Humans have long prized uniqueness. Many people wear it like a badge of honor if they are “not like other people” and march to the beat of their own drum. If you have a unique skill or ability, this is even more highly prized. After all, who wouldn’t want to be the best at something?

In the animal kingdom there are tons of creatures with unique skills, too. And some of them are so unique only one organism can lay claim to them. 

10. Sponges Can Reassemble Themselves After Being Destroyed

Toughness is a nebulous term to define, especially as it relates to a living thing. It can mean strength or resilience or endurance. Is a gorilla tougher than a blobfish because it has more physical strength while a blobfish can endure crushing ocean depths? It’s all relative. 

By most any metric, a sea sponge has to be considered tough thanks to one remarkable skill it has that you won’t find in any other creatures. You can almost completely destroy a sponge and it will pull itself together.

Like the T-1000 in Terminator 2, you can break a sponge down to its very cells and it will reassemble. If you force a sponge through a fine cloth, the individual cells can reconnect where they fall on the other side over several days and form into new sponges, making it nearly indestructible in terms of physical damage.

9. Elephants Can Understand Pointing Without Being Trained

Have you ever tried to point something out to your cat or dog? As in literally pointing at something you wanted them to notice? Chances are your cat rubbed its face on your outstretched finger if it paid you any mind at all. And if your dog has not been trained to understand this gesture, it might just look at you expectantly.

Pointing is not a gesture animals understand naturally because animals are not inclined to use such a gesture or link it to the meaning humans ascribe to it. Elephants, however, have been shown to have such a complex social system that they also use non-verbal gestures to communicate which includes using their trunks to point. As such, elephants can understand the meaning of a human pointing like no other animal. 

Research has shown that elephants can be trained to understand vocal commands, but they could spontaneously and without explanation understand when humans pointed things out and used the gesture to locate food. Even chimpanzees cannot grasp what pointing is for right away. 

8. Pronghorns Are The only Animal With Horns That Branch and Shed Like Antlers

There are a good number of animals in the world that have horns or antlers and they take on a variety of shapes and sizes. One of the fundamental differences between horns and antlers is that horns grow as a permanent fixture of the animal while antlers grow, shed, and then regrow later. This is true of all animals except the pronghorn.

For most creatures, antlers are an extension of the skull. They are bone and usually only found in males. Horns have a two-part structure. Bone is on the inside but the outside is a coating like human fingernails. While antlers continue to branch as they grow, as seen in elk and moose, horns do not branch. Except, again, for the pronghorn.

Unlike all other similar creatures, a pronghorn grows branched horns and they will shed them and regrow them again. So, in function, they are like antlers but in form they are horns.

7. Australian Firehawks Are The Only Animals That Use Fire to Hunt

With a name like firehawk you have to assume there’s a cool story behind these Australian birds and there definitely is. According to Aboriginal stories, firehawks are sacred and brought the gift of fire to humankind. The reason these stories exist is that firehawks are the only animals that actively use fire to hunt. 

The firehawks, which constitute several species of bird of which some can grow to about two feet, have been observed many times. They actively seek fire and large groups of them have been seen circling above man made fires or forest fires. They have learned that fire will flush out prey animals and give them an opportunity to hunt.

More interesting, however, is that the birds now take a proactive approach to fire. They will pick up burning branches and carry them a distance across a road or even across a human made firewall so they can set new fires. 

6. Ants Are The Only Creatures to Have Domesticated Another One

Humans began domesticating animals over 10,000 years ago and we’ve done it many times. Not just dogs but goats, sheep, horses, chickens, all have been domesticated to a greater or lesser degree. Domesticating animals was one of the cornerstones of civilization as it allowed for farming and community to thrive. It is a unique trait that humans have developed but it is not wholly unique. One other creature has pulled it off – ants.

In the simplest of terms, ants have domesticated aphids and farm them. Like humans with livestock, ants can herd aphids to where they want them. The aphids feed on plants and produce a sweet liquid called honeydew that the ants eat. When the plant runs dry in a spot because of overfeeding, the ants will herd the aphids to a new spot. This is good for the aphids who get more food and good for the ants who get more honeydew.

The relationship does not end here, either. Ants will also protect the aphids from predators and even from the cold when the weather turns by carrying them into their dens. The aphids, in turn, let the ants milk them just like small, six-legged cows. 

The relationship is so complex that there are some ant colonies that have farmer ants. Just like some care for the eggs and some forage for food, some will only tend to aphids. Their sole duty is to care for them and carry them around. 

Another rare species of ant has been shown to engage in what is called predatory mutualism. These ants live in huge colonies with insects similar to aphids but research into their stomach contents has shown they don’t farm these ones for honeydew, but meat. They protect the entire colony at the cost of eating a few. 

5. Sea Slugs Are the Only Animal Capable of Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the process through which plants turn light into chemical energy. In rudimentary terms, while animals like humans eat food, plants like a maple tree eat sunlight. Both are converted to energy to sustain life and so far so good for all of us.

The sacoglossan sea slug stands alone as the bizarre bridge between us and maple trees. These animals can eat food for chemical energy. But, in a pinch, they can also photosynthesize it.

