The Grave Robber and Historian Dug up Little Girls to Dress Them for Birthday Parties

Posted on October 29, 2014 by

Russian Anatoly Moskvin dug up 150 graves so he could dress the corpses of dozens of young girls for birthday parties.

He then took them home and turned them into a grisly mummy collection, dressing the bodies and skeletons in stockings and dresses, and even making one look like a teddy bear.

Moskvin, who speaks 13 languages and was described by some as a genius, also gave the mummified corpses names and organized birthday parties for them.

Before he was finally arrested he wrote a piece for a publication on necrology to explain his interest in the dead.

He said that when he was 12, he came across a funeral procession whose participants forced him to kiss the face of a dead 11-year-old girl.

Not surprisingly, three years after Moskvin’s arrest a judge has ruled him to still not be mentally fit enough to stand trial, leaving him locked up in a psychiatric clinic.

I swear, this shit you simply cannot make up.

Via Mirror for the full messed up story.

German Town Offering the Unemployed Beer in Return for Street Cleaning

Posted on October 27, 2014 by

A special project in the town of Essen, Germany, is designed to engage alcoholics and drug addicts in cleaning up the city’s streets, giving them a chance to pick themselves up and rejoin society. The project is called “Pick-Up”, and it pays the participants with a small hourly wage, along with free beer.

The idea is to allow participants, who are not forced to take part, to contribute to society in a way they otherwise wouldn’t.

The ambitious project has five participants so far – one of them is a recovering alcoholic named Jürgen. “I’m not doing this just for the beer,” he insisted. “I can find beer on my own. I can get drunk anytime I want. This is something that allows me to help the people around me, and it gives me a chance to give back to my city.”

Best line: “Not everyone gets beer. Only the participants who aren’t able to do their work without it.”

Via Oddity Central via DW.

The Stool Bank That Pays $40 a Day for Your Shit

Posted on October 24, 2014 by

An independent non-profit stool bank called OpenBiome is willing to offer volunteers $40 per deposit [of] a sample of their poo.

The stool samples will be used for fecal transplants, to fight the deadly superbug C. difficile, which affects more than 500,000 and kills 14,000 Americans per year.

Stool transplants are being praised by many doctors as a miracle cure for C. difficile, a bacterial infection that most commonly affects hospital patients. It causes fever, painful cramps, severe diarrhoea, and in some cases, life-threatening complications such as severe swelling of the bowel.

[E]ach 250-milligram stool sample is sold to hospitals for $250 and can be used to treat up to five patients. Fecal transplants can save, on average, $17,000 per patient when compared with antibiotic treatments.

If you’re interested in what (and why) one gets involved in the august practice of “fecal transplants”, Wikipedia has a good overview of the procedure.

Just to give you a taste (heh) of the process, while the first line of approach involves swallowing capsules with frozen feces, emergency treatment can involve stools from (ideally) a family member mixed with saline solution and piped into the patient’s stomach view a tube down their nose.

Uh, I think I almost vomited just typing that…

Bottom image of fecal bacteria magnified 10,000 times from Wikimedia Commons.
OpenBiome via Oddity Central for the full story.

The 10,000 Anal Security Searches Given to Doves

Posted on October 18, 2014 by

The 10,000 doves released in a ceremony for China’s National Day underwent unusual scrutiny, each having its feathers and anus checked for dangerous materials, state-run media reports said, reflecting government jitters over possible attacks.

The symbols of peace were released at sunrise in Beijing‘s symbolic heart of Tiananmen Square in a ceremony for the Oct. 1 holiday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Beijing domestic security police officer Guo Chunwei was quoted in the Jinghua Times as saying workers checked the wings, legs and anus of each pigeon ahead of time to ensure they were “not carrying suspicious material”.

The entire process was videotaped, and the birds were then loaded into sealed vehicles for the trip to Tiananmen Square, the newspaper said.

Um, I suppose one can never be too careful. Poor pigeons.

Via San Jose Mercury News.

The Anti-Loneliness Hugging Chair

Posted on October 17, 2014 by

The “tranquility chair” is built in the shape of a larger-than-life fabric doll with a friendly face and a fetching hat, but more importantly, it has long arms that wrap around the user in an affectionate embrace.

“It makes you feel safe. Anyone can use it, but it is designed for older people,” said a spokesman for UniCare, which is selling the chair. “They are comforting for people who live alone – they can talk to them and hug them. They also play old Japanese music, which is nostalgic for older people.”

I have to say, the guy in the top photo seems about as enthusiastic about his “hug” as I would a clown trying to hug me.

Actually, never mind – if I was being threatened with a hug by a clown I’d be pulling out my falcata or crossbow. Possibly both. Just to be sure.

Via MSN News.

Google Street View with…Camels?

Posted on October 16, 2014 by

Google Street View has evolved into “Camel Cam”.

The trial in the United Arab Emirates’ Liwa Desert has made it possible for each and every one of us to carry out a virtual tour of those sandy dunes from the comfort of our own homes.

The company says using using camels meant they could take “authentic imagery” with minimal disruption to the environment.

I, for one, can’t wait for the results of Google Camel Cam (I suppose I should add a trademark icon after that, right?) to make it into Google Maps.

Map vie Google Earth.
Via BBC.

Lab-Grown Penises

Posted on October 11, 2014 by

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine could be offering new hope to men with genital abnormalities or injuries in as little as five years, thanks to one of their many tissue engineering endeavors: lab-grown penises.

Back in 1999, they became the first in the world to successfully implant a lab-grown organ into humans — a bladder. Since then, they’ve transplanted engineered vaginas into women born with defects or without vaginas entirely.

[T]he team [has] managed to grow 12 functioning penises for rabbit subjects. After grafting them on to the recipients, all tried to mate with a female, eight successfully ejaculated, and four produced offspring.

All Western obsessiveness with sexuality notwithstanding, it’s not difficult to see the benefit of this for victims of traumatic battlefield or other injuries as well as significantly improved transgender operations.

That being said, countdown to transplants for purpose of penile enlargement in 10…9…8…7…

Wake Forest School of Medicine via IFLScience!.

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Category Archives: Strange News

The Grave Robber and Historian Dug up Little Girls to Dress Them for Birthday Parties

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German Town Offering the Unemployed Beer in Return for Street Cleaning

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The Stool Bank That Pays $40 a Day for Your Shit

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The 10,000 Anal Security Searches Given to Doves

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The Anti-Loneliness Hugging Chair

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Google Street View with…Camels?

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