The race to colonize Mars is ongoing. However, it is not as easy as sending over people to live in igloo cities. We’ve already discussed the obstacles that astronauts must overcome on a voyage to Mars. But there’s far more to mystify us and conquer once we get there.

The Red Planet’s geology is not fully understood, and the bits known by researchers include deadly phenomena capable of crushing the dream of human settlements. Apart from highlighting the harsh landscape, this mind-blowing world comes with epic geological mysteries and unique finds.

10 The Strange Cloud

In 2018, the Mars Express orbiter sailed past the Martian equator. Among the images beamed back was the odd photo of a cloud. The white streak stood out starkly against the red world and measured 1,500 kilometers (930 mi) long.

More curiously, it appeared to originate above a volcano. The possibility of an eruption was zero—Arsia Mons was a long-extinct volcano. In fact, the last time that Mars saw any kind of eruption was millions of years ago.

However, there was a chance that Arsia Mons spawned the vapor. Clouds often shroud the dead volcano, but the only ones resembling the 2018 fog trail are found on Earth.

Called orographic clouds, they form on the downwind side of mountains. Air gets pushed uphill where it spreads, cools, and condenses on dust particles. Oddly, clouds resembling this phenomenon have appeared near Arsia Mons’s peak every three years since 2009. The 2018 cloud fit this pattern perfectly.^[1]

9 First Wind Recording

The InSight lander touched down on Mars in 2018. The high-tech device’s main purpose was to find out more about the planet’s interior. After arriving, the lander had some free time while adjusting to its new surroundings. Scientists decided to listen to the wind on Mars, and for the first time, they managed to do so successfully.

The ultrasensitive equipment and sensors picked up sounds audible to humans as well as frequencies in the infrasound range. NASA recorded both, and the result was eerie. One researcher described it as a mix of Earth’s wind, an ocean roaring, and something else that gave it an otherworldly quality.

The wind gusts came from the northwest and blew across the lander’s solar arrays at 24 kilometers per hour (15 mph) and 16 kilometers per hour (10 mph). The recordings were made by Insight’s air pressure sensor and seismometer. When the lander’s real job began, researchers reversed their wind study and used the sensor to cancel the windy commotion because it interfered with the seismometer’s ability to probe inside the planet.^[2]

8 Fire Opals

In 1911, a Martian meteorite hit Egypt close to the village of El Nakhla El Bahariya. Thus called Nakhla, the space rock found a home at the Natural History Museum in the UK. In 2015, scientists reexamined it and found a first for Mars. The meteorite contained fire opals.

On Earth, these breathtaking gems have a warm, flame-like tint. They only form in the ocean around hydrothermal vents. This type of opal is useful to scientists because it traps microbes during formation.

This opened another avenue for looking for life on Mars. Previously, surface samples from the Red Planet suggested that opals could form in certain regions, but Nakhla provided the first direct gems.

Under a powerful microscope, the Martian opals showed that they were a couple of million or billion years old and very similar to Earth’s. Unfortunately, the slivers were too small to look for life. Future expeditions could target Mars’s opal regions for larger samples.^[3]

7 Mysterious Blueberries

In 2004, NASA’s Opportunity rover cruised around Mars. After a few months, it encountered something curious—tiny spheres—which scientists do not understand to this day. Working with false-color photographs that turned the spheres blue, researchers puzzled over the mysterious “blueberries” scattered around the Martian surface.

Which geological forces created them, and what did that reveal about the planet’s past environment?

Recently, researchers pounced on the nearest places that resembled the red wonder—Mongolia and Utah. To everyone’s excitement, they found something similar. The minuscule globes on Earth had calcite cores encased in iron and were likely shaped by a lengthy exposure to moving water. The “river pebble” look suggested that a lot of water had flooded the blueberry region.^[4]

Scientists cannot be sure of the chemical makeup of the Martian spheres. If they can crack that riddle, it might reveal the chemistry of the water that crafted them and whether the region was habitable. In other words, they may discover if the water encouraged any form of life.

6 Missing Methane

The world of space news lit up with exciting news in 2003. NASA announced the discovery of methane on Mars. The following year, this was independently confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

It seemed like a done deal in 2014 when NASA’s Curiosity rover found more of the gas on the Martian surface. The atmosphere of Mars was packed with methane. Scientists were excited because this type of organic molecule suggested the presence of life.

However, in the years that followed, the methane-rich atmosphere disappeared. In 2016, the first sobering realization happened when the ESA sent their ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to the planet. It was outfitted with ultrasensitive sensors capable of picking up trace amounts of methane.^[5]

As Mars had previously emitted copious amounts, nobody thought that TGO would report the methane missing. Two years later while still in orbit around Mars, it never detected any. TGO is not faulty, and a lot of its new data awaits crunching. It could still reveal the answer to the missing (or hidden) methane.

5 Medusae Fossae Formation

The Opportunity rover was forced into hibernation during 2018. The reason: Lethal dust storms had completely engulfed Mars. This event highlighted an old mystery. The Red Planet has too much dust.

Back on Earth, dust is the by-product of natural processes like rivers, volcanic activity, and moving glaciers. None of these are active on the Red Planet. Yet, about 3 trillion kilograms (6.6 trillion lbs) of the powdery stuff appears every year.

In 2018, researchers found the source of the endless dust. Most of it came from the Medusae Fossae Formation. When the formation was first discovered in the 1960s, nobody really knew what it was.

The massive geological formation, measuring 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) long, was identified as volcanic, which made it the biggest volcanic deposit in the solar system. Incredibly, the formation was once half the size of the United States.

Around 80 percent of its porous material had already eroded, which created an unbelievable amount of powder. This was confirmed when dust everywhere on Mars chemically matched the Medusae’s trademark sulfur-to-chlorine ratio.^[6]

4 Earthlike Water Cycle

In 2018, scientists investigated a site for a lander to park in 2020. This spot, Hypanis Valles, was once an ancient river system. During the check, the area revealed something amazing: Mars likely had a hydrological cycle that closely matched Earth’s—including a massive ocean.

The study found the largest river delta ever discovered on the Red Planet. It left trademark deposits at the mouth of the river system which could only have formed if moving water had flown into a sea. One large enough to cover a third of the planet’s north.

The presence of such big water bodies in the region had always been among the most critical mysteries regarding the geology of Mars. An ocean means that the desertlike world once had a water cycle supported by lakes, rivers, seas, and vast oceans.^[7]

Scientists believe that this system was global and worked in the same way as Earth’s until 3.7 billion years ago. A rapid decline of some sort destabilized the cycle until it failed for good. Today, the Martian surface is devoid of liquid water.

3 Curiosity’s Legacy

After years of exploring the Martian landscape, NASA’s Curiosity rover made history in 2018 and possibly solved the planet’s methane mystery. First, the samples it provided finally proved that there were biological compounds on Mars. Second, the rover’s observations gave a fair idea of where the methane went. Both developments were hailed as breakthroughs in astrobiology.