The method by which the slugs have a foot in both worlds is just as bizarre as you’d think. They can’t naturally engage in photosynthesis but what they can do is co-opt the chemical process thanks to the food they eat. Sort of like how a poison dart frog gets its poison from the bugs it eats, these sea slugs eat algae that is capable of photosynthesis and store the chloroplasts in their flesh. 

The chloroplast doesn’t seem to care where it is when it turns light into energy so the cells can keep working for months in the bodies of the slugs, providing extra energy for the animal host. It’s unclear to science how the slugs can preserve the cells in their own body but they do a decent job of it. 

4. Owls Can Do a Full Head Rotation of Over 400 Degrees

Most of us have seen images or video of an owl turning its head around backwards in a cool if somewhat spooky display of their range of neck motion. It’s a unique trait of the owl but that trait is a lot more significant than it seems at first. 

To start with, an owl doesn’t just turn its head around. That would be a mere 180 degrees of motion and who cares about such a paltry range? A tarsier can turn its head almost 180 degrees. If you consider turning left and right that means the tarsier has a nearly 360 range of motion. Owls are not about to be beaten by the tarsier.

An owl can actually extend beyond 180 degrees when it turns its head. The range of motion for a half turn like that is over 200 degrees for an owl, some up to 270 degrees in each direction. That means that the full range of motion for an owl is over 400 to 540 degrees. It can see around itself in a full circle and then some.

Owls have fixed eye sockets, so they can’t follow things just by moving their eyes. Their necks adapted to make it easier for them to track prey without having to lose sight of it no matter where it went. The head of an owl is only connected by a single pivot point unlike humans which have two, thus limited out range of motion. Because everything is more flexible, owls can exploit this remarkable range like no other animal. 

3. Pangolins Are The Only Mammals With Scales

Every classification of life seems to have one or two of those weirdos who don’t seem to fit in. A platypus is a mammal, but it lays eggs. Fish like lungfish and snakeheads can breathe oxygen out of the water for days. And the pangolin is a mammal that has scales.

The scales of the pangolin are made of keratin, like hair and fingernails. They use the scales on their tails defensively and they also roll into a ball when threatened, making them very hard for most predators to get to. 

The animals are threatened in many areas because of the illegal trade in their meat and scales. Efforts to study them have been hindered by the fact they do very poorly in captivity. Studying them is so hard, in fact, we don’t even know what their natural lifespan is. 

2. Firefly Squid Produce Light Through Protein Crystals

Many organisms can produce light, from luminescent algae to certain mushrooms and, of course, fireflies. The firefly squid, however, has an entirely unique method of doing this. 

Fireflies produce light chemically inside of themselves but the squid, which emit blue light at the tips of their tentacles, are the only animals capable of making light from protein crystals. But they are chemically similar to what makes a firefly glow, despite the species being so different. They’re also unique among other luminescent squid since the other species glow thanks to bacteria and not light produced by the animal itself. 

1. A Salmon Parasite Is the Only Animal That Doesn’t Need Oxygen

One thing that seems to unite the animal kingdom is breathing. Whether through lungs or across gills, everything needs to breathe something. That’s what we thought, anyway. Opinions changed in 2020 with the study of the parasite Henneguya salminicola.

The parasite is remarkably small and has less than 10 cells. They inhabit the flesh of salmon and have adapted to not breath while still thriving. The little critter, the only multicellular organism we know of that doesn’t need air, is related to jellyfish and coral. Instead of oxygen it steals the nutrients it needs from the body of the salmon, bypassing the need to do such things itself.

While most creatures have cell mitochondria converting food to energy, the parasite doesn’t. They have no mitochondria genome so their cells don’t need to worry about energy production and gene copying.

Catastrophe has been a Hollywood staple for generations. Movies have emerged from the production line in an endless stream covering everything from alien invasions to deadly pandemics and nodding at nuclear war and natural disasters. Often, the plot revolves around how people cope in dire circumstances. How do our heroes survive? How do people manage situations that see their world destroyed and survive to start civilization again?

Many call these events “Black Swan” events. From a European perspective, all swans were white; being white was part of the definition of being a swan. That was until the late 18th century when a Dutch explorer came across black swans in Australia. So a “Black Swan” event is something nobody expected, and most people aren’t prepared for.

Yet, survival skills are not only useful after a cataclysm. The unexpected can happen to anyone. You and your family might get lost on a hike. Or severe local weather might mean you have to fend on your own for a few days. Here are ten survival skills everyone should know.

Related: Top 10 Tips From History On How You Can Survive A Depression

10 First Aid Basics

Stow your first aid kit in your grab bag or backpack. The clip above gives a comprehensive guide to the essentials you should pack. They include:

• Gloves
• Blister treatment
• Gauze
• Bandages
• Medications (over-the-counter and prescribed)

While you won’t be able to cover every eventuality, these items will allow you to deal with immediate emergencies. As part of your preparation, you must ensure that everything is regularly updated; we suggest you revisit your pack every six months.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to know the basics of first aid. What to do and not do can save a life. Basic courses are readily available on YouTube, and the American Red Cross offers online and in-person courses.

Being prepared with basic first aid knowledge and gear can help you handle an emergency calmly and efficiently.

