like symptoms begin. External signs of hemorrhaging begin within three to five days if the first symptoms are not dealt with. Lesions on the inside of the throat eventually erupt, risking death by drowning you in your own blood. General mental confusion follows, with blood from the nose and in the vomit, urine, and feces.

Because the body attempts coagulation everywhere at once, it runs out of platelets and hemorrhages from the mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and even pores. With good treatment and a strong immune system, most victims should survive, but recovery takes about a week and a half to become noticeable. Until then, there is no telling if the victim will live or melt to death from the inside out. For the 30 percent who die, death from multiple organ failure comes in less than two weeks.

1 Cushing’s Syndrome

The common version of this syndrome isn’t too bizarre on its own. Steroid medications make the adrenal glands secrete too many corticosteroids, and doctors treat the disease by simply weaning the patient off the medication. The rarer form, however, is caused by an adrenal adenoma, a benign tumor on the adrenal gland that is usually removed with the gland. Thirty-eight-year-old Jordy Cernik suffered from adenomas on both glands and had to have both removed. Here is where it becomes bizarre: without his adrenal glands to secrete adrenaline, he is now incapable of feeling fear.

Fear can be good or bad. You ride roller coasters for the controlled thrill of almost dying , but when someone robs you at gunpoint, you must bury your fear to function. Cernik understands those situations in which he should feel fear, since he was perfectly normal before the surgery, but he simply cannot feel the sensation. Someone with Cernik’s disorder might comply with the mugger, or play dead at the feet of a bear, but they will not panic or think too quickly.

Post-surgery, Cernik went skydiving, which he says he’d earlier never have dared try. As he entered the plane, he felt nothing. As he stepped to the door at 3,000 meters (10,000 ft), he felt nothing. While he plummeted, he felt nothing. His heart rate did not fluctuate at all, because in such a situation, adrenaline is what forces the heart rate to climb. He no longer has any adrenaline.

Sounds great, but such oddities always come at a price. Adrenaline, along with endorphins, is one of only two natural analgesics produced by the body. Conditions such as minor arthritis that we can ignore cause Cernik chronic suffering. “I’m always in pain,” he claims. And adrenaline does a lot more than kill pain—those who have their adrenal glands removed frequently suffer severe and rapid weight gain.