The geological samples came from mudstone regions in the Gale crater, aged around 300 million years old. They revealed organic chemistry that was nearly identical to Earth’s mudstone but came from larger, more complex materials.^[8]

Curiosity also found a pattern: The methane appeared and disappeared. Analysis showed the exciting results: The changes matched the Martian seasons. In the northern hemisphere, methane spiked in the summer and vanished during winter.

Although the dynamics remain mysterious, one theory matched the rhythm. Crystalline water structures called clathrates could be causing the annual methane shift as they seasonally lock the gas in ice and then thaw.

2 Babies On Mars

Scientists have a serious fixation about Mars colonies. The idea is to create a sustainable population and make humans a multi-planetary species. To be successful, generations must be born and raised on Mars. Nobody knows if that is even possible. The two biggest hurdles are radiation and gravity.

Astronauts already endure space radiation, and their exposure is carefully monitored. The effects on a delicate fetus could be disastrous, resulting in serious abnormalities.^[9]

Also, gravity on Mars is only 38 percent of Earth’s. Frankly, researchers do not have a clue how this might affect an unborn baby or a growing child. Tests on animals fail to yield consistent results.

Mammalian reproduction in space is proving so complex that the best theories mean nothing. Not until people have babies on Mars or human embryos are tested in space can the real effects be gauged. However, this will cause so much ethical resistance that progress in that department is basically nonexistent.

1 Martian Terraforming Is Out

If humans want to walk and breathe on Mars, the planet needs to be terraformed. This means that the extremely cold temperatures and thin atmosphere must be manipulated to suit Earthlings. The first step would be to make Mars toastier with carbon dioxide.

A 2018 study crushed that dream. There is simply not enough of the greenhouse gas. The study did a thorough check on all the planet’s carbon dioxide reservoirs locked away in rock and ice and found that, even if we released them all, it would still not be enough. Combined, the amount of gas would only triple the atmosphere’s thickness—a mere one-fiftieth of that required for terraforming.^[10]

Another hurdle is our current tech level. Even if there was enough CO₂ sealed away in the Martian landscape, humans do not have the expertise to perform what would amount to major alterations to the surface.

There is still another obstacle: Mars does not have a magnetic field strong enough to hold onto an atmosphere. Whatever CO₂ is released eventually drifts into space.

Tom Cruise. The movie star we love to hate for his oddball tendencies and commitment to scientology. Like jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch because Katie’s love gave him so much “energy”. Or professing that Scientology cured his dyslexia and refusing to have an action figure made in his likeness (he doesn’t, however, seem to have a problem being the face Disney’s Aladdin was modeled after).

Yet as much as we might like to throw shade, Cruise is one of the world’s most beloved actors. Japan loves him so much, in fact, they gave him his own holiday on 10 October. And it’s hard to argue with his very successful career. In 1996, Cruise became the first actor to star in five consecutive movies that grossed over $100 million in the United States.

His many accomplishments range from inventing the “movie star run” to earning his pilot’s license in 1994 and even saving lives in real life. On this list are 10 other things you may or may not know about this larger-than-life mega movie star.

Top 10 Awesome Films Hollywood Ruined With Lies

10 A Cruise Christmas

Cruise famously sends his co-stars and friends a “Cruise cake” every year for Christmas. The coconut and white chocolate confection is widely appreciated and fussed over by celebrities the world over. Recipients include, among others, Barbara Walters, Jimmy Kimmel, and Kirsten Dunst who co-starred with Cruise in Interview with the Vampire back in 1994. Henry Cavill also received a cake a couple of years ago and eventually devoured the whole thing by himself.

Perhaps this sweet touch harks back to his childhood. As many know, Cruise has always been open about growing up poor. The first Christmas after his parents split up, his family could not afford Christmas gifts. Instead, they picked each other’s names out of a hat and did favors for that person. In true Secret Santa style, the giver was only revealed on Christmas Day.^[1]

9 Camera-shy Cruise

It’s hard to picture the benevolent Cruise without his million-dollar movie star smile. Yet those pearly whites weren’t always there. Looking at his earlier movies, his teeth look like everyone else’s: slightly yellowed, misaligned and chipped from a hockey incident as a child.

According to the late Patrick Swayze, who co-starred with Cruise in The Outsiders, Cruise was rather camera shy. In his memoir, The Time of My Life, Swayze recalled how Cruise would avoid publicity photoshoots and harbored a deep-seated embarrassment about his grin. Fortunately for the mega movie star, money, or rather braces and veneers, can indeed buy happiness.^[2]

8 Cruise’s crazy childhood

When you consider Cruise’s troubled and sometimes traumatic childhood, it’s sometimes not hard to see why he couldn’t make his marriages work. Cruise grew up with an abusive father and has even told reporters that his old man was “a bully and a coward. He was the type of person that if something goes wrong, they kick you.”

Couple this with the fact that he was bullied at school and had trouble making friends because his family moved so often and a lot of things about the man behind the movie star start to make more sense. During his 12-year school career, Cruise attended 15 different schools and, understandably, has very few lasting relationships from back then.^[3]

7 Cruise, crash and burn

The above might also explain why he had a soft spot for Zac Efron who was in teen-star hell after the success of High School Musical. One day Cruise asked the heartthrob whether he knew how to ride a motorcycle, offered to teach him and invited him back to his house. According to Efron, Cruise showed him how a motorcycle engine works and showed off his own pristine collection. “It was just so nice that he cared at all. No one else did.”

Cruise’s love affair with motorcycles started way back when he bought a Yamaha motorcycle as a teen before he even knew how to ride it. This resulted in a not-so-surprising crash. That didn’t stop him, however, and over the next couple of years he slowly put the motorcycle back together.^[4]

6 Cruise the committed comedian

Although Cruise is best known for his action movies, he has also known success in comedic roles. He is credited for coming up with Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, even suggesting his character should be balding and have enormous hands.

In Rock of Ages, Cruise stars as Stacee Jaxx, a scene-stealing washed-up rocker whose over-the-top antics include, among other things, keeping a baboon sidekick close by at all times (also Cruise’s idea). The movie portrays not only his funny and charming side but is also a testament to his commitment. Cruise rehearsed 5 hours a day to perfect his rocker persona and technique.^[5]

10 Warnings And Messages Hidden In Films And TV Shows

5 Need for speed

Cruise is probably most famous, though, for his commitment to action movies and insisting on doing all his own stunts. The man has dangled from planes, skyscrapers, and canyon walls in the name of art and can even hold his breath for about 6 minutes (a lifetime if you’ve ever tried it yourself). While filming Days of Thunder, the daredevil drove around the track at Daytona International Speedway at an average of 205 mph. Truly impressive, considering the land speed record is 223mph!