9 Shelter Creation

If you get lost on a day hike or don’t have a tent, it’s worth learning how to make a shelter. This is especially true if you are out in the wild. Finding some shelter is not usually an immediate problem in urban areas as there are often plenty of discarded materials—cardboard boxes, for example, from which you can construct a rough, temporary shelter.

In the woods, it’s a different matter, and our linked video will help you construct a shelter that uses the materials around you to build a refuge. In the mountains, there are different challenges. If you can find a cave that isn’t being used by a bear, wonderful! If you don’t stumble upon a handy cave, you should find a hollow area, work out where the wind is coming from and pile up stones to keep the wind off you.

If you have plastic sheeting or a tarp with you, you can anchor one edge to the top of your stone wall and stretch it down to the ground, and pile stones on it to fix it in place. It doesn’t have to be high; you just need enough room to lie down for the night.

8 Building a Fire

You should have a firestarter in your grab bag or backpack. This could be a flint, a box of waterproof matches, or a magnifying glass. Better yet, pack all three! Use small pieces of wood, pine needles, or cardboard to act as kindling. Add larger pieces of wood as your fire catches, and once you have a good blaze, add larger pieces to keep the fire going.

If you are in the wilderness, build your fire downwind from your shelter. Dig a shallow fire pit or surround your fire with stones. Ensure your fire is away from the surrounding dry brush that could catch light from a spark.

If you want to use your fire to signal for help, try to find an open area away from trees that might hide or disperse the smoke. Pile damp, green grass or brush onto your fire to create more smoke.

7 Water, Water Everywhere

We can’t live long without water, but water is also heavy to carry. You will need fresh water in any survival situation that lasts more than a few days. There are reasonably cheap and effective sterilizing kits or tablets on the market that you can buy for your grab bag.

The National Park Service warns against drinking any water from a natural source. It may look clean but still be teeming with bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Boiling your water is a simple way to kill off the most harmful contents. But remember that this will take time, don’t wait until you are desperate.

Boiled water tastes flat; you can improve the taste by pouring it from one container to another and letting it stand for a few hours.

If you are out in the wild, try to take water from as close to its source as possible. This will not guarantee that it’s fresh, but it may contain fewer contaminants than water from further downstream, but you will still need to purify it.

6 Foraging for Food

People in difficult circumstances soon discover that they are less picky about what they eat. Look online for a guide to edible plants in your region. Importantly, don’t eat mushrooms or berries that you are not absolutely sure about. Some suggest you check if something is dangerous by rubbing your lips against it or even tasting it slightly. This is not sound advice; some plants are so toxic that even a small amount could kill you.

You may be tempted to try fishing or trapping, this is fine if you have the time, but unless you know what you are doing, this can be frustrating and time consuming. It may be better to concentrate on gathering edible plants.

Your grab bag should contain energy bars, food concentrates, and trail mix to supplement your dietary needs.

5 Map Reading

Learning to read a map goes hand in hand with learning to use a compass. They are both skills that are essential if you are in the wild. We have gotten used to using apps on our phones to help us with everything, and many people go hiking with just a phone to guide them. This is not sensible. Batteries don’t last forever; coverage can be patchy, and in a survival situation, there might be no coverage at all.

You should have a topographic map of your area—the United States Geological Survey produces excellent topographic maps. A topographic map shows the landscape’s natural features and can help you plan a route through unknown territory.

Make sure that your map is covered in waterproof film or that you have a waterproof pouch for it—you don’t want it to turn into a soggy lump in the first rainstorm.

4 Navigation

You know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. You may also know other folk wisdom that tells you how to work out which direction is north. But these are not a substitute for reading a compass. When used alongside a map, a compass will help you work out how to get to your destination and, of course, doesn’t depend on your cellphone.

You can study orientation through videos on YouTube and immediately put your knowledge to the test by devising a course in the local park. This way, your kids can learn how to use a compass and have fun simultaneously. Like map-reading, using a compass is an easy skill to master and allows you to show off your prowess as a woodsman.

3 Think About It!

You might not realize that having the right mindset is a skill you can learn. Surely, some people are prone to panic, and some keep a calm head. There’s some truth in this, but you can learn to assess situations and devise practical solutions.

This type of cost-benefit analysis allows you to evaluate the risks associated with various decisions against the benefits they might bring. For example, in a survival situation, what are the risks and advantages involved in moving on versus staying where you are? This is a skill you can develop along with your family members. You can make a game out of deciding what you would do in a “What if” situation.

Survival might depend on being able to make practical decisions in different environments. If you approach survival as a practical problem to be solved rather than an insurmountable difficulty, your chances will improve dramatically.

2 Surviving in the Home

You should take precautions if you live in an area prone to natural disasters. But no matter where you live, a “Black Swan” event could happen tomorrow. Planning for the unexpected is a skill. It involves assessing potential risks and deciding what you can reasonably do to mitigate any situation.

It’s a good idea to keep a stock of essential food, medicine, and water to last a few days. Make sure that you have batteries for flashlights and candles. Store everything in a safe, protected space. These preparations don’t need to cost much money, and you can build your supplies over time. The skill lies in deciding what is essential and what is not.

