From subterranean Martians to female hysteria, people have been known to believe some pretty bizarre things. What does it take to make a believable scientific hypothesis out of a strange idea like Hollow Earth theory, what suspension of believe is needed to agree with the Intelligent Design nutjobs? Apparently, not much. Here are five of the strangest examples and who knows what people will find hilariously untrue from our era in 50 years? Everyone will no doubt have other ideas for what the world’s weirdest theories are so give it a shot in the comments below!
1. Trepanation
Ouch. In one of the oldest known medical interventions, a hole is drilled in the skull of a patient who is suffering from defects such as seizures or migraine headaches. The idea was to relieve pressure in the head which was believed to be causing the ailment. Today, trepanation is used on a very limited basis as a mechanism to access the brain for necessary surgery. Some people practice recreational or spiritual trepanation, presumably because they need modern medicine like they need a hole in the head.
2. Female hysteria
Women in the Victorian age were said to be suffering from female hysteria when they were moody or a little more “difficult” than usual. Fortunately for them, the treatment was something called pelvic massage. We can’t laugh too hard at this one, though. Many years later, it directly caused vibrating devices to be widely available for, um, home treatment.
3. Expanding Earth
As bizarre theories go, this one doesn’t sound that far-fetched. Expanding Earth is the idea that the planet was once a lot smaller and completely covered in one continent. If you mentally shrink the globe and try to fit the continents together like a puzzle, you could almost start to believe this theory
Some pictures are worth 1,000 words, but others are worth 1,000,000. By (subjective) category, here are 10 of the most amazing viral images of 2007. Undoubtedly some of these you will have seen before, but some will be new as well. Click on the images below to go to the full-sized originals. Enjoy!
Most Touching: Loyal to the End
Most Geeky: Why We Love Firefox
Best of Technology: 1 Gigabyte Then and Now
Best of the Web: Why Net Neutrality is So Important
There is something about the end of the year that brings out the Top 10 lists all over the interwebs. Instead of trying to come up with one here, how about a compilation of some of the good ones that are floating around right now? Always better to start with an exception rather than the rule, so here are the Top 15 Winners of an awesome photoshop contest. We’ve all seen these way too many times, but here they are all in one place: the Top 10 cliche dorm room posters. There is some serious wow to be found in these Top 10 astronomy posters of 2007. The Top 10 hottest women in tech can only really be followed by the sequel. A much more soothing compilation, here are the Top 10 sites for colo(u)r lovers. And to round it all out, a few videos:
Top 10 unsportsmanlike plays - some seriously dirty stuff.
Top 10 Tetris-related TV skits - some hilarity to balance out the pain
Try searching the interwebs for ‘bizarre’ and yes, in fact, you will come up with a number of truly bizarre things. Start with sites like Del.icio.us or 2spare to get a feel for what is out there because Google just won’t cut it. Here is just a small sampling of what you might find while trolling around for the freakishness available at your fingertips one this wonderfully weird web.
To start things out we have the 10 most bizarre people on Earth - you won’t be disappointed though you may be disturbed by some of the stuff you find on this list, including the man who didn’t sleep for decades. In fact, sleeping for decades may be the only way you haven’t already seen this list of the 20 most bizarre experiments of all time created as part of one man’s research for the aptly named book Elephants on Acid. Speaking of experiments, scientists likely enjoy breaks for dull day-to-day routines to investigate bizarre real-life sea creatures like these. Another classic of the internet you likely have seen but should if you haven’t: a bunch of truly bizarre statues. Can’t find the words to express your reaction? Fair enough, try this list of funny and bizarre foreign phrases. Need more weird? Here are some very strange facts!