The people at Bugatti, however, were not impressed by his performance. Not on the track but on the red carpet. In 2006, Cruise arrived at the premiere of the third Mission: Impossible instalment in his 2005 Bugatti Veyron. Everything went smoothly until he tried to open the passenger door to help Katie Holmes exit the vehicle. The door wouldn’t budge. Whether this was the fault of the car or the actor we will never know. The manufacturer, however, felt the episode reflected poorly on their craftmanship and banned Cruise from buying anything from Bugatti again.^[6]

4 Aaaaand cut!

His 30-second fumble with the Bugatti’s car door handle pales in comparison to the time it took Cruise 95 takes to nail “walking through a doorway” while filming Eyes Wide Shut, though. Again, however, it’s not clear whether the fault lay with Cruise or director Stanley Kubrick. All we know is that after watching the playback, Kubrick apparently told Cruise “hey, Tom, stick with me and I’ll make you a star.”

Eyes Wide Shut is also featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest constant movie shoot equaling 400 days.^[7]

3 33 is not his lucky number

Nicole Kidman was not only Cruise’s co-star in Eyes Wide Shut, she also married him in real life. Cruise, in fact, has been married 3 times: first to Mimi Rogers, who reportedly introduced him to Scientology; then to Kidman with whom he adopted two kids; his last marriage was with Katie Holmes with whom he has a daughter named Suri. A major movie star with 3 marriages is nothing new. Celebrities make up and break up all the time after all. There is, however, something a little weird about Cruise’s three leading ladies.

Rogers was born on 27 January 1956 while Kidman and Holmes were born on 20 June 1967 and 18 December 1978 respectively. Not only were his wives all born 11 years apart, he also divorced them whey were each 33 years old.^[8]

2 For better and for worse

Although Cruise has starred in several Academy Award-winning movies and has himself been nominated three times for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, the A-lister has never won an Oscar. His penchant for action-packed flicks that don’t tend to earn nods will probably keep him out of the winner’s circle for the foreseeable future.

Notably, Cruise is the first actor to star in a Best Picture and Worst Picture contender in the same year. While it’s not that rare for an actor to win an Academy Award as well as a Razzie Award, in 1988 Cruise became the first to feature in the best film (Rain Man) and the worst (Cocktail) in the same year.^[9]

1 Queen Cruise

A Razzie is bad enough but having to show up in drag to collect his “Man of the Year” award from Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals was not his finest moment either.

In 1994, Cruise, who had played a Harvard graduate in both The Firm and A Few Good Men, made his way to the stage in bright pink heels and a huge white bra with the red Harvard emblem on each breast. ‘This is how you turn people crimson,’ said Cruise, referring to the school’s official color.

Hasty Pudding producer Catherine Zipf said she bought the heels for Cruise because she’d ‘read somewhere Tom doesn’t like sharing the spotlight with someone taller than he is.’ This is quite ironic considering each of his three wives were an inch or two taller than the diminutive Cruise.^[10]

10 Shocking Scientology Conspiracies

After throwing your copy of ‘Contra’, your NES and whoever was playing with you (who managed to walk too far forward, killing your character) out the bedroom window in 1991, who could’ve dreamt that video games would become the largest section of the wider entertainment industry in the world?

Any phenomenon as popular and wide-reaching as this will spawn a whole bunch of fringe stories, interesting individuals and quirky facts. Here’s a list of 10—some of the entries are short tasters for you to read about and research via the references. Some of these are less a trip down the rabbit hole than a full-own dungeon crawl through the Rabbit-God’s labyrinth. Enjoy!

10 Ancient Board Games That Inspired Modern Games

10 The Elder Scrolls Game That’s Bigger Than Britain

A lot of RPG gamers stick to the core quest/storylines. They listen intently to tutorials and methodically work through the remaining side quests once they’re done with the main game.

There is another sort of gamer—those who treat open world-type games as the name suggests. Many a gamer has delighted in taking to the open road, be it the vast frozen lands of Skyrim or the sprawling city of San Andreas from the GTA series, and randomly do whatever the hell they feel like. These worlds, however, have a border. You can only travel so far before you run smack bang into a game wall. Some maps are larger than others.

The map from the second installation of popular Elder Scrolls series from Bethesda Softworks, ‘The Elder Scroll II: Daggerfall’, is vast. Bethesda, the game’s publishers, claim that the world map roughly equates to the size of the island of Great Britain. Maybe a bit bigger. Where it takes most players a few tens of minutes to get across the map in your typical large, open world game, Daggerfall takes days. The best time thus far is 61 hours and 54 minutes (!) The record for running the 874 miles from Land’s End to John o’Gorates in Britain is 9 days—so Daggerfall is huge, but it takes longer to walk through a roughly equivalent real map—real humans tend to get blisters, though.

Then again, you won’t come across as many centaurs, spriggans and wereboars.

9 A Weird Dark Souls World Record

Gaming world records are usually quite mundane—speed-runs, high scores on arcade games and record times in racing games. One avid gamer, however, found a novel way to get his name in the record books.

Benjamin “Bearzly” Winn from Edmonton, Canada, set the record for successful completions of the PC version of the fiendishly difficult, Lovecraftian RPG ‘Dark Souls’, all whilst using different types of game controllers. He chocked up a total of 9 finished games with the different controllers, ranging from the mundane to the seemingly impossible—”Bearzly” used:

A Wiimote
An Xbox 360 controller (with 1 finger)
A Steering Wheel
A Dancemat
A Microphone (implementing voice control)
A ‘Rock Band’ Guitar
A ‘Rock Band’ Piano
A ‘Rock Band’ Drum Kit
And a pair of ‘Donkey Kong’ Bongos

Fair play.

8 ‘Duke Nukem Forever (Took) Forever’

The gaming community isn’t known for its patience. When gamers are made to wait an extra year for a promised game to be released, it’d better be at least a 9.5/10, lest you release a kraken of online hate.

One of the most notorious flubs after a long delay was ‘Duke Nukem Forever’. First, the game was held from release for 14 years (announced in 1997, released in 2011!). That’s as long as it takes a child to get from their birth to the end of elementary school, have a bar or bat mitzvah and have most of your non-head hairs come through.

Secondly, at the end of all that, your rewards was a copy of ‘Duke Nukem Forever’, one of the dullest games ever released. Luckily for the developers, the Duke’s ‘Enforcer’ (a twin rocket launcher) is not commercially available for former fans to purchase.

7 That’s The Name Of The Game

We all know ‘Tiger Woods PGA Tour’, ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!’, ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ and… ‘Emlyn Hughes International Soccer’? No? How about ‘Shirley Muldowney’s Top Fuel Challenge’? Ok, that’s less likely.

Over the years there have been many obscure celebrity endorsed video game titles -sometimes the game remains obscure, sometime it’s the celebrity that isn’t all that well-known, sometimes they’re downright weird.

Take 2008s Nintendo DS game ‘Who’s Cooking? with Jamie Oliver’, a cooking simulator where the player prepares some recipes from the English chef’s repertoire. That’s it. Some have said there is an easter egg hidden in the game—you can induce the mockney healthy-eating advocate to cry profusely onscreen if you manage to cook a turkey twizzler gumbo. But that’s probably just an urban legend.