1 What to Pack in Your Grab Bag

Your grab bag should be ready, so you can pick it up and leave at a moment’s notice. Again, the skill lies in proper planning. You don’t want a bug-out bag that weighs more than you can easily carry, so be reasonable with your packing. And remember to personalize each bag for individual family members, including your lovable, furry friends.

One suggestion is that a sudden survival situation will be traumatic for everyone. But young children will find it especially stressful. Make sure that you can quickly get hold of a favorite cuddly toy for each of your kids. It seems like a small thing, but it can go a long way to easing your child’s mind.

Information technology or IT remains one of the most versatile, fast-growing fields, and research shows that being skilled in high demand tech boosts compensation. If you’re looking to shift or advance in your career with new tech certifications and expertise, consider mastering the following tech skills. 

Employers are headhunting for the latest, in-demand skills. Tech has taken on more varied and significant roles in day-to-day business operations and there are valuable opportunities you can use in the workforce. Impress your boss by mastering the right combination of practical expertise, technical experience, and software skills.

10 Cybersecurity

Before the fourth quarter of 2020, there were at least 2,935 security breaches publicly reported, making it the worst year yet recorded in terms of cybersecurity. To circumvent further intrusions, executives have increased budgets for cyberspace security in 2021 by at least 55%, while others are seeking to hire extra full-time security specialists.

But where do you specialize your tech mastering efforts in the wide tiered online security niche? While every discipline in cybersecurity, cloud security, and application development security are impressive, cloud security and app integrity are projected to grow by 115% and 164%. The most wanted skills for app development include app security code review, secure container, and micro-services security.

DevSecOps is a big winner here, earning premiums that equal 19% of your base pay, and you’ll be integrating app security into the cycle of development. Cloud security specialists can delve into Google cloud security, Azure security, public cloud security, cloud security architecture, and infrastructure. 

Beyond 2021, cybersecurity certifications will remain formidable, garner premium salaries, and buck the overall trend. Many IT employers offer a base salary bump for these Credentials:

• CEH or Certified Ethical Hacker
• CCSP or Certified Cloud Security Professional
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP
• Advanced Security Practitioner from CompTIA

9 Full Stack Development

Although not a new skill in the tech space, developers are always in demand, particularly front-end, back-end, and full-stack professionals with top-notch coding skills.

Indeed’s ranking of best tech skills for 2020 showed that full-stack software development ranks 2nd while also being in the top growth ranks with a rate of 161.9%. Full-stack engineer’s hiring rates have been growing steadily in the US since 2005 at about 35% per year. These coding skills are in-demand around the world right now:

• JavaScript
• Python
• Go
• Swift
• React
• Angular
• Spring
• Django

JavaScript and its many coding variances continue to lead the pack as the most used programming language, while Go is in high demand due to a lack of developers who’ve mastered it. Angular and React top the list for valuable front-end development skills while spring and Django are in-demand for back-end frameworks.

8 Blockchain

Despite the unprecedented decline of cryptocurrencies in the last year, blockchain remains relevant for crowdfunding, identity management, peer-to-peer payment platforms, digital voting, and file storage.

With such versatility, many employers are seeking developers that have mastered blockchain for building decentralized apps and smart contracts. The most sought-after blockchain skills include database design, networking, and all the applicable programming languages like JavaScript, Java, Solidity, Python, Go, and C++.  

Blockchain engineers are commanding similar salaries as those paid to Machine Learning specialists, currently an average of $162,000. Blockchain is being used by financial institutions and major banks, while tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon are developing blockchain services.

7 Cloud Computing

As more and more enterprises switch from traditional physical server infrastructures to cloud-based solutions, cloud computing skills are becoming highly marketable. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligent services are now hosted by cloud platforms, and job openings between 2017 and 2020 have increased by 107% in the US alone.

The leading cloud-based service provider is AWS or Amazon Web Services, and gaining skills in this tech will improve your demand as a professional. Being certified in AWS will see you earn more than your non-qualified colleagues, as cloud computing skills will earn you an average of $130,272.

AWS cloud solution architects have the highest US and Canada tech certifications, while other cloud computing skills include DevOps, Microsoft, Kubernetes, Docker, and Azure. Cloud engineering has long term demand in the tech sector as more IT solutions are being shifted to cloud-based platforms.

6 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI or artificial intelligence, and its counterpart ML (or machine learning) are buzzwords synonymous with an increasingly innovative business environment. A significant number of tools and services are today based on ML and AI, and the hiring rate for artificial intelligence specialists has grown by 74% in the past couple of years.

A 2019 study of the best tech jobs by Indeed found that Machine learning engineers openings had increased by 344% for the past 4 years. These ML and AI specialists with skills such as python, natural language processing, java, TensorFlow, and R command an average salary of up to $140,000 annually in the US.

Mastering these tech skills will including building Chatbots, one of the most wanted specializations under ML and AI. Several major organizations are relying on AI operated customer service interactions for website queries, and being a master earns you the highest IT salaries in 2021 and beyond.  As an AI specialist, you’ll benefit from accessing a wide variety of tech jobs for your portfolio, including data sciences, product management, and software engineering.

