Students of the bizarre know to expect the unexpected… but cats that give people an edge in business? Predicting death by what a person can and cannot smell? True tales, kids.

Strange links are everywhere. Some have fascinating explanations, like Scooby-Doo’s connection to the RFK assassination. But plenty of others remain steeped in speculation and mystery. Either way, here are ten of the weirdest couples out there.

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10 Sense Of Smell And Death

There is a disturbing link between not being able to smell a flower (or anything else, for that matter) and dying within the next five to ten years. The warning sign appears in the elderly and 28 percent of all cases can be explained by dementia and Parkinson’s disease, both of which often mute a person’s sense of smell.

The majority of fatalities—the remaining 72 percent—defies explanation. Nobody knows why their noses stopped working or why their life expectancy dropped so dramatically. The strangest thing is that the phenomenon becomes more accurate at predicting death when it flags the healthy old folks.^[1]

9 A Bad Mood And Greater Productivity

When feelings go dark, the last perk one might expect is a completed To-Do list. This holds true for most people, who either throw in the towel or underperform when they feel down. But for a select group, the moment their crabby-meter tips into the red zone, it sharpens their focus and time-management skills.

This performance boost only works for individuals who habitually hold onto negative emotions. On the other hand, people with short grouchy spells tend to be less efficient during their bad moods. Curiously, neither show an uptick in productivity when they feel positive.

The answer might be disappointingly mundane. Negative feelings could improve moody people’s performance (when compared to others) because they are used to feeling that way. Such feelings do not upset and distract them as much as those who experience fewer dark days and thus are more easily derailed by them.^[2]

8 Low Intelligence And Pseudo-Profound Statements

Pseudo-profound statements are sayings that sound deep and wise—but make no sense. Here’s an example; “Wellbeing requires exploration. To traverse the mission is to become one with it.” Despite the vagueness, such lines convince too many people that they are fantastic truths.

Even during a recent experiment, when fake statements were created by a random generator, they were taken at face value. The researchers who dangled the wise-sounding bait in front of volunteers were trying to understand why people adore cliches without substance. This, in turn, might explain why the same individuals tend to turn away from important fact-based topics in science and medicine.

The study made an unfortunate connection. The participants were thoroughly tested for intelligence and those with the lowest scores bought into the nonsense more frequently. They were also the volunteers who were more likely to support baseless conspiracy theories and alternative medicine.^[3]

7 Bottle-Feeding And Left-Handedness

A person’s dominant hand is partially determined by genes. What else causes left or right-handedness is a mystery. Then scientists followed 60,000 mothers for a year, starting right after their baby was born. By the nine-month mark, an odd piece of the puzzle fell into place. Bottle-feeding raises more lefties.

For some reason, this happened when the infants were bottle-fed before the age of six months. But for each consecutive month of breastfeeding, more children became right-handed. The discovery did not solve the left-right riddle. But it showed that the way Junior is fed might be one of the strongest factors that influence handedness.^[4]

6 More Homework And Poor Test Scores

Homework’s purpose is to reinforce what is taught in class. On average, US students are given 3.5 hours’ worth every day. Ironically, there is a chance that such a workload might undo what children learn.

In 2015, a study tracked over 7,700 adolescents from Spain. The goal was to weigh their academic performance against the time they spend doing homework. Most scored better on tests when their homework was limited to an hour every day. When an additional forty minutes were added, their test results dropped.

However, things are not as simple as reducing homework and expecting stellar grades. Other factors were also involved. The teens who performed better also did homework on more days than their peers and those who received parental help actually fared worse.

Overall, it appears that an hour of focused effort, done every day on their own, is the road to better test results.^[5]

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5 Beards And Punches

Charles Darwin’s evolution theories include the human beard. According to him, it served no purpose. But beards are not as useless as Darwin made them out to be. There is a strong link between face fuzz and fistfights (or getting hit in the face with a stick perhaps).

Indeed, male skulls appear to have evolved to shield the face during a brawl. If bone structure can serve as personal protection, then beards might also play a similar role.

The idea was tested on fake heads with a human-like bone structure. Covered with sheepskin, some heads were dressed in fully-grown wool to mimic beards. Others had sheared skin (to see if the hair follicles gave any protection) while the rest had their skins plucked clean of all hair (these were the beardless chins).