Another strange one is 1986s Commodore 64/ZX Spectrum title ‘Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona’, a soccer game where you control one player, as opposed to the whole team. That player is the then-England goalkeeper Peter Shilton. So why is legendary Argentine player Maradona in the title? Well, in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, Diego Maradona scored a very contentious goal (he very clearly used his hand, which is a foul), leading to England losing the match and getting dumped out of the tournament. In order to cash in on this sensational scandal, the game’s developers dumped the words ‘Maradona’ and ‘Handball’ into the title, seemingly to cash in on the prominence of the event. The teams in the game are all English domestic league teams, a league that Diego Maradona never played in.

One of the all-time-most-bizarre celeb-fronted games has to be 1991s Japanese game ‘Gorby no PipelineDaisakusen’ for the MSX2, Famicom and Fujitsu’s ‘FM Towns’ gaming PC variant. This Tetris-style game tasks you with building a pipeline from Moscow, then in the USSR, to Tokyo in order to improve diplomatic relations between the two states. ‘Gorby’ refers to Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSRs Premier, who’s featured in cartoon form on the game’s cover, birthmark and all! 3 months after the game’s release, the USSR dissolved. Plans for ‘Yeltsin’s Vodka Distillery Daisakusen’ never came to pass.

6 A Crowd-funded Nightmare

Waiting years and years for Duke Nukem Forever to be released must have been frustrating for fans, but that’s nothing compared to the ‘Star Citizen’ saga. After first launching a Kickstarter for developing the game in 2010, English game developer Chris Roberts, noted for creating “Wing Commander” series of games, still hasn’t given pledgers a release date. That’s all despite raising $339 million in pledges!

The ins, outs whys and wherefores are too numerous to cover in detail here; needless to say, if the ‘Star Citizen’ affair just fizzles out with no game released, it will be considered one of the biggest scams of the digital age.

5 Game Over

We’ve all done it—played some low or no-budget, crappy video game on Steam, or on miniclip.com (back in the day), or after buying some cheapo ‘300-in-1 PC Game bundle***INCLUDES DUNKY KANG!’ (way back in the day). These sorts of games have one thing in common—they are all shite.

The game that defines this sub-genre of games is the unlicensed craptastic shoot ’em up ‘Hong Kong 97’, published in 1995. It was designed by Japanese hobbyist ‘Kowloon’ Kurasawa, replete with terrible level design, graphics and an awful storyline —You play as ‘Chin’, A heroin-addicted super soldier and cousin of Bruce Lee, tasked by the Hong Kong government to kill the population of China—not a small number of people—because of a chaotic influx of migrants from the mainland to the island city-state after the 1997 handover from the UK… hell, maybe it was prophetic.

This game is often considered the ‘worst game of all time’. But a that isn’t why this game is notable amongst the 1000s of titles that float in the cesspool of shitty games.

There’s a photo of an actual corpse shown on the ‘Game Over’ screen. No joke here. A real dead person. There was a whole conspiracy theory borne from this (which was way more interesting than the game itself). Some claimed that it was the body of a Polish boxer named Leszek B?a?y?ski, who committed suicide 3 years before the game was released. Was he actually murdered—the still used in the game taken from a video recording taken by his killers? Did China have a hand in doing so, maybe as retaliation for him speaking out against the newly struck trade deals between the CCP and Poland?

Turns out the designer clipped a screenshot from a ‘Faces of Death’ mondo film that included Bosnian War footage. So, who was the corpse? A dead combatant from the war in Bosnia. God, this game sucks.

4 Chris Houlihan And His Secret Room

The title of this entry sounds a lot creepier than it should.

Chris Houlihan was not (as far as can be ascertained) a CIA torturer or a serial killer. He was once a kid who won a cool prize. Back in 1990, Nintendo Power Magazine ran an awesome competition—entrants had to send in pictures of themselves with Warmech from the Final Fantasy franchise. The winner was a young man named Chris Houlihan. His prize? He has his own secret room on the SuperNES version of the game “The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past”. Chris Houlihan is now immortal.

3 The Guy Who’s Been Playing Sports Management Simulator For 333 Years

Dedication to ones work is often held up as a primary ideal of modern society. Nobody represents this as well as Sepp Hedel, a German man who took it upon himself to work the often thankless, grueling, high-pressure job of managing a series of soccer teams. For over 300 years.

In a video game, of course.

The world record holder from Germany was playing ‘Football Manager 2017’. He started his virtual career with FC United of Manchester, staying with the club for 50 years. He then moved to India where he managed Bengaluru for 200 years. He finished off his career back in England with Hereford FC, taking the small market town’s team to 45 league titles over 83 seasons. How long did Sepp play the game in real terms? 81 days. Or 1,940 hours.

When life-extension biotech becomes commercially available, Sepp should probably go for the record of managing a soccer team for 300 years IRL. Or it doesn’t count…

2 How To Make A Horror Game Gorier

No matter how many flying intestines and geyser-level blood spurts you add into a game, there will always be the protective barrier that is the screen/monitor. You won’t be ‘in’ the game world itself…yet—it’s coming, though.

When ‘Resident Evil 4’ was released with much fanfare in 2005, players were treated to another top jump-scare-laden release for the franchise. But somebody, somewhere, must have expressed how disappointingly mundane the game was. This prompted NubyTech to release a special controller for the game, usable on GameCube or PS2—A blood-splattered Chainsaw controller. That, or this was yet another ‘collectible’ add-on to squeeze as much cash as is humanly possible out of gamers. Still, it’s another controller for “Bearzly” Winn to beat Dark Souls with.

1 Taking Obsession A Tad Too Far

There are a lot of urban legends and creepypastas associated with video games—from the ‘Ben Drowned’ story about ‘The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask’, to the infamous ‘Polybius’ urban legend about a 1980s arcade game rumoured to have caused various terrible symptoms, placed in arcades by mysterious men in black—the world of gaming is no stranger to scary tales. The case of the ‘Final Fantasy VII House’ actually occurred.

Probably.

Much like the ‘Star Citizen’ affair, the story of the ‘Final Fantasy House’ is too long and winding to cover in a listcicle (check out the above video), but here’s a breakdown to help you rappel down the rabbit hole—after more research, you can decide if you believe this strange tale:

The story, in short, is that two individuals referred to as ‘Jenova’ and ‘Hojo’ enticed people to live with them. Jenova then convinced these tenants that they were all reincarnations of characters from the game, coercing and controlling them like a maniacal cult leader.

Given the hours many people spend glued to screens, immersing themselves in an alternate reality where they can be a hero, maybe this urban legend is actually true.

10 Video Games That Impacted Gaming

About The Author: CJ Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

Every human is a universe of nerves, cells, and biological processes. Woven into this wonderland is a lot of weirdness. Sadly, because of disease and stark statistics, too many people view the body with fear.

Scary stuff aside, the world within each person is so quirky that it deserves a second look. Among a myriad of delights nestle the gems—the rare abilities, mysteries, and facts. Just recently, scientists watched evolution in living humans, found the personal bubble is a thing, and determined that cancer’s worst enemy was already in place.