Machine learning covers statistical pattern recognition, neural networks, unsupervised learning, deep learning, recommender systems, and anomaly detection.

5 Virtual, Augmented, and Extended Reality

The collaboration of Augmented Reality (AR )and Virtual Reality (VR); called Extended Reality (XR) and many industries are adopting XR tech, including education, manufacturing, entertainment, advertising, and health. Software specialists in this tech segment are bound to be in very high demand and the growth rate for hiring VR/AR engineers has increased to 1400%.

While the full impact of XR technology is to get seen in the next couple of years, there is a need for additional specialists who’ve mastered this tech. Expert projection placed the market size for AR/VR at $6.1 billion by 2017 but increased to a whopping $215 billion in 2021.

XR is being used by top enterprises like NVIDIA, Facebook, Google, HTV, and Snapchat, companies that have seen unprecedented growth as a result of the pandemic. There is also a scarcity of XR quality assurance specialists that can troubleshoot algorithms and make sense of the output for use by other tech departments.

4 Analytics and Data Science

Data analytics and data science are two highly sought after tech skills that are consistently hand-in-hand with big data, whose revenues are now projected to grow by 14.1% in 2026. Big data initiatives and advanced analytics are being launched by 84% of tech enterprises to create greater accuracy and accelerate decision-making processes.

According to LinkedIn’s report on emerging jobs, data science emerges at the top for the last three years. While the two tech careers are closely related, analysis is an entry-level tech skill. On the other hand, data science becomes more advanced.  

Industries that require data specialists include finance, software development, health, education, and e-retail. Data scientists command an average salary of $101,000 and get voted as having the third-best jobs in the US by Glassdoor’s annual Best Jobs in America report.

Data analysis and science specialists help drive better decision making by providing an overview of the organization, analysis, and interpretation of big data. On mastering this tech skill, you’ll be able to build projects with an understanding of neural networks, classifiers, and ML algorithms.

3 IoT or Internet of Things and Big Data

Internet of Things (IoT) is a broad term. It covers everything that’s connected to the internet and, more specifically, devices that communicate with each other. Defined as objects that talk, IoT (or edge computing) includes smartphones, wearable tech, and other smart sensors.

One of the major concerns with connected devices is data security, and that’s why techies who’ve mastered IoT tech are taught after. The average salary of an Internet of Things professional is $101,000, with the segment poised to become the next technology career boom.

By 2025, IoT will impact the economy by up to $11 trillion according to predictions by the McKinsey Global Institute. Currently, 94% of business is investing in IoT preparedness initiatives, and mastering this tech requires you to identify solutions and network components with security risks and data management for prototype production.

2 Robotics

Robotics covers hardware and software engineering, which means you’ll be working with physical and virtual bots. Robotics encompasses specializations like automated manufacturing, exploration robots, medical equipment, and entertainment animatronics. Automated tasks like virtual assistance and customer care use software that acts as virtual bots.

According to LinkedIn, the robotics industry, comprising both virtual and physical bots has grown by 40% every year, emerging as a part of the $1.2 trillion AI sector. Coupled with AI certification, you can earn a salary of up to $181,430.

As a robotic engineer, you’ll be able to operate and adjust robotic real-world functions such as moving across terrains in disaster recovery or healthcare. Mastering this tech skill means that you can program a physical or virtual robot to provide movement or flight solutions using languages like SQL, python, visual basic, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

To qualify as an RPA or robotics process automation engineer, you’ll need diverse technical skills for development, architecture, and analysis for providing solutions. You should be well-versed in Microsoft .NET Framework for building RPA platforms coupled with experience in business processes, communication, and process mapping.

1 User Experience and User Interface Designer

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) belong to the same family of tech skills. But there are fundamental differences. Masters in UI have skills to design user interfaces for apps and websites, making them more appealing, easy to navigate, and free-flowing.

For a UX specialist, a lot of testing and research gets performed for an elemental consideration of how the users interact with a website or company app. This expert coordinates with UI designers and web or app developers and has the type of career where analytics meets creativity. UI designers focus on layout, visuals, and the general feel and appearance of a page of a virtual product, while UX professionals use testing and analysis to meet their client’s needs.

According to Adobe, 87% of managers disclosed that their organization’s number one priority is to hire more UX specialists, and there are more than 14,000 job openings in the US alone. Mastering skills as UI/UX designers require that you’re proficient with design tools and platforms like AI, VR/AR, and wearables.

For most people who develop medical conditions due to unforeseen diseases or accidents, life tends to get more difficult. It doesn’t matter how severe the condition is, they have to give up on a part of their former lives to accommodate it.

In some cases, though, the exact opposite happens. Throughout history, a few people have acquired extraordinary skills because of their medical conditions, and science still doesn’t quite understand how it works. Even if it’s a bad idea to go out and try to replicate these cases to improve your lives—as it only happens in rare instances—they provide us with valuable insight into how the human brain really works.

10 Franco Magnani

Born in 1934, Franco Magnani grew up in a small village in the Tuscany region of Italy called Pontito. Like many places in Europe at that time, it was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II, and it still hasn’t recovered. After working there as a woodworker, Magnani eventually moved to San Francisco in his thirties.