Then researchers started swiping at the skulls with a rod. All the beardless and 95 percent of the sheared faces were severely damaged. Only 45 percent of bearded jaws broke. This is good evidence that beards do protect the face after all—but the “How?” remains unanswered. Plausibly, a thick beard might defuse a punch by absorbing and spreading its energy over a bigger area.^[6]

4 PainKillers And Less Empathy

Roughly 52 million Americans consume acetaminophen every week. This painkiller is sold as Tylenol and over 600 medications contain it as an ingredient. In 2016, a worrying side-effect was discovered. Acetaminophen seems to lower people’s empathy towards others.

During an experiment, volunteers drank the maximum dosage allowed for one day. Then they read stories where people suffered physically or emotionally. Afterward, they rated how deeply they thought the characters experienced the pain. The volunteers who took a placebo thought the victims had a tougher time of it.

Curiously, during a second test, the acetaminophen-laced participants had less empathy for themselves as well. They were blasted with uncomfortably loud music but once again, it was the placebo group who were less appreciative. Not only for themselves but they also felt more strongly that others would also find the experience unpleasant.

Why the drug dilutes empathy is not fully understood.^[7]

3 Scooby-Doo And The RFK Assassination

During the 1960s, morning cartoons like Tom & Jerry lost popularity. To up the ratings, TV networks made the programming more violent. Sure enough, kids loved the new sci-fi cartoons because they were packed with wall-to-wall action and violence.

The first Scooby-Doo series aired in 1969. The four teenagers and their talking Great Dane spawned a franchise that lasts to this day. But the famous hound might never have seen the light of day had it not been for the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy a year earlier.

But back to the sci-fi cartoons that aired before Scooby-Doo. Anti-violence organizations hated them but needed the support of society to remove the programs. The opportunity came when the Vietnam War, among other things, made violence too real for the public. RFK’s death followed and so did widespread panic over anything that might corrupt morals—including TV shows. The activists gained support with gory statistics about the cartoons and saying that Kennedy had wanted children’s programming to be more innocent (which was true).

To survive the public’s backlash, the networks abandoned science-fiction for comedy. However, they still needed a cartoon with enough action to keep the kids hooked—and Scooby-Doo was born. Children loved the gang’s spooky investigations while the censors had nothing to complain about. Despite meeting monsters, the characters were never violent or in any real danger.^[8]

2 Famine And Daughters

Normally, more boys are born than girls. This is probably to compensate for the higher death rate among males. But when life gets tough, more girls are born. Scientists have been trying to understand this trend for decades. In 1973, a Harvard team suggested that women without good nutrition develop a biology that favors daughters.

The Harvard study argued that famine reduces the number of healthy men who become fathers but that the majority of women could still reproduce, regardless of their poor health. Baby girls ensure that more grandchildren are born if the famine lasts for another generation. On the other hand, better times provides more opportunity for sons to become fathers.

The theory is backed by real-life famines. During China’s socialist Great Leap Forward, 30 million people died of starvation. More daughters were born during this time and the two years following the famine. But hunger cannot create a baby’s gender—that’s a job for chromosomes. So, what is going on? Apparently, when a mother’s blood sugar levels are unstable (from starvation), more male fetuses are lost. That could be why more girls are born during times of disaster.^[9]

1 Business-Minded People And Cats

Some cats carry a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. The bug is famous for turning mice fearless and this makes them easy to catch—and for T. gondii to infect cats. The felines can then infect people.

Researchers knew the parasite probably tweaked human behavior. But did it make them more daring like the mice? The study examined databases and saliva samples from students and business professionals. The idea was to match the go-getters with T. gondii infections.

There were hundreds of positive cases. Among these, more students majored in business or studied entrepreneurship than their unaffected peers. The infected professionals also started their own business more often than others in their field. The positive cases from the databases also had more startups and fewer reports of fearing that their ventures would fail.

Nobody turned into risk-taking zombies. The numbers do suggest, however, that the pest influences entrepreneurs with a drive to succeed.^[10]

10 Contentious Explanations For Racial Differences

By definition a coincidence is something that is remarkable involving two or more unrelated things that still happens at the same time or in a way that seems to relate the two. One of the key features of a coincidence is the fact that the things or events are, in fact, unrelated. But over time we’ve come to doubt the very idea of a coincidence. People will remark “isn’t that a coincidence?” in a knowing way that suggests they don’t think it’s a coincidence at all, and conspiracies abound that many coincidences must therefore be the exact opposite. But despite that, the world is still rife with true coincidence, things that seem like they have to be related somehow and just aren’t. 

