Frank Lentini who was born in 1889 in Sicily was well known for having 3 legs, 4 feet and two sets of genitals. He was the fifth of a family with twelve children and he was born with a parasitic twin who was attached to him at the base of his spine.

These mysterious metal spheres that are often classified as out of place artifacts are found in Ottosdal, South Africa. They have been dated to be 3 billion years old when the earth was too young to host intelligent life capable of creating these spheres and hence won the attraction of the scientific community. However various geologists agree that the spheres originated as concretions which formed in sediments, ash or both after they accumulated.

With the goal of raising the birth rate of " Aryan" children, Lebensborn (fount of life) was founded in Germany in 1935 as an SS initiated organisation. During the second world war Lebensborn was expanded to countries with German population such as Norway, Poland and Austria. Women who were tested and identified as racially pure (as if it's possible) with blonde hair and blue eyes were chosen to make chileren for Hitler. Once all the medical examinations confirm the girls as racially pure then they were allowed to choose breeding partners from SS officers. The chosen girls lived in a castle in Bavaria near the Tegernsee and all of them lived under assumued names. In the war torn Germany, these girls got all the luxuries possible. The castle included common rooms for sports and games, a library, music rooms and a cinema. High quality food was served to girls and there were plenty of servants at their service. All the children they produced were a property of the state...

Anatoly moskvin is a Russian historian and a linguist from Nizhny Novgorod and he was arrested after discovering dolls made of mummified human corpses from his apartment in 2011. He had exhumed bodies from local graveyards and mummified them using a salt and baking soda solution and stuffed decayed corpses with rags. He had inserted buttons into girls eyes so that they could "watch cartoons" with him. Authorities also found music boxes inside girls bodies so that they produce music when he touches them. Some mummies had their personal belongings inside them such as a piece of her own gravestone, a hospital tag with the date and cause of death etc. He claimed he did this because he was lonely. He was single and Russian adoption services won't let him adopt a kid because his salary wasn't enough. He had also celebrated the birthdays of the girls and treated them like they were still alive. Authorities discovered 29 mummified dolls with ages ranging from 3 to 25 and A...

On May 23rd 1901 Paris attorney general received an anonymous letter about a spinster who was locked up for the past 25 years starving and living in her own filth. When the police looked into the matter what they found out was unbelievable. A policeman describes what he witnessed as, "The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread… We also saw oyster shells, and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed. The air was so unbreathable, the odor given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation." The woman they found was Blanche Monnier, a daughter of a well reputed bourgeoisie family in Poitiers who was renowned for her beauty. She attracted many suitors but she wanted to get married to an old lawyer of her choice to which her mother did not agree. Mother was a...

Maurice Tillet was a professional wrestler whose ring name was the French angel. He was born in 1903 in Russia and by 17 his head, chest, lower and upper limbs started expanding. By the age of 19 he was diagnosed with acromegaly which is caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland that causes bones to thicken in abnormal proportions and soon public perceived him as a monster. Unlike the other patients who did not survive 30 years, Maurice was healthy and strong even when he was 37 years old. He was soon declared as the closest living specimen to that of Neanderthal man and sadly he died on 4th Spetember 1954 from a cardiovascular disease at the age of 51.

In 1848 a Croatian official named Mihajlo Baric resigned from his post and decided to travel the world. His list of countries included Egypt where he bought a sarcophagus containing a female mummy as a souvenir. He put the mummy in a display at his home in Vienna and kept the wrappings in a separate glass case. After his death in 1859 the mummy came to the possession of his brother, a priest in Slavonia who donated it to the State Institute of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia in Zagreb in 1867. The mummy was then examined by a German Egyptologist named Heinrich Brugsch and he noticed the texts in the wrappings and believed them to be Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In the summer of 1934 two gold miners who were chasing a seam of gold blasted the rock to get their hands on the treasure hidden in the mountain Pedro. They indeed got their hands on a treasure but it wasn't gold. It was a cave which was 15 feet long and 4 feet wide and there they found a diminutive human sitting cross legged arms wrapped around the torso.

You have seen national flags with various colours, shapes and symbols but never a one with purple colour in it. The reason purple wasn't used in national flags was due to its high cost. Back in the day purple dye was worth more than gold because it was taken from a one species of sea snails in the Mediterranean sea. It took 10,000 of these snails to produce 1 gram of the purple dye. Purple colour garments were only worn by the people who could afford it, mostly the members in the royal families and hence purple became the "colour of royalty".

