Unusual Stuff

As often as three times a week, Rose and Walter Martin are greeted at their front door by cops brandishing guns.  Far from criminal masterminds, the innocent 80-something couple are upstanding citizens who are the victims of a mistake in the NYPD’s computer system.  Apparently when the department put in a new system in 2002, […]

The theory behind invisibility has been long known by scientists.  They’ve even managed to do it before now on two dimensional objects.  However, they’ve never been able to do it in three dimensions, until a team from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology managed to crack the key.  The team, lead by Tolga Ergin, developed a […]

Faith and begorah!  The luck of the Irish wasn’t with one unlucky bank robber on St. Patrick’s Day.  Police say two men, including a man dressed as a leprechaun, held up a Fifth Third Bank branch on Wednesday.  After the robbery, the unnamed men hopped into his car and sped away, leading police on a […]

There’s a fundamental difference between food that is weird because of its shape or its combination of contents, and food that is weird because of what it simply is.  Pepsi AM is strange, but not as strange or troubling as, say, horse meat ice cream.  Horse is a delicacy in Japan, but that is only […]

It’s one of the accepted realities of technology.  If you buy something with a screen, from clocks to iPads, there’s going to be that little sheet of thin plastic film that covers the screen.  Whether to protect it from scratches, protect it during shipping, or just to keep grubby fingerprints off of it, that little […]

One of the more popular items at Texas Auto Center, a car dealership in Austin, Texas, is an anti-theft GPS system that enables police and users to disable a stolen car’s engine in the event of a theft.  The car gets stolen, cops turn it off, and then they use the GPS to track it […]

Patty Clement’s 11-year-old daughter had a problem with one of her teachers.  It appears that Rex Roland, an educator at Enka Middle School in Buncombe County in Asheville, North Carolina, had issues with her daughter.  That’s the best explanation as to why he wrote that she was a loser on her paper not once, but […]

There’s a condition unique to the human condition called default bias.  Generally, when presented with two options, the default option and a different option, most people choose the default.  Even when it’s wrong, this dithering tends to go to the default choice.  That’s why people stare blankly at hundreds of channels, then just stay with […]

As the Elvis estate could tell you, being dead is a great business deal.  Michael Jackson’s estate is living proof of that, as his heirs, controllers, and various business managers have negotiated the biggest record deal in history for the singer, who died only 9 months ago in mid-preparation for a string of comeback concerts. […]

It’s no secret that the Internet has changed how we do everything since it took hold of the world.  There’s a reason that improving the Internet is one of the FCC’s top goals.  That’s not hyperbole; from shopping to music, reading to communication, the Internet has changed everything and here are the 15 websites responsible […]

Actually, it’s not just perfume.  City workers at three different buildings in Detroit are banned from using or wearing the following:  “colognes, aftershave lotions, perfumes, deodorants, body/face lotions … (and) the use of scented candles, perfume samples from magazines, spray or solid air fresheners.”  This is part of a settlement agreement between the city and […]

While Buzz Aldrin has landed a good career post-space flight by landing on Dancing With The Stars, and John Glenn was in Congress between stints as the first man to orbit the earth and the oldest astronaut, respectively, not all astronauts are so lucky. It’s a tight job market, which is why Bigelow Aerospace is […]

If you’ve ever had a rough day, stumbled home after a bad commute, and immediately been snuggled up to by a pet, you’re not alone.  The benefits of pet ownership on emotional well being are well known, but not as well known are just how valuable those relationships are to the pet owners.  Dogs are […]

Guinness is on the lookout for a new world’s shortest man today after the current record holder, He Pingping of China, passed away.  Shockingly, He Pingping was only 21 years of age at the time of his death while doing publicity for Guinness in Rome.  He was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago with […]

Have you ever wondered just why every psychopathic serial killer that gets interviewed talks about the compulsion to kill?  That they felt compelled to slay others, to undertake their vicious crimes, regardless of the consequences?  Well, according to researchers from Vanderbilt University, their brain made them do it.  Specifically their dopamine reward system, which causes […]