10 Fainting Mystery Solved

Whenever humans stand up, there is a sudden drop in blood pressure. The shift is so severe that people should faint every time they decide to leave a chair. Something prevents humanity from keeling over, but researchers could never understand what.

In 2018, this lifesaving mechanism appeared in the shape of baroreceptors. Neither the neurons nor their link to the fainting mystery is new to science. However, the details stumped experts for close to a century.

The Scripps Research Institute became the first to identify the missing piece, which turned out to be a pair of proteins. Called PIEZO1 and PIEZO2, they sense blood pressure. When the latter becomes too low, the proteins trigger the baroreceptor reflex. As a result, the heart starts to beat faster and more blood rushes to the brain, compensating for the loss of pressure.^[1]

The revealing tests were done on mice and not people. That aside, the study proved PIEZO1 and PIEZO2’s role in this strange tale. The results also matched the case details of human patients suffering from a faulty baroreceptor reflex.

9 People Recognize 5,000 Faces

In the past, the topic of facial recognition in humans sparked many studies. Oddly, none tried to determine how many faces an individual can recognize. In 2018, researchers decided they wanted a number.

To achieve this, they drafted students, aged 18 to 61, from two universities. The goal of the study was to pinpoint how many faces somebody could point at and say, “Hey, I know that guy.” This was different from facial recall on a memory basis. If the student personally recognized an individual from his life, the face qualified. This did not involve random faces of strangers provided during a memory test.

First, the participants had to list everybody they could recall even if it was the janitor they never spoke to. After an hour, they were asked to stop. Using some fancy mathematics, the researchers calculated how many faces the students would have remembered had they continued past their given hour.^[2]

Second, they were asked to identify all the celebrities they knew from a lineup packed with 3,441 photographs. Incredibly, after the results of both phases were combined, it revealed that the average human can remember 5,000 people.

8 Tears Of Blood

Recently, an Italian man had the fright of his life. Blood poured from his eyes for seemingly no good reason. Looking like something that crawled out of a demonic possession movie, he burst into the emergency room of the local hospital.

The 52-year-old explained that the bloody tears had begun two hours earlier and that the weeping was beyond his control. He was not crying; the stuff just poured from his eyes. There had been no warning and no pain.

The condition, hemolacria, is so rare that the doctors had no idea what they were dealing with. An examination discovered neither trauma nor visual problems.

Eventually, the doctors found something. The patient had a slight case of conjunctival hyperemia, an inflammation of the membrane that covers the eyes. This condition comes with an excess of blood. Together with benign tumors under both eyelids, this caused the hemolacria.^[3]

Past cases were also caused by infection and eye tissue trauma. The Italian patient was given some eye drops, had the tumors removed, and has been free of bloody tears ever since.

7 Pleistocene Deformities

In 2018, anthropologist Erik Trinkaus found something odd. Based at Washington University, he examined 66 fossils belonging to humans from the Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). The samples, gathered from the Middle East and Eurasia, averaged around 200,000 years old. The bones belonged to young adults and a variety of Homo species.

They had a sad thing in common. The fossils collectively showed 75 developmental abnormalities. This was a disturbingly high percentage. Trinkaus discovered bowed arms and legs as well as deformed jaws and skulls. Most had no obvious cause, but some were due to blood disorders, hydrocephaly, and possibly inbreeding. The latter was likely because hunter-gatherers lived in small pockets with an increased chance of reproducing with relatives.

Trinkaus suggested that humans experienced above-average deformities during the Pleistocene because similar issues make up less than 1 percent of today’s anomalies. He also admitted to an alternative theory. Individuals with deformities could have been buried differently, making their remains more likely to be found than the rest.^[4]

6 Nerve Recalls Location Of Food

The gut is not just a loopy thing that moves food along for processing. In humans, it has a strong connection with the brain. In fact, that connection—the vagus nerve—is the longest nerve in the body. By sending signals through the vagus, the gut controls how much a person eats and when they feel full.

In 2018, experiments with rodents revealed another ability. As unbelievable as it seems, the gut appears to help memories form in the brain—in particular, the location of a good meal.

Researchers noticed that the communication only activated when rats ate something, hinting that the nerve might exist to help the rodents remember where they found good food. To see what would happen, parts of the animals’ vagus nerves were severed.^[5]

Nerve-impaired rats had trouble remembering locations, even when they had previously known exactly where to go to escape or feed. This was not full-blown memory loss. The rats continued to function normally and made memories about other things. They just couldn’t pinpoint their own locations in known environments or navigate.

Researchers believe the findings could be translated to humans.

5 U.D.’s Unusual Left Brain

A remarkable medical case involved a little boy called U.D. As a last resort to treat the seven-year-old’s unmanageable seizures, doctors made the drastic decision to remove a large part of his brain. A third of his right hemisphere was cut out, including the centers responsible for vision and sound.

Today, the 11-year-old is seizure-free. He also shows normal developmental progress and above-average reading skills. Both his eyes work, but the left one’s information doesn’t register in the brain. (The left eye’s sight is processed in the right hemisphere, which is missing in the boy’s case.)

Each hemisphere also handles different aspects of vision. But when researchers scanned his brain, they were amazed to find that U.D.’s gray matter was far from hamstrung. MRI scans showed that the right hemisphere’s facial recognition showed up in the left, next to the remaining hemisphere’s job of detecting words.^[6]

It did the double duty so well that the child appeared to be unaware that his left eye was missing any information. Researchers cannot explain how a brain region can adopt additional tasks without sacrificing its original purpose.

4 Living Auras

This may sound a little weird, but scientists decided to search for life inside the personal bubble—the one that surrounds every human being. In technical terms, this “aura” is called an exposome.

To test for traces of, well, anything, 15 volunteers strapped air-monitoring devices to their arms. Some carried them for a week, while others endured them for a month. One particularly dedicated researcher lived with his box for two years.

When the devices were removed, the particles inside revealed that the personal bubble was not an imaginary space. Far from empty, it teemed with tiny guests such as microscopic animals, fungi, microbes, and chemicals. The exposome’s ecosystem appears to be unique to each person, but it is affected by what he or she is currently exposed to.

Things like pets, locations, and even the seasons all left their mark. When the microbial and fungal bits were DNA tested, a mind-blowing 2,500 species were found drifting inside the volunteers’ bubbles. Unfortunately, the bad guys were also there—disease-bearing microbes and carcinogens like diethylene glycol.^[7]

3 Unique Sounds Of Beatboxing

Musicians called beatboxers have a special skill—creating convincing percussion sounds by using just their vocal tracts and mouth. In 2018, researchers wanted to understand the biology behind these living human instruments. Thus, they gathered a group of beatboxers. To add some variety, the subjects included both genders, different ages, and a range from novice to expert.

One by one, they were slotted into an MRI machine and asked to do their thing. As the musicians clicked and rattled away, scanners snapped the movements of their jaws, lips, tongues, larynxes, and nasal passages.

For the first time, scientists could see the mechanics of the art, and what they learned was surprising. The mouth, nose, and throat parts that activated were those used for speech. However, the beatboxers used them in ways that had nothing to do with talking.