Soon after his relocation, he was stricken by a mysterious illness that gave him powerful, delirious hallucinations about his hometown. When he recovered, he found that he had developed an exceptional ability to draw anything from memory, especially scenes from his early life in Pontito.

He eventually got so good at it that he’s now known as the “memory artist,” and we’re not using the word “memory” as an exaggeration. Magnani produced his best paintings without ever going back to the village after he moved to San Francisco, and they still look quite realistic.^[1]

9 Derek Amato

Learning a musical instrument is no easy feat as anyone who has tried it just to look cool would tell you. Depending on the instrument, it may take months—even years—to achieve proficiency at it and even more time to master it. For Derek Amato from Denver, though, all it took was a bad fall.

It was around 12 years ago that he accidentally fell headfirst into the shallow end of a swimming pool, directly injuring his head. For most of us, that would mean a few days off from work at best and a debilitating lifelong medical condition at worst. Derek Amato, however, came out of it with a newfound ability to play the piano.

Apparently, the injury made him see black and white squares in his head, which he is somehow able to translate into piano notes. That’s the only type of notes he can understand as he is unable to read traditional notations like other musicians.^[2]

8 Ken Walters

Ken Walters was a successful, happily settled engineer in 1986 when his life took a turn for the worst. While he was working on a farm, a forklift truck driven by a 12-year-old accidentally pinned him to a wall. It caused massive spinal and internal damage and had him confined to a wheelchair for 19 years. However, this is not the injury we’re talking about.

As if things weren’t bad enough, he suffered a stroke in 2005 and was taken to the hospital. At first, he couldn’t even speak properly and had to communicate with the hospital staff through notes. While writing one of those notes, he realized that he could now doodle, which was particularly surprising to him as he had never been good at any type of art before the stroke.

The stroke fundamentally changed something in his brain, and he soon started making art for a living. In addition to Walters being contacted by companies like IBM, EA, and Java for his artwork, his pictures have been featured in magazines and art galleries around the world.^[3]

7 Leigh Erceg

Some medical conditions are so rare that they only affect one person in the entire world—as far as we know. Apparently, Leigh Erceg is the only one in the world ever diagnosed with acquired savant syndrome and synesthesia (both are rare conditions on their own) following a brain injury.

In 2009, she fell down a ravine while working on her family farm and badly injured her spinal cord and brain. Due to the severity of the accident, she has no memory of anything before the injury and even has trouble remembering world events like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The injury also squashed her ability to feel emotions, which the doctors creatively called the “flat affect.”

On the other hand, she gained an extraordinary flair for art and physics. Her home is now filled with art done with Sharpies as well as boards full of complex mathematical formulas that most of us would have trouble reading, let alone understanding.^[4]

6 Eadweard Muybridge

Perhaps the most famous person on this list, Eadweard Muybridge has multiple accomplishments that you may have heard of. Apart from pioneering some of the earliest techniques in photography, he was also the first person to make a motion picture.

What may not be common knowledge, however, is how he got those talents. According to later research by a psychologist at UC-Berkeley, it was because of an injury from a serious stagecoach accident in 1860. Muybridge went into a coma for a few days. Then he suffered from intense visions and loss of hearing, taste, and smell for three months. Following his recovery, he moved to England and started his long and illustrious career as a photographer.

Muybridge may be one of the earliest-known examples of someone with acquired savant syndrome—a condition in which the patient acquires extraordinary abilities following a disease or brain injury.^[5]

5 Jim Carollo

Despite high school’s best efforts, most people are bad at mathematics. There’s just something about numbers and calculations that doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and those who are good at it usually end up having hugely successful careers in specialized fields. For Jim Carollo, though, it was only a matter of going through a traumatic brain injury.

At 14 years old, he was involved in a severe auto accident and even spent some days in a coma. The injury was so serious that the doctors thought he wouldn’t make it. Not only did he survive and fully recover within a few months but he also developed a skill for math.

He scored a perfect 100 on his next geometry test without studying, which was surprising because he had never been particularly good at math before the accident. He became especially proficient at remembering numbers and can now recite anything from phone numbers, credit card numbers, old locker combinations, and the first 200 digits of pi just from memory.^[6]

4 Lachlan Connors

Not everyone is born with a talent for music. However, Lachlan Connors was so bad at it that he couldn’t even remember nursery rhymes like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” He actually wanted to make a career in lacrosse, which may be because he was a kid at the time and didn’t know that there is no real career in lacrosse.

It all changed after he suffered a few injuries to his head while playing. What were just concussions and presumably swollen bumps the first few times soon turned into serious epileptic seizures and hallucinations. Due to the severity of his condition, his doctor advised him against playing anymore.^[7]

The seizures and hallucinations eventually subsided, though they were puzzlingly replaced by something he never had before—the ability to play musical instruments. We aren’t just talking about the guitar, either. He could now effortlessly play a wide range of instruments like piano, ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, and bagpipes.

3 Pip Taylor

Drawing is something we all love to do, even though most of us aren’t naturally gifted at it. It’s one thing to make a variety of smiley faces when you can’t concentrate in class, but it’s a wholly different thing to be good enough at it to convince someone to pay you for it.