Even though Cleopatra was born in Egypt,her family origins were traced to Macedonian Greece and Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander the Great’s generals. He took the reigns of Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., and he launched a dynasty of Greek-speaking rulers that lasted for nearly 300 years. Despite not being ethnically Egyptian, Cleopatra embraced many of her country’s ancient customs and was the first member of the Ptolemaic line to learn the Egyptian language. She not only spoke the Egyptian language but also dozen other languages and she was renowned for her intellect and knowledge in many disciplinaries

If I say the most magical day of a woman's life is the day she became a mother, most of you will agree. Being a mother is tough and it is a package of responsibilities and joys of motherhood. A woman does not necessarily have to give birth to a child to be a "mother". And then there are women who gave birth to children and let them rot to death.

Thomas J. Beale, a leader of a group of thirty men from Virginia stumbled upon a mine of gold and silver in early 1800s while hunting buffaloes in New Mexico. They spent 18 months mining thousands of pounds of gold and silver and Beale was incharge of transporting them to Virginia and burying it in a safe location which is now believed to be in Bedford County, Virginia.

Workers who were removing the shelves and coolers in the No frills supermarket in Council Bluffs, Iowa came across the gruesome sight of a trapped human corpse behind one of its coolers. The year was 2019 and supermarket closed its doors for customers back in 2016. The body was unidentifiable and using a DNA test it was found out to be a missing employee of the supermarket. 10 years ago in November 2009 Larry Ely Muriilo Moncada was reported missing from his home. His parents said he got upset and ran outside without his shoes, socks, keys or his car in the midst of a snowstorm. Police believes that he went to the supermarket and climbed on top of the 3.7 meter high cooler and fell into a 46 cm gap between the cooler and the wall. According to the other employees, they often climb there to get unofficial breaks and unfortunately Larry had fallen and stuck there until he died. Due to the noise of the coolers his cries for help went unnoticed according to police and they have closed...

In 1920s rising number of car owners lead to an increase in the necessity of parking space to which the car lifting machine was a perfect solution. It saved a lot of space by parking vehicles vertically and hence it was convenient. The machine operated like a ferris wheel and powered by electric motors or hydraulic pumps. Cars were parked in suspended cages attached to a belt and it rotated.

  This photograph was taken in Vaxjo, Sweden on 13 April 1985 by a photojournalist named Hans Runesson. In this photo a 38 years old lady named Danuta Danielsson is hitting a neo nazi with her handbag.

Approximately 50000 Horseshoe crabs die annually in blood harvesting. Their blue colour blood has a price tag of 15000$ a quart. The blue colour in blood is caused by copper present in blood as Hemocyanin which carries oxygen throughout the crabs body (analogues to hemoglobin in our bodies). But that is not what makes the blood this expensive. Amebocytes in horseshoe blood quickly clots in the presence of exdotoxins which provides a perfect natural test to examine purity. Therefore in medicine horseshoe crabs blood is used to ensure vaccines and implants are not contaminated. In 2018 nearly 500,000 crabs have been used to harvest blood and after draining 1/3 of the blood, they were released into their original habitats. However more than 50,000 crabs die in this process. Not only it threatens the horseshoe crab population but also it has become a threat to the survival of migratory birds such as threatened red knot who depends on horseshoe crab eggs.

In early 1980s it was proposed that microlith technologies alongside bone technologies and ochre use was in Sri Lanka way earlier than they did in Europe. According to a research published yesterday by a group of international archeologists in the Science Advances journal, they have found out the oldest evidence of bow and arrow use by prehistoric humans outside of Africa from a cave named Fa Hien lena cave in Sri Lanka.

  In 1929 Professor Ernest Glen Wever and his research assistant Charles William Bray conducted a series of experiments using a live cat. They first sedated the cat and opened the skull to access the auditory nerve in order to attach it to a telephone wire that was connected to a telephone receiver. One scientist spoke to the cats ears while the other one listened through the receiver which was 50 feet was away in a soundproof room. They did various experiments using this poor cat which led them to win the first Howard Crosby Warren Medal of Society by the Society of Experimental Psychologists in 1936.

                                During the WW1 aerial bombarding was not precise because planes were not equipped with radar. In fact pilots had to solely depend on their sight. When they see what they believed to be the target they deployed bombs. Using this opportunity of human error Parisians at the time thought of saving their town. They built a fake Paris so that the pilots will bomb it instead of the actual one. It even had a faux Arc di Tromphe and Goud du Nord among the landmarks.