In effect, it was a whole new language filled with unique sounds. This crushed previous research that said beatboxers could not make sounds outside of the world’s known languages and phonetics.^[8]

2 Special Spleens

For over 1,000 years, the Bajau people have lived on boats around Indonesia. They spend the majority of their time hunting underwater for food and coral. Scientists wondered if generations of oxygen deprivation had tweaked their genes.

This was not so far-fetched. High-altitude populations in Tibet, South America, and Ethiopia have genetically adapted to live with low oxygen levels. Even so, the researchers were skeptical about finding anything. A thousand years was short for evolution, and these people did not live at high altitudes.

The 2018 study quickly converted the weary when they measured 59 spleens from Bajau and 34 from a nearby village. The divers’ spleens were 50 percent bigger. When anyone dives, the spleen contracts to provide the body with oxygen-rich red blood cells.

DNA tests confirmed that the Bajau had 25 different genes and one of them, PDE10A, affects spleen size in mice. Despite misgivings from the scientific world, the study presents strong evidence of natural selection in living humans. In the case of the Bajau, it helps them to better “breathe” underwater by storing more oxygenated red blood cells inside their hefty spleens.^[9]

1 Cancer’s Kill Code

There has been a massive breakthrough on the cancer-fighting front. Researchers have discovered a “kill code” that could wipe out cancer. Ironically, the possible cure is already right where it should be—inside every cell of the human body.

In 2017, researchers noticed how certain ribonucleic acids (RNAs) caused cancer cells to perish. In addition, malignant cells failed to become resistant to the RNA. How the molecules made the cancer cells self-destruct was a mystery. Since the resistance was also a first in cancer research, it was important to find the answer.

In 2018, that answer came. RNA contains a toxic genetic code. The moment a cell mutates and turns cancerous, the code made the cells destroy a certain gene (one that encourages cancer cell growth). The hacked-up gene then kills the very cell that ripped it up.

Amazingly, the mechanism is not accidental. It evolved around 800 million years ago, most likely to fight cancer. Researchers now want to make a more powerful version of the toxic molecules and introduce them directly into cells.^[10]

From the ancient Greek Olympics to a low-key game of cards, humans by nature have always explored countless ways to test their mettle against a competitor. As modern society reinvents itself, new waves of bizarre and wacky contests continue to appear on the horizon and evolve—some of which you may be surprised to learn actually exist.

Here are 10 quirky contests that give people the chance to give in to their need to compete!

Related: 10 Extreme Sports From History

10 Mobile Phone Throwing

Forget javelin or discus—traditional field events are so outdated when it comes to the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships. Originating in the Finnish town of Savonlinna in 2000, the inaugural event was organized by the translation company, Fennolingua. The aim was to encourage people to vent their frustrations by hurling mobile phones while also supporting a recycling drive. Luckily no prized mobiles were smashed into the turf as sponsors provided a range of recycled phones.

As the competition continued annually in Finland, launching mobiles through the air expanded into an international sport. Throwers of all ages can now be found at track and field venues throughout Europe and globally competing in national titles.

The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships are judged on two main categories—Original/Traditional: An over-the-shoulder toss measured for distance, and Freestyle: Judged on aesthetics and artistic impression. Taco Cohen, a 19-year-old circus performer from the Netherlands, won the freestyle gold medal at the 2007 championships. His performance included both juggling and acrobatics and really wowed the judges. And the current world-record holder from Belgium threw his phone a whopping 110 meters (360 feet) at the championship held in Belgium in 2021.^[1]

9 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest

It may sound like a game at a bridal shower or children’s party, but the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest is a bona fide event held in New York each year. Entrants create a gown and headpiece using only toilet paper, tape, glue, and needle and thread. Images of mummy-inspired dresses may spring to mind; however, the results are actually stunning, designer-level creations. Twelve finalists are selected from photo entries, and their designs are shipped to New York City (no doubt with a large “Handle With Care” sticker). A runway show then features the finalists’ creations with a $10,000 first prize awarded to the winner.

The catwalk sights at the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest include toilet-papier-mâché bodices, crocheted toilet paper, and flowers and beads molded with glue. You’re not likely to look at these crisp, fitted masterpieces and guess that they originated from the humble toilet roll.^[2]

8 Hobby Horsing

Hobby horsing has captivated a niche group of girls in Finland and is now gaining momentum in other countries. So what happens at the annual Finnish Hobby Horse Championships? Just imagine equestrian events but using a stick-handled hobby horse instead of a real horse (the type that appeared in Enid Blyton novels or on the children’s show Romper Room). Today’s versions used by hobby horsers are upgraded models with soft material heads.

Enthusiasts are generally pre-teen and early-teen girls who do not view Hobby Horsing as a cutesy pastime but as a genuine sport. The equestrian event sees girls riding their hobby horse through a course, leaping over hurdles, and taking on a canter-type gait. For competitors in the dressage ring, it is about elegant prancing movements to music while keeping the upper body still.

There is a sense of community among hobby horse devotees, incorporating a range of students, coaches, judges, and local competitions. The origins of hobby horse events are somewhat mysterious as Finnish teenagers created the movement privately. However, online message boards discovered by filmmaker Selma Vilhunen in 2012 were the catalyst for her 2017 documentary The Hobby Horse Revolution.^[3]

7 High Heel Drag Queen Race

It is admirable that drag queens can navigate stages in their lofty heels, let alone take on a three-block running race. Yet that is what happens every year at the 17th Street High Heel Race in Washington DC, an event that prides itself on celebrating LGBTQI diversity and freedom. The pre-Halloween race sees entrants lining up in high heels and vibrant drag costumes in front of huge crowds. Apart from a handful of hardcore runners who have been training in heels, most seem happy with a jovial clomp down the street.

Today the race has evolved from random fun between friends in the 1980s to being organized by the Mayor’s Office in Washington DC. It has also inspired high heel racing for a cause in other parts of the world. Hopefully, there are always a few first aiders on hand to help with any sudden free falls and sprained ankles.^[4]

6 Ugliest Dog Contest

Thankfully, the prized pooches have no idea about the title of this contest and can scamper away with their heads held high. The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest has been held annually at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California, since the 1970s. It aims to promote rescue, love, and adoption for all dogs—no matter how they look.

The idea was the brainchild of Petaluma local Ross Smith, who initially created the contest as a small-town event for children. He had no idea the competition would reach the heights it later achieved, with global media attention for the unique collection of prize winners.

Two recent victors rose from rescue dogs to take home the coveted title: Zsa Zsa, a gnarly-toothed English Bulldog with a tongue almost reaching the ground; and Scamp the Tramp, a dreadlocked, bug-eyed pooch whose coat cannot be tamed by any pet products. These much-loved dogs went from being homeless to heading on a trip to New York for media appearances.^[5]

5 Air Guitar Playing

It would be fair to assume that an actual guitar is required for a guitar-playing contest, but not when it comes to the flamboyant Air Guitar Championships. “Airheads” (as they are affectionately known) strut on stages across the world pretending to play guitars before hundreds of people—only these are guitars of the invisible kind. Audiences delight in the spectacle of rock and heavy metal music, flashy costumes, and boldly performed riffs and stage moves.