It’s a difference that Pip Taylor—a middle-aged woman from Liverpool, England—knew only too well. She grew up with a passion for drawing but was so bad at it that even her teacher advised her against taking it up as a career.^[8]

Then she fell down a flight of stairs and cracked her head in 2012. She was amazed to discover that she could now draw realistic copies of almost anything. The doctors were stumped and couldn’t really explain it. However, they admitted that brain injuries can sometimes rewire the brain into developing extraordinary skills.

2 Sabine

Due to advancements in medicine in the past few decades, we take some diseases for granted. What may be curable with just a doctor’s visit and a few medicines today used to be a definite death sentence at one point. Typhoid was one such disease and wreaked havoc on anyone who was unlucky enough to contract it before we could find a cure for it.

Sabine—a six-year-old in 1910—was left blind and mute due to the disease. Although she regained some of her speech abilities in the following months, her brain stopped developing like a normal child. At the time, some presumably insensitive doctors even called her an “imbecile.”^[9]

All those problems aside, though, the disease also left her with a sort of superpower—the ability to do calculations with ridiculously large numbers like it was nothing. She became especially good at squaring any number they threw at her in a matter of seconds.

1 Ric Owens

One of the biggest misconceptions about head injuries is that they’re supposed to hurt a lot and, in cases of severe damage, you should black out. Even if those things do happen quite often, the reality is that serious injuries affect everyone in a different way.

In 2011, Ric Owens was a professional chef with a successful career. When his car was hit by a big rig on the highway, he didn’t think much of it as he didn’t have any immediate symptoms. Within a week, though, he started getting migraines and his speech began to slur. He was soon diagnosed with post-concussive syndrome and found that he was no longer interested in making food. Instead, he was now into abstract geometric art.^[10]

Although neither he nor the doctors could explain how it happened, he could suddenly make art with anything he found around the house. He has about 100 pieces lying around the house now, made with everything from ceiling tiles, pallets, lamps, and glass.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

We all have hidden talents that we like to break out every now and then to show off. Famous people are no different. Most of them get primarily remembered for one or two things, but that does not mean they don’t have a few other skills in their bag of tricks.

10. Christopher Walken the Lion Tamer

Christopher Walken is, without a doubt, one of the most distinctive characters that Hollywood has ever produced, and that is before you find out that he spent one summer working as a lion tamer.

Even before he became a big-shot actor, Walken was meant for show business. He started out as a child actor in the ’50s, appearing in variety and sketch shows alongside the likes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Then, as a teenager, he began looking for more adventurous experiences and that’s how he ended up joining the circus when he was 16.

At the circus, Walken became a trainee lion tamer, working with a lioness named Sheba. The gig didn’t last long, but the actor still remembers it fondly: “I would come into the cage and wave my whip, and she’d lazily get up and sit like a dog and maybe give a little roar. I like cats a lot. I’ve always liked cats. They’re great company.”

9. Willie Nelson the Black Belt

Most people might regard Willie Nelson as the poster boy for the chilled-out, long-haired hippie artist/activist who simply enjoys getting stoned and making music with his friends, but there is one characteristic they might be leaving out – his expertise in martial arts.

This is not something that Nelson has gotten into recently. The outlaw country music star has been practicing martial arts for decades, as he considers it one of the best exercises you can do to stay fit: “It’s just good for you physically. For your lungs. The more you’re breathing, exercising, the better you’re going to feel.”

And Nelson is pretty good at it, too. Back in 2014, the Red-Headed Stranger celebrated his 81st birthday by becoming a fifth-degree black belt in GongKwon Yusul, a Korean martial art that Willie Nelson has mastered over a period of 20 years.

8. George Washington the Ballroom Dancer

George Washington might be remembered for his proficiency on the battlefield and in the Oval Office, but not so much for his talents on the dance floor. And that is a shame because, according to numerous people who witnessed it firsthand, the Father of the Country not only liked to boogie, but he was pretty good at it, too.

Washington described dancing as “so agreeable and innocent an amusement.” His fondness for this activity began as a young officer when he became the master of the minuet. However, he got to enjoy it the most in his later years, after retiring from public office, and if there was a ball in Virginia, somewhere around Alexandria, chances were pretty good that the former president might attend to strut his stuff.

7. Nostradamus the Jam Maker

Sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus might be a favorite among crackpots all over the world for his book on prophecies, but that’s not his only available work. In 1555, he also published Traité des fardemens et confitures, or “Treatise on Make-up and Jam,” two things that obviously go perfectly together. 

You have to remember that Nostramaus’s day job was that of apothecary, so he put together a book with all kinds of recipes. His cure for the plague was a popular choice, but you could find all sorts of instructions in there, from food recipes like marmalade, marzipan, and quince jelly, to make-up tips such as how to whiten your teeth or turn your hair golden blond. 

Nostradamus mostly collected these recipes and placed them in his book. They weren’t his own original creations. However, he did include one personal recipe for a “love jam.” He described it as being so potent that “if a man were to have a little of it in his mouth, and while having it in his mouth kissed a woman, or a woman him, and expelled it with his saliva, putting some of it in the other’s mouth, it would suddenly cause … a burning of her heart to perform the love-act“.