 " Mary had a little lamb  Its fleece as white as snow  And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go " The famous nursery rhyme was published in 1830 in "Poems for our children" by Sarah Hale. Did you know that Mary actually had a lamb? Mary Elizabeth Sawyer from Sterling, a 9 years old girl in 1815, discovered a sick lamb abandoned by his mother. After pleading with her father, she managed to keep the lamb as a pet and miraculously the lamb survived. He became a member of the family and often tagged along with Mary and her brother when they were going to Redstone school. Mary secretly petted him under the desk covering the lamb with a blanket. Oneday unfortunately Mary was called to the front and lamb jumped out of his hiding place.Children were delighted and had a good time with this pet lamb that day. Few days later John Roulstone, a student in the same school hands over a poem to Mary about her lamb.

PC: Wikimedia Commons An impressive mustache was a must for a man in the 19th century and often mustache wax was used to keep it stiff. But drinking hot liquid such as tea, was difficult with the mustache because the steam from the drink would melt the wax and also caused stains. In 1860 an English potter Harvey Adams found a brilliant solution, a cup with a semicircular ledge which has a half moon shaped opening. Soon the cups started selling in large quantities. This masculine tableware was soon spread to Europe and then the American continent. These cups were manufactured in different quantities and materials such as silver, porcelain etc.  PC: CharmaineZoe's Marvelous Melange However in early 20th century mustache began to go out of fashion so did the mustache cups. Today we can only witness these Victorian pieces of male elegance only in museums and private collections.

            I'm sure you all at least once listened to the Virtual Barber shop audio clip. If not, you should immediately. As a child it fascinated me. It is a binaural audio clip originally created in 1996. It gave me chills when the barber started cutting hair. Not even for a moment I felt it's not real. But how does it work? It is due to binaural hearing. It helps our brain to detect the direction of a sound. When making binaural recordings a two track digital recording device is attached to two microphones that are mounted on a dummy head equivalent to a human head. The recordings are so realistic that some people even claimed they smell sulfur if someone strikes a match in an audio clip. If you haven't listened to a binaural audio clip now is the time to enjoy. And if you are a fan of these clips let me know the best one you listened to so far.

In the late 1940s  researchers in the Soviet Union used five political prisoners as subjects in an experiment where they used a gas stimulant that kept the subjects awake for 15 days straight. According to the urban legend the room had 5 inch thick glass pothole size windows, microphones to contact the subjects, enough books to read, a toilet and enough food to survive a month. During the first couple of days they were having normal conversations with each other but as the time passes their conversations were mostly about traumatic incidents they had to face. After 5 days things got really dark and they demonstrated paranoia. They stopped having conversations with eachother and started whispering to microphones. 

Until January 1987 scientists believed that different groups of humans evolved in different regions separately. A groundbreaking study done by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan Wilson revealed that we all have a common ancestor. In other words we all have the same great great great great great.......................................... great grandmother who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago and she is named as the "Mitochondrial Eve". But unlike her biblical namesake she was not the only woman in the world back then. There were other women but only her lineage survived. But what exactly is Mitochondrial eve and how do scientists claim that we all are related?

Wars of roses were a series of civil wars between the house of Lancaster and the house of York for the throne of England. The last significant battle of roses was in the Bosworth field in August 1485 causing the Richard IIIs death and the victory of Henry Tudor who later crowned as the Henry VII and King Richard was buried in the Greyfriars church. Later in his reign England abandoned Catholicism and disbanded monasteries and as a result Greyfriars was demolished. King Richard's grave was lost and people believed his remains were thrown into river Soar.  

Having your very own nuclear lab at home sounds pretty awesome, right? Well kids in 1950s had this opportunity when the famous American toy-maker, Alfred Carlton Gilbert decided to introduce a toy kit containing not only actual radioisotopes but also equipment to detect radiation.The kit was sold for 49.50$ in 1950 and it contained a battery powered GM counter, electroscope,spinthariscope, a wilson cloud  chamber with a Polonium source,four glass jars containing natural uranium bearing ores (autunite,torbenite,uraninite and carnotite), low level radiation sources (Pb-210, Ru-106, Zn-65), nuclear spheres to make a model of an alpha particle and three C batteries.

By early 19th century sugar was readily available in Europe and relatively affordable which lead to a high consumption. It was causing high levels of tooth decay and demand for dentures was rising alongside the demand for sugar. Replacements were made using ivory but they did not look natural nor long lasting. So dentists started making dentures with real human teeth set to an ivory base. Poor started selling their teeth and grave robbers started digging graves to find more and more teeth to cope with the rising demand. However supply was finite while demand was skyrocketing. 