The holy grail of air playing is the Air Guitar World Championships held in Oulu, Finland (I see a pattern emerging here!) each August. Here, winners of national competitions bring their performance and attitude to the world stage. Another chance to secure a place is through the “Dark Horses Qualifying Round,” a wildcard event held the night before the final. The championship comprises two rounds: A chosen song performed for 60 seconds and a surprise song performed for 60 seconds. Props can be used, providing they are not instruments, with “air roadies”‘ allowed—but no backup bands. Ironically, the air player who wins the title takes home a custom-made, hand-carved guitar.

While the concept of air guitar playing is not new (Joe Cocker famously air-riffed at Woodstock in 1969), it gained momentum in casual settings throughout the seventies and eighties. The first Air Guitar World Championships were held in 1996 as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival and have been going strong ever since. Conceived by Finnish musician Jukka Takalo, the event promotes world peace and equality, using the slogan “Make Air Not War.”^[6]

4 Bed Racing

It turns out that beds are not just for sleeping but also for country racing. Each June, the Yorkshire town of Knaresborough, UK, hosts the Great Knaresborough Bed Race. After a parade featuring decorated beds and runners (with a different theme each year), it is time to remove all bed decorations and get racing. Ninety teams of six runners scale grassy inclines and village streets while guiding a passenger on a bed with wheels. The passenger wears a helmet and calls out directions and encouragement to the runners like a coxswain in a rowing race. The competitors weave and wind around scenic Knaresborough before the whole team swims the bed across the icy River Nidd to the finish line.

Before you imagine a massive bed in any of these scenarios, all racing beds are built and engineered by teams (and their consultants) to fit specific measurements and wheel sizes. Many handymen in the region get involved in the bed designs, while dressmakers work on costumes for the teams. Since 1966, the lively race has been following the same 3.8-kilometer (2.4-mile) course and raising funds for charity. The event was originally run by the Knaresborough Round Table, with the baton passed to the Knaresborough Lions Club in the 1990s.

Rain, hail, or shine, bed racing enthusiasts turn out each year for this challenging but fun-loving event. The race has never been called off despite the unpredictable Yorkshire weather. However, in 1972 and 1998, the river crossing had to be abandoned due to torrential rain flooding the River Nidd.^[7]

3 Chess Boxing

Who would have thought the words chess and boxing would ever appear together? Chess Boxing, however, is the ultimate paradox in modern sport. Competitors alternate between rounds of chess and boxing, with each round lasting three minutes. After each chess round, the noise-canceling headphones come off, and the gloves go on as the table is wheeled out of the ring. Winning can be achieved by checkmate, knockout, or points scored, with no time for stalling shenanigans in the rapid chess rounds. Being skilled at both disciplines is obviously mandatory—a boxer unable to mastermind moves with rooks, bishops, and the like or a chess player with no jabbing expertise is just not going to cut it. I wonder if there are two trainers in each Chess Boxer’s corner: a sparring coach chewing gum with a towel around his neck and a shrewd, ex-chess champion scanning the board proceedings.

Chess Boxing initially emerged in the early 2000s as performance art. Dutch performance artist, Iepe Rubingh, adapted the idea from the work of French comic book writer Enki Bilal. In 1992, Bilal published The Nikopol Trilogy, which featured a fantasy Chess Boxing Championship. A decade later, Rubingh pioneered the transformation from art to sport.

The Chess Boxing World Championships were first held in Amsterdam in 2003 and have since been hosted annually in various countries. There are also many national championship competitions throughout the world. In mid-2020 (at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic), London Chessboxing streamed the first-ever pay-per-view Chess Boxing event to a global audience.^[8]

2 Santa Claus Championships

The novel Santa Claus World Championships (also known as Clau Wau) are held at the Samnaun Ski Resort in Switzerland each November to mark the beginning of ski season. Since 2001, teams of dressed-up Santas have hit the slopes to compete in a two-day round-robin of festive-inspired events.

One of the most difficult challenges, as agreed upon by Santa enthusiasts, is the chimney climbing event. Entrants scale a towering brick structure with a present in hand to be delivered down the chimney when they reach the roof. The adventurous Santas are also kept busy with sleigh driving, a snowmobile rally, gingerbread decorating, and a mechanical reindeer rodeo.^[9]

1 Extreme Ironing

When thinking about adventure, the mundane task of ironing does not spring to mind. Unless, of course, you are an “Extreme Ironer”—someone who packs up their ironing board and sets off to remote locations to…well, iron clothes. The sky is literally the limit for “ironists” (as they are referred to), some of whom have extreme-ironed on the edge of mountains, sky-diving from planes, and turning up on all matter of buildings and landmarks. Not to be outdone by the sky ironists, others have taken to the water to iron while water skiing, canoeing, or scuba diving.

Extreme ironing made its humble beginnings in a back garden in Leicester, UK, in the late 1990s. Creator Phil Shaw decided to start ironing in his yard one day to relieve the monotony, explaining to his confused housemate that he was “extreme ironing.” Before long, Phil (using the nickname “Steam”) and his housemate Paul (using the moniker “Spray”) became pioneers of extreme ironing adventures while convincing friends to join them.

In 1999, Steam embarked on a successful international tour to promote extreme ironing, and in 2002, the first Extreme Ironing World Championships were held in Munich, Germany.

Thrill-seeking ironists have been pushing the boundaries worldwide ever since, both as solo competitors and in team events. The Guinness World Record for “The Most People Extreme Ironing Underwater” was set in March 2011 by the De Waterman Diving Club in the Netherlands, with 173 people ironing underwater for 10 minutes.^[10]

Research can get a little… boring. But every now and again, a challenge comes along that cannot be solved with run-of-the-mill experiments. That’s when scientists get creative and, daresay, a little weird. From teaching fish to drive (on land) to peeing on crops, here are some of the strangest quests researchers have embarked on!

10 How to Spot a Creep

What makes someone creepy? In 2016, a team of psychologists pondered this important question. Their goal was to draft a list of traits that could identify someone as an unsettling weirdo. To understand what people find creepy, the study interviewed 1,342 volunteers and asked them what made their skin crawl when meeting a stranger. Some of their answers were unexpected.

Sure, the participants found others creepy when there was an element of physical danger or when the people worked as clowns or looked unkempt. But other traits were more random. People who collect dolls, insects, or reptiles also made the list. Bird-watchers too. Laughing unexpectedly, smiling strangely, or licking your lips frequently can also make others want to keep their distance.^[1]

9 Enduring Brazil Nut Mystery Solved

When thinking about physics mysteries, a person might expect quantum stuff, invisible influences, and perhaps a particle or two. But some physicists wonder about nutty snacks. More specifically, why do large nuts, like Brazil nuts, always find their way to the top of the packet? Shouldn’t the heaviest nuts work their way down instead?

