World’s Strangest

By Maggie Koerth-Baker The hottest thing about chili peppers isn’t the way they taste; it’s everything else they can do for you. 1. They Strangle Cancer Human cells aren’t the happy-go-lucky little fellows we’d like to imagine. In fact, our cells commit suicide on a regular basis, via a process called apoptosis. Unlike the messy deaths that [...]

Jack Weir was clearing trees in his family farm with a Bobcat when a large cottonwood hit back and impaled him with a piece of wood 20 feet long and 6 inches thick. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle: A broken limb came flying in under the roll bar, spearing Jack through the belly [...]

A new wife was given a nasty wedding night surprise when she discovered she was allergic to her husband’s sperm. Mike and Julie Boyde had been going out for two years when they got married and decided to have unprotected sex for the first time that evening. But almost immediately the bride was in unbearable pain – [...]

“J” is an autistic child who also has post-surgical and bowel-related chronic pain. His autism manifested itself as aggression rather than simple withdrawal, resulting in severe behavioral problems. Authorities in Rhode Island granted the parents a license to give their child medical marijuana (they opted to do so in the form of brownies). The results [...]

Reader Susann writes in to ask, “What exactly is the cause of a brain freeze?” You may know brain freeze by one of its other names: an ice cream headache, a cold-stimulus headache or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (“nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion”), but no matter what you call it, it hurts like hell. Brain freeze is brought [...]

What did you do when you “became a man”? – No, I don’t mean losing your virginity, though in many cultures, coming of age is intricately linked to sexual maturity. Did you celebrate by buying a Lotto ticket? Drink a yard glass full of beer? Become a Bar Mitsvah? Well, weaklings, be thankful that you [...]

That’s the question that Jeremy Hsu asks, given innovations in genetic engineering: In 2006, researchers found six Pakistani children who felt no pain due to an inactivated gene, and who constantly had bruises and cuts. One fell into the habit of putting knives through his hand and walking barefoot on coals, before his untimely death. Still, scientists [...]