Boho highlands in Fermanagh country, Ireland was a land once occupied by druids and it is an archaeologically rich area as well. According to a local belief people in the area has used the soil from the graveyard of the Sacred Heart church for generations to cure their illnesses. A small amount of soil was wrapped in a cloth and kept under pillow. Once the illness is cured they were required to return the soil back to where it was. Traditional ancient folk remedies are usually ignored by researchers and medical professionals but Dr. Gerry Quinn of Swansea University Medical School thought of testing the soil and the results they got was surprising.

The legendary Mongol emperor, Genghis khan was born in 1162 near the Lake Baikal. At the age of 9 his father was poisoned by another clan and one of the rival families (Taychiut family) took the power of the Borjigin clan.It is said that this family abandoned the widow and her children which lead them to extreme poverty. Oneday Temujin (Genghis Khan) was captured by Taychiut but he escaped and gathered supporters. Once he became the head of his clan he then stratergically unified Mongolia and extended his empire across Asia to Adriatic sea.

When Princess Susana Caroline Matilda of Mecklenburg Strelitz the sister of queen Charlotte of England,  visited New Bern and Wilmington she was an honored guest of lavish dinners and balls of the wealthy houses in Virginia. She claimed that she was exiled due to a scandal in the Royal family and people welcomed this royal princess warmly; some were thrilled to meet a royal while some were expecting for favors once her position is reestablished. Little did they knew that they were being scammed.

PC: Kevin Hutchinson A mummy always reminds of thousands of years old pharaohs and pyramids but many civilizations including Incan, Australian Aboriginal, Aztec, African etc have practiced several types of mummification processes to preserve bodies. Guanajuato mummies are world famous for its terrifying looks. It actually is a collection of hundreds of mummies which were mummified naturally during late 19th century. In 1850s a worldwide cholera outbreak caused thousands of deaths and soon  underground cemeteries in Guanjato were running out of space to accommodate bodies. So the authorities had to build walled crypts above ground and in this warm arid environment bodies started a natural mummification process. 

PC: Wikimedia Commons Wild cats first self domesticated in east and Egypt about 10000 years back according to DNA evidence. Egyptians believed that cats are magical creatures that brings good luck to their households and they honored these pets by dressing them in jewels and mummifying once dead. Cats were considered as the embodiment of the spirit of the goddess Bastet and in the battle of Pelusium in 525BC Persians used images of cats in their shields so that egyptians would be reluctant to attack. This strategy worked marking the end of the first major battle between the Achaemenid empire and Egypt. It is said that cats were brought to Europe by Romans and up to this date we all adore these purring fur balls. But there was a time in history that cats were considered as incarnations of Satan and exterminated.

PC: Wikimedia commons On a day in July 1518 Frau Troffea, a resident in Strausbourg, France began dancing  in the street. Little did she know she would be dancing for weeks nonstop.. She was unable to stop herself from dancing and within few days 33 others accompanied her as well. Within a month the number of nonstop dancers reached 400 and authorities were alarmed. The only explanation they could come up with was demonic possession and hot blood and they arranged two guildhalls and musicians to facilitate dancers. Many dancers collapsed from exhaustion and some people died from heart attacks and strokes. By September the remaining dancers were sent to a mountaintop shrine to pray for absolution.

Once upon a time there was a physician who had the help of "death". He was given a magical herb by the death and if the death is seen near patients head he was to give a tiny amount of the herb to the patient and the patient will be cured. If the death is near patients feet it is time to die. His fame spread throughout the country and reached the king as well. Oneday when the king was sick  he summoned this physician. Physician saw death at kings feet and he immediately ordered to position king the opposite way and treated king with the herb. Death was not pleased with this cheating and he make the physician promise that he will not do it again. However he did the same for king's daughter which lead to his own death. This is a famous German folk tale by Grimm bothers. The idea of immortality has been fascinating us humans for thousands of years and we are doing everything we can to expand our lifespans to the maximum and yet, even in the 21st century we have a handful ...

PC: Sharyn Morrow The book nobody can read, worlds weirdest book, Codex Seraphinianus is an encyclopedia about an imaginary world written in a language nobody can read. It has over thousands of drawings and explanations about a world which probably doesn't exist. This 360 page book was published in 1981 by an Italian architect named Luigi Serafini and for 39 years the mystery is still unsolved. The author however says there is no mystery, he just wanted to convey the feeling children get when they look at books which they can't read. However the books number system was decoded by Allan C. Wechsler and Bulgarian Linguist Ivan Derzhanski. So the alphabet also might be a real one after all.