In 2021, scientists gave a bag of nuts a couple of good shakes. After each shake, the packet was scanned to get a 3D view of the contents. Incredibly, this revealed that size or weight had nothing to do with Brazil nuts rising to the top.

It’s their orientation. When a packet moves, say, while it’s being transported to a shop, the horizontal Brazil nuts eventually point upward (it took the scientists 50 shakes to achieve this). This provides more space for smaller nuts to consistently move downward and force the larger nuts up.^[2]

8 How to Echolocate

Researchers have known for a while that a small group of people can echolocate. In other words, they use tongue clicks or finger snaps—and not sight—to find their way around. But could this skill be taught to others, and how long would it take? The answer was surprising.

This study, which was published in 2021, discovered that both legally blind individuals and sighted people could be taught within 10 weeks to navigate with echolocation. Not only could they move around in a maze, but by interpreting the echoes that came back from their clicks, the volunteers could also recognize the orientation and size of objects inside the maze.^[3]

7 The Lost Letter Experiment

In 2012, anthropologists sprinkled 300 letters on the pavement of 20 neighborhoods in London. The idea was to test the altruism of people. If someone found a letter, would they go through all the effort that was required to deliver the mail to a total stranger’s house? These addresses were, in reality, the homes of the researchers who sat back and collected the letters as they rolled in.

Interestingly, about 87% of letters scattered in wealthier neighborhoods found their way back. In contrast, only 37% in poorer areas returned. The study found that ethnicity and population density had nothing to do with altruism. Instead, it was socioeconomic factors that needed more investigation to fully understand.

But for now, the scientists believe that fewer letters returned from disadvantaged areas—not because people care less—but because the hardships of life make them wearier and, therefore, less likely to pick up random letters on the pavement.^[4]

6 Pigs in Suitcases

Killers dump a lot of bodies in suitcases. Just like other crime scenes, the police need to know when the victim passed away. This triggered the world’s biggest experiment to learn more about the forensics of this harrowing habit. In particular, the researchers were interested in carrion insects.

When a corpse is left in the open, these insects colonize the body and provide a host of information. These flies and beetles can give forensic entomologists the time of death, reveal the presence of drugs, and whether the victim died elsewhere and in what type of location. A suitcase disrupts this process by hampering normal insect colonization.

To better understand this interference, a 2022 study placed stillborn piglets in nearly 70 bins and suitcases and left them outside. Remarkably, the carrion insects still provided critical information, just differently. By assessing how bugs and eggs clustered on the outside of the containers, which larvae made it inside, and the dead insects within, researchers could glean the basics of toxicology, body relocation, the circumstances and time of death, and how the weather influenced the pigs’ decomposition.^[5]

5 Peeing on Crops

Few people might eat a loaf of bread when they know the farmer peed on the wheat. But that’s a rather modern revulsion. For thousands of years, people used human urine as a fantastic fertilizer for crops. The practice vanished and now only exists in a few areas in Asia.

In recent years, scientists wondered if this ancient solution might help rural farmers. Especially those who live on nutrient-poor land where commercial fertilizer isn’t an option. Pee is free and packed with phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen—everything a hungry plant needs. They launched a large-scale experiment in the Republic of Niger where they trained female farmers on how to use urine safely as a fertilizer.

After three years and 681 trials, these ladies produced millet crops that were 30% more bountiful than normal. The results were so well-received that years after the experiment ended, over a thousand women farmers in Niger continued to fertilize their crops with sanitized urine.^[6]

4 This Test Will Last 500 Years

A couple of years ago, a researcher found a petri dish he’d forgotten about for 10 years. Once he realized the dried bacteria it contained could be revived with a little hydration, it sparked an ambitious study. In 2014, it brought together scientists from Scotland, Germany, and the U.S. to figure out how long bacteria can survive. Thus, the 500-year experiment was born. (link 7)

It works like this. Two bacteria species were chosen and hermetically sealed in 800 glass vials. About 400 were encased in lead to reduce DNA damage from natural radiation. For the first 24 years, scientists will open a couple of vials every other year and examine the bacteria’s DNA health and viability. For the rest of the time, the remaining 475 years, vials will be opened and tested every quarter-century.

The chances that the bacteria samples will stay alive for 500 years are good. But the experiment might not survive. It requires the continuous collaboration of the UK, the U.S., and Germany. Who knows if future scientists will even stay loyal to the study? The box containing the vials might also get lost before the experiment is over.^[7]

3 Brains with Eyes (Sort Of)

Stem cells can be manipulated to turn into any type of cell. This trait allows scientists to create smaller versions of human organs, or organoids, to test and learn more about diseases. In 2021, researchers wanted to find a way to treat early retinal disorders. For this, they needed a tiny brain with eyes.

Past experiments have separately created brain organoids and eye organoids (not eyeballs but an earlier developmental stage called optic cups). But nobody has ever created a combination of the two.

In the new study, experiments eventually produced several brains with eyes. This organoid resembled a yellow blob with a pair of black dots. The latter were the optic cups that the researchers needed. Incredibly, the cups were light-sensitive and developed at the same rate as eyes in a human embryo. They even had corneal tissue and lenses. In the future, this somewhat creepy-looking organoid can help scientists to study eye disorders, treatments, and brain-eye interactions during embryonic development.^[8]

2 Turning Water into Metal

In theory, most materials can become metallic—if you squeeze them hard enough. When mightily mushed, their atoms or molecules crush together so tightly that they swap electrons. This, in turn, can give a substance metallic properties like conducting electricity. But turning water into metal faces special challenges.

First, it needs a big squeeze. About 15 million atmospheres’ worth. This kind of pressure is not something that most scientists have lying around the laboratory. Secondly, such an experiment requires alkali metals like sodium and potassium because they share electrons quickly—and they remove the need for ridiculous atmospheric pressure. The problem? Alkali metals tend to explode when they touch water.

In 2021, an experiment managed to do the impossible. They turned water into metal by slowing the explosive reaction to give the metals the time to share their electrons with the water. This was achieved by working inside a vacuum chamber and exposing the two alkali metals to water vapor. The resulting metal droplet only lasted a few seconds, but it resembled gold and conducted electricity.^[9]

1 The Fishmobile

Can fish avoid obstacles on land? Okay, fish and land don’t gel. But this didn’t stop researchers in Israel from building a car for goldfish. Kind of like an aquarium on wheels. The goal was to understand how fish learn to navigate and if their brains could handle a trip on land.

Six goldfish were trained to pilot the fish-operated vehicle or FOV. At first, the fish swam erratically but then seemed to grasp the situation and their movements became more deliberate and relaxed. Indeed, the goldfish quickly learned how to make the FOV drive forward, but it was harder to teach them to think outside the tank, so to speak.

But with simple obstacle training and a lot of treats, the fish stopped driving aimlessly around the room and headed straight for targets. Once they reached a target, they were rewarded with a snack. When obstacles were placed in their path, the fish learned to drive around them to get to the target—and something yummy. This proved that fish can be remarkably resourceful in challenging environments in order to find food.^[10]