6. Pierce Brosnan the Fire Eater

In 1996, right after he starred as James Bond in GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan began doing media appearances to promote the movie. This included a guest spot on The Muppets, which would have involved a big segment for the finale where Brosnan could showcase his special talents. Well, he couldn’t really sing or dance, but Brosnan did have an ace up his sleeve – he could breathe fire.

This was a little trick that he picked up in 1969 while working at the Oval House Theater in London. It’s been on his CV ever since, although the Muppets show in 1996 was the last time that Brosnan did his fire-breathing act since it didn’t really work out too well for him that night. Here’s what happened according to him:

“The last segment of the show was me fire-eating. I made my own brand – I had the kerosene, I was in the tuxedo. The prop guy was there and he said, ‘This (other) stuff is great. It doesn’t taste of anything, you don’t smell it.’ I went, ‘This is good. I’ll try this.’

It was like rocket fuel. I blew it, it all came back into my mouth and my mouth blew up. I had blisters for the rest of the show.”

5. Will Wright the Street Racer

Those of you who have only heard of the Cannonball Run from the 1980s comedy movie starring Burt Reynolds might be surprised to find out that it used to be a real race across the United States, from New York City to Los Angeles. Like its movie counterpart, it was always unsanctioned since it was clear to everyone that the racers constantly broke the speed limit all over the country.

During the early 1980s, the race briefly became known as the U.S. Express and, in 1980, it was won by a guy named Will Wright, who finished the race in first place alongside his co-driver Rick Doherty in a souped-up Mazda RX-7 with a time of 33 hours and 39 minutes.

If you’re not a gamer, then the name Will Wright probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but if you are, you might recognize him as the designer behind one of the biggest franchises in gaming history – The Sims.

4. Paul Revere the Forensic Dentist

Everybody has heard of Paul Revere’s famous ride, as he raced throughout the night to alert the colonies of the impending attack on Lexington and Concord. Before all of this, though, Revere was a silversmith by trade and, during a particularly low point in his career when business was down, he even took up dentistry. One of his clients was one of the Founding Fathers, Major General Joseph Warren, who got fitted with a pair of ivory false teeth by Revere. 

Warren was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill and later buried in a mass grave without his uniform or identification. Nine months later, when the British evacuated Boston, Revere and Warren’s brothers went to the battlefield to search for his remains and give him a proper burial. This was a desperate move since the body would have been unrecognizable by now, but Revere managed to identify it thanks to a walrus tooth that he had fitted into Joseph Warren’s mouth. In the process, Paul Revere became the country’s first forensic dentist.

3. Johnny Cash the Morse Code Master

In 1950, an 18-year-old Johnny Cash was looking for a sense of purpose, so he did what many young men do – he joined the military. He enlisted in the Air Force and got sent to Lackland Air Force Base for training before being shipped across the Atlantic to Landsberg, West Germany, where he spent the next three years of his life. That’s where Cash discovered that he had an unexpected skill – that of using and deciphering Morse Code. Unsurprisingly, he was made a Morse Code operator and made to listen in on the Soviets.

This gave rise to a famous story that Johnny Cash was the first American to hear that Joseph Stalin had died after intercepting the message by chance. This is almost certainly a myth, but one that Cash himself encouraged with a wry smile, writing in his autobiography:

“I was the ace. I was who they called when the hardest jobs came up. I copied the first news of Stalin’s death. I located the signal when the first Soviet jet bomber made its first flight from Moscow to Smolensk; we all knew what to listen for, but I was the one who heard it…”

2. Hirohito the Marine Biologist

Hirohito might have attained infamy as the Emperor of Japan during World War II, but there was another side to him – that of a dedicated marine biologist. He was described as wearing “ two faces. There was the placid, impassionate, and, even, obedient leader in public regard, and there was the eager intent of the original investigator whether in the field or the laboratory, bent on discovery and understanding.”

During his school days, the crown prince found a passion for biology which carried on for the rest of his life. He soon started collecting shells and, from there, he moved to studying marine biology, taking advantage of the rich biodiversity of Sagami Bay near one of the imperial villages. During his lifetime, Hirohito’s collection grew to over 57,000 specimens and he published 15 monographs on the marine fauna in the bay, where he described over 300 new species. He eventually specialized in hydrozoans, really tiny predators related to jellyfish and sea anemones. 

It seems that the interest in marine biology runs in the family, as his son and heir also took up the practice, but focused his studies on the Gobiidae fish family.

1. Thomas Jefferson the Archaeologist

Thomas Jefferson bore many titles during his lifetime, but one that often gets overlooked is the “Father of American Archaeology.” That’s because Jefferson led the first scientific archaeological dig in the country’s history when he directed the excavation of a mound in central Virginia. 

Jefferson employed the kind of thoroughness and dedication that you would expect from someone like him. His systematic trenching and use of stratigraphy pretty much anticipated what would become the standard approach to archaeology by almost a century. 

The mound was located in Monacan Indian territory, so it likely belonged to them or their ancestors. As many as a thousand different human remains were found at the site. However, the area flooded several times in the centuries that followed, and by 1911 it was reported that the mound had been entirely washed away.