10. Freddie King, Albert King and B.B. King Were all Blues “Kings” But Unrelated 

If you’re a fan of the Blues or even just good guitar playing in general, then you probably know B.B. King who was also known by the nickname King of the Blues Guitar. It’s a clever name with a dual meaning thanks to King’s name and the fact that the man was just really good at playing the Blues. But he was also known by another name, or rather as part of another name, one of the three Kings of the Blues Guitar.

The Three Kings included B.B. King, Freddie King and Albert King. They were all born within about a decade of one another and rose to fame in the 50s and 60s together, their careers overlapping for many years. All three men rose to prominence as incredible musicians, in particular for playing Blues guitar, and it was sheer coincidence that all three were named King and they were unrelated. 

9. Robyn, Robin S, and Robin Schulz all Have Songs Called “Show Me Love”

“Show Me Love” may not be the most creative sounding name for a song ever, but it certainly captured the imagination of more than one artist. By coincidence, it seemed to capture the imagination of three artists who all had basically the same name. American R&B singer Robin S. was first to release a “Show Me Love“ back in 1993. 

Swedish singer Robyn released her “Show Me Love“ in 1997, which went on to create confusion as both were popular ’90s dance hits. Robin Schulz waited until 2015 to release his own “Show Me Love“ which was, once again, a dance hit — though it didn’t get as popular as the first two. It’s still made trying to Google one specific song difficult in the present if you aren’t sure who sang what.

8. Denmark Keeps Electing Prime Ministers Named Rasmussen

What’s in a name? If you’re a Danish politician, maybe more than you’d think if you don’t believe in coincidence. But if you do, then it’s still interesting to note that Danes apparently have a real affinity for the name Rasmussen. As in they elected three Prime Ministers in a row who were all named Rasmussen, even though they were unrelated. They liked the last one so much they elected him again a few years later after taking a four-year break for someone named Thorning-Schmidt. 

The Reign of Rasmussen began in 1993 when Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was elected. In 2001, he was replaced by Anders Rasmussen who served until 2009 when he resigned from office. That was when Lars Løkke Rasmussen took over. He only got two years in office but the people of Denmark were willing to give him another go when he was reelected in 2015 and stayed in office until 2019. 

7. The Word for Dog in the Mbabaram Language is Also Dog

Language is one of the most fascinating parts of human development and when you look back through the history of language, it just gets more and more fascinating. You can pick any random word in English and trace its etymology, perhaps to French or German or Old English and Latin and so on, back through centuries. But where did it start? When did the first person to ever name an apple call it whatever they called and why? How? 

The creation of language out of literally nothing will not be a thing we can ever fully understand in the present, but we can at least appreciate some remarkable coincidences that can occur across languages that have nothing in common and could have nothing in common over their development. One of the most amazing coincidences comes to us in the form of the word dog.

The etymology of dog in English gives us a dead end when we go back far enough. You can go back to Old English, around 1,000 years ago, and then the trail runs dry. But, remarkably, the same word appears in the Mbabaram language, one of the rarest languages in the world that was spoken by native Australians.  

Mbabaram had no ties to English whatsoever and evolved entirely separately with no influence. Somewhat more remarkable was how linguists traced the evolution of dog in that language from the earlier word gudaga which saw some mild phonetic changes over time to produce what they called a one in a million accidental similarity of form and meaning. 

6. The Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius Looks Similar by Coincidence

In the medical community you can commonly find two symbols used by organizations as part of their official logos. One is the Caduceus, a staff encircled by two snakes with a pair of wings on top. The other is the Staff of Aesculapius, a staff with a single snake winding around it to the top.

You’ll see both symbols on medical ID bracelets but the Staff is the official symbol of organizations like MedicAlert, the American Medical Association, Yale School of Medicine and more. The Caduceus, on the other hand, is the official symbol of the Surgeon General of the US Army and the US Army Medical Corps. It’s used by the Public Health Service and numerous medical businesses as well. So what’s the difference?

The Staff of Aesculapius has been a symbol of medicine for years. Aesculapius was a god of healing. But the Caduceus is associated with Hermes, a messenger god who had nothing to do with medicine. The image, however, is more balanced with the wings and snakes and therefore more aesthetically pleasing. For that reason, since it looks sort of like the other symbol, it seems to have enjoyed widespread use as a result entirely by coincidence. It looks like the real symbol for medicine and healing, so it replaced the real symbol in many places. 

