World’s Strangest

The world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees has expressed an interest in the Bigfoot phenomenon. With over 45 years of experience studying primates, Ja…

Details of UFO reports and investigations in Australia have been made available at the National Archives. Of particular interest in the documents were…

In 1562, the German town of Mittenwalde loaned the town of Berlin 11,200 guilders at 6% interest, compounded annually. It would now like to be repaid: According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). Adjusting for compound interest and inflation, the [...]

In 1562, the German town of Mittenwalde loaned the town of Berlin 11,200 guilders at 6% interest, compounded annually. Mittenwalde would now like to be repaid: According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). Adjusting for compound interest and inflation, the [...]

Let’s be honest, many of us are interested in losing weight, but it just seems so tedious. The trick is to find something that works with your lifestyle so you can maintain your interest. That’s why Weighthacker’s list of gadgets to help geeks lose weight is so useful for those of us with an interest [...]

As the young’ns become slightly older’ns, and a new decade fad replaces the old, our popular interest sights are set upon the 1990s, a time of Bush/Clinton, Nicktoons and Cross Colours (which some kids felt the need to wear backwards, thanks to flash-in-the-pan kid rap act Kris Kross). This massive desk doodle seems to sum it [...]

Even if your interest in the bird eggs of Germany and neighboring countries is close or equal to zero, there’s enough artistic merit in these hand-colored engravings by JF Naumann, a self-taught engraver and etcher who co-founded the German Ornithological Society in 1850, to take a peek. The arrangement of the eggs is really the striking [...]

This circa 1939 plan for a robotic dog on Mostly Forbidden Zone piqued my interest. I did a little digging and found an interesting story behind it. The Scottish Terrier, named Sparko, was designed by Westinghouse engineer, Joseph Barnett, to stimulate interest in their electrical products. The dog was the pet of a larger human-type [...]

Alexander Graham Bell is best known for his work on the telephone, but that was far from his only interest. The Library of Congress preserved Bell’s handwritten notes and sketchbooks for our perusal. They are filled with ideas and experiments, although the handwriting is, to put it kindly, sometimes hard to decipher. The Atlantic has [...]

You see them littering strip malls, and you know they allegedly pay top dollar for scrap gold. How well do you know the history and nuances of your local pawn shops, though? Let’s take a look behind the pawnbroker’s counter. © Owaki/Kulla/Corbis Pawning Some History Pawnbroking may not be known as the world’s oldest profession, but it [...]