Today is the VE day aka Victory in Europe day. It has been 75 years since Nazis surrendered marking the end of the world war II which is so far the biggest and deadliest war humanity faced. Other than the infamous Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Nagasaki incidents there are untold stories of history buried in the sands of time. This is a tribute to the unsung heroes of the second world war.

PC: Police Bulletin  Board The infamous Black Dahlia is one of the unsolved crime in LA which was featured in many books and movies such as "The Black Dahlia" by James Ellroy and its movie adaptation. There are so many theories about this case and upto this date there is no certain solution. FBI has around 200 public files which you can find here if you are interested. This is also related to the famous Hotel Cecil and the nature of the murder and some theories are mind blowing. I spent a lot of time reading through the FBI files and several other articles written about this case to get an idea about this case in many perspectives. So now it is your turn to test your imagination and intelligence to comeup with a possible solution to this 70 years old cold case.

When it comes to studying what actually matters is the quality of studying rather than the number of hours we spend cramming. However some of us have trouble concentrating for long durations. Todays post is about having a high quality study session with maximum concentration.

Today is the first of May and there are exactly three months until GCE A/L exams begin. I intend to help people who has realized this and started panicking and feeling lost, but not only A/L students but also any student with any upcoming exam can use these tips to ace your exam. I will first explain why most of us usually wait until the day before deadline to do stuff. It's explained by Parkinson's law which states that " Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". What it means is, if we are given a week to finish a task we will finish it within the week and if we are given an year to finish the same task we will spend the whole year doing it. Well that's how usually us, lazy humans work. Now that you know what happened there is no time to regret about how we procrastinated on unnecessary things etc. Now it's time to damage control. I will not gurantee you will get 3As by following these. (It's possible depending on ...

The most difficult question I ever had to answer was not in a question paper or a viva. Once in a while in most unexpected moments life throws us questions and lessons which makes us to think and be grateful for everything we have.

I recently came across this "Elevator Game" ritual which originated in East Asia while digging info about the Elisa Lam case . Some people used it to explain her weird behavior in the elevator. So I searched about it and found it interesting. I don't know whether it is real or not because right now I'm not living in a 10 storied building with an elevator, but I have seen people linking it with several paranormal cases. So lets see what this is about...

PC: Jim Winstead This is going to be one of the most interesting posts in this blog in my opinion. I was obsessed with judicial medicine since I was a kid and I have a huge collection of those books at my home. This morning I accidentally came across a case that excited me and it's pretty mysterious. So lets see if any one of you can come up with a possible explanation to this mystery.

Yesterday it was the new year in my country so, Happy new year everyone!!! I'm here today with the wisdom of people who did A/Ls. Last year I did a survey about A/Ls and 40 people from different universities participated. It's gonna be a long post but hope it will help you to excel your exam. Read till the end coz last question is the most important question and it contains things I wish I knew when I was doing A/Ls.

I thought of starting a new series of posts to answer the questions some of the A/L students emailed me / commented on the posts. Today I selected five recent questions you guys asked me. If you guys have anymore questions email (ruviperera780@gmail.com) me or DM me on instagram(ruviash). Keep in mind that there is nothing called stupid questions. So don't hesitate to ask me anything.

I'm back again with a new post. I hope you all are safe in your houses in "quarantine". I know for some people it's so hard but at least it is better than spreading a disease or lying on an ICU bed. So guys stay home and be productive. We all say we don't have time to this and that but suddenly now we have all the time in the world to do whatever we want but to go outside. Today I'm gonna give you a glimpse of my life, how I spend my time in quarantine. BtwI am an insanely organized person. and planning is my hobby. 🙊I enjoy planning everything. So I spend the night planning the activities I will do the following day.

Hello everyone, I hope you all are safe in quarantine during this hard time. First of all I wish you all good health, both mental and physical. To talk a bit of myself, I finally completed my degree in this February and I would like to thank everyone who helped me through out past few years. I was so busy finishing my undergraduate research which was nerve wrecking and hence could not write any new posts. So after a long break today I'm going to tell you about some wisdom I accidentally found while in quarantine. There is an island-wide curfew and I came to know that quarantine has no effect on my introvert life as I was always inside my room anyway.