5. Australia and America Both Have a Store Chain Called Target with a Bullseye Logo 

Target, with its red bullseye logo, is one of the most popular retailers in America and reported over $100 billion in revenue for 2022. Suffice it to say, the chain is doing okay. But on the other side of the world there’s another chain of stores in Australia also called Target that also feature the exact same red bullseye logo that has nothing at all to do with the American stores. The goods sold are also similar, with the Australian version selling clothes, toys, electronics and so on but no food.

Target Australia is not owned by Kmart, contrary to rumors, but by a company called Westfarmers Limited. They filed their own copyright claim on the name and logo in Australia in 1968, a year after the American company did the same thing in America, neither company really having any idea that the other existed. The name and logo similarities are entirely coincidental and, if you think about it, using a bullseye as a logo for a store called Target is pretty much a no-brainer, so it’s not hard to imagine. 

Though the copyright in Australia came a year later than the US store, the original stores, known as Lindsay’s, actually date all the way back to 1926 making the Aussie version much older than the American one. 

4. There’s a UK Dennis the Menace Which Debuted on the Exact Same Day as the US Dennis the Menace 

In the age of social media you’ll see a lot of accusations of plagiarism if someone posts a joke online and then someone else posts the same joke sometime later. But the fact is that this kind of simultaneous discovery or synchronicity of thought is not unheard of and can get remarkably complex. One of the best examples of this is arguably Dennis the Menace, which was created in both the US and the UK at the exact same time, each with no knowledge of the other. 

Dennis the Menace appeared in comics on March 12, 1951 in both the UK and the US. The UK version appeared as a strip in a comic book and was created by David Law. The US version appeared in newspaper comic strips and was created by Hank Ketcham. Neither man knew the other, neither man had any idea that the other comic existed. Also, aside from the name, they aren’t all that similar.

The UK Dennis was much more of a Menace that his US counterpart, who was more of a pest than another else. When the two creators learned what was happening they seem to have mostly shrugged it off and agreed to keep doing what they were doing, acknowledging that the other was not a ripoff. That said,the UK version did end up being known as Dennis and Gnasher. When the Dennis the Menace movie was released in the UK, they just called it Dennis. 

3. Two Postal Workers in Two Different States Shot Up Their Workplaces on the Same Day

There was a time when the saying “going postal” had a very clear meaning for most people – it meant going on a rampage. It had become a sort of morbid joke that postal workers were inclined to grab a gun and shoot up their coworkers as a result of a series of shootings that started in the mid-80s and claimed the lives of dozens of people. 

The postal shootings became so ubiquitous for a time that, on May 6, 1993, it actually happened twice, in two different states, in totally separate and unrelated incidents. One shooting took place in Michigan while the other took place in California and three people died as a result while several others were injured. 

2. Anise, Star Anise, Fennel, and Licorice Unrelated

If you like black licorice there’s a good chance you also enjoy anise and star anise as they all have very similar flavors. You can lump fennel into that group too as it also has a subtle licorice flavor. But despite the similarity, and especially when it comes to anise and star anise which are obviously very closely related at least in terms of names, none of these things are actually biologically related.

The flavor similarity comes from an oil called anethole. You can also find it in licorice root and in fennel. All four have the same flavor as a result even though the plants are not closely related in the biological sense of the word. Anise is actually more closely related to parsley and celery while licorice is from the legume family.

1. Agatha Christie Was Investigated By MI5 Over a Coincidental Name

Imagine being such a good writer of mysteries that you actually just start echoing reality with the stories you make up, completely unintentionally and in a way that makes the government investigate you because you’ve convinced them you’re a spy. That’s what happened to Agatha Christie. In her book “N or M,” Christie created a character named Bletchley, who knew some military secrets.

MI5 had an issue with this because Christie was friends with someone named Dilly Knox who happened to be a code breaker at a secret facility in a place called Bletchley Park. Knox had helped break the Enigma codes and his work was informing the movement of British spies. So they had to find out if Christie somehow had learned this info. 

When Knox tried to stealthily inquire about why she named the character with secret info Bletchley, she explained it was because she was stuck in Bletchley waiting for a train and hated it so much she named her least likable character after the place. It was merely a coincidence in the end.