Weird History has compiled a list of very strange medical cases from the Middle Ages to modern times. It starts with the familiar case of Phineas Gage, but I bet you haven't heard of most of these conditions. Some of the patients died, while others were able to be treated, but most left the patient with lifelong disabilities of one kind or another. At least one, the man with the sticky skin, doesn't appear to be bad at all, just strange. Be warned that a few of these stories will require a strong stomach on the part of the viewer.
Monday, November 02, 2026
10 Very Strange Medical Cases
Miss Cellania's Links
In 1934, a doctor brought a dog back to life. He tried to do the same with humans. The article includes a one-hour movie based on Cornish. (via Strange Company)
One way to beat big city rent.
What was the most significant event in the history of American TV? There are two main answers, and which one you pick depends on how old you are.
The People of 1926 - A Year Through the Lives of Those We Never Knew. See 45 or so images and the stories behind them.
Top 10 Dog Halloween Costumes of 2026.
Norway trolls Trump with toilet humour after his foul-mouthed jibe. They are showing off their world class shithouses. (via Metafilter)
A Rare 19th-Century Nine-Piece “Prostitute Set” with Mother-of-Pearl Dagger, Revolver & Velvet-Lined Case. (via Nag on the Lake)
Have scientists finally found a way to save the banana from disaster? (via Damn Interesting)
Moo Moo Doesn’t Understand Personal Space
Michael Vartan has a cat named Moo Moo, so I don't feel so weird about a cat named Gogo. Cats are creatures of habit, so he can tell us exactly what Moo Moo is going to do. Moo Moo really loves to be around him, and it's adorable. (via reddit)
Sunday, November 01, 2026
We Are All Right Now
This is one of Bill McClintock's earlier mashups, in which he lays the vocals of "All Right Now"by Free over the music of "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge. Both favorites of mine.
Polling Place
They seem to assume too much intelligence in parsing this sign on the part of the reader. (Thanks, WTM!)
Some People Suck at Watching Movies
Do you have a friend that you just hate to watch movies with because they are really bad at it? They have such a hard time focusing that you have to stop and explain it to them constantly. Maybe that's because they are on their phone, thinking that they can multitask. Spoiler: you can't multitask two activities that require brain power, much less three. Even if your friend didn't have their phone out, he may have lost his ability to pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes at a time. Ryan George has a product for you, and somehow it involves adding a third device to the scenario. But Corn-i doesn't have much patience, either.
Halloween at Saturday Night Live
Going into the Halloween episode, everyone wondered whether the SNL opening skit would features Donald Trump or David S. Pumpkins. The answer is: why not both? Ten years after debuting the character, Tom Hanks flew in just to be interrupted by a diatribe from the president and was forced to stand frozen for the rest of the speech. Hanks is a good sport. The real question now is: which one of these characters is scarier? I think we know the answer.
Dad Embarasses Daughter
This video was supposed to be funny -and it is- but it's also sweet. MostUncomfortable said it best.
I'm pretty sure the dad was planning on following her in to school until she skedaddled out of the car so fast.
It was at that moment that Dad realized he had crossed a point of no return in life. His daughter was no longer the little four year old he had brought in to see "Daddy's Work" while building the school. She was no longer the girl at the Elementary School drop-off ramp who asked if there was any way Dad could please walk with her all the way into her classroom because she wasn't sure if she could do it herself.
There comes a point in a parent's life when they drop their child off at school one day, and then never drop them off at school again. This dad now knew that his daughter wished for that day to have come and gone already. This dad knew his days were over of asking his little girl if there was anything interesting going on that day at school.
He knew. And his heart broke. Not in a way that would show outwardly. Just an internal realization of the inevitability of age.
And then she turned and squeaked a tiny "bye".
His world came back into focus. Tears sucked back into their tear ducts. And his heart was healed. He was still her dad, even if she was now a teenager. And who knows? Maybe there will still come one more day in the future where she... "accidentally" misses the bus.
(via reddit)
The Changeover
Ho ho ho
— Scream Kings Podcast (@screamkings.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 10:47 AM
[image or embed]
Saturday, October 31, 2026
The Return of the Vampire
The 1943 film The Return of the Vampire sees Bela Lugosi resurrected as a vampire named Armand Tesla because Universal held the movie rights to the name Dracula. This one also involves a werewolf and World War II. Happy Halloween!
This TED-Ed Lesson is a Horror Story
You can tell this is a horror story because it features toothy green monsters and is narrated by a skeleton. But as an adult, you should also know that nothing good can come of going a long time without brushing your teeth. Your mother told you that if you didn't brush every day, your teeth would fall out. That really hit home when you turned six and your teeth fell out. But that second batch of teeth have to last a lifetime. Scientists can explain exactly what happens in your mouth to cause unbrushed teeth to fall out, and it's not pretty. Furthermore, rotten teeth and infected gums can affect the rest our bodies as well.
Humanity's Fears
That's the thing about humans- we are out worst enemy. This comic is from Alex Culang and Raynato Castro at Buttersafe.
Friday, October 30, 2026
The Skeleton Dance
Walt Disney's First Silly Symphony in 1929 was The Skeleton Dance. It survives better than most of them, and this is the perfect time to show it. You might also be interested in The Story Behind The Skeleton Dance.
The Friendly Ghost
This is the very first cartoon appearance of Casper the Friendly Ghost, from 1945. Lonely Caspar doesn't want to scare people like his fellow ghosts, and he wanders off to make friends. It takes quite a while to find anyone who's not terrified of him. Poor Caspar!
The Witch They Call Black Annis
Black Annis is an English witch who supposedly ate children, which is always a good story to keep your kids from wandering in the woods at night. A written account from 300 years ago said she lived in a cave, was raised by wolves, had sharp claws, and wore a skirt made from human skin. We know the specific area the legend came from, but where is the cave? Could the story of Black Annis come from that of a 15th-century nun named Agnes who lived alone outside her convent? A woman hermit was very unusual, but Agnes seems to have been respected and even revered. However, a couple of hundred years separated those stories, and intervening events may have changed the details greatly to fit new religious narratives. There are alternate theories on the origins of the legend, and Dr. Emily Zarka goes through them to judge their accuracy.
Miss Cellania's Links
Hot Halloween is officially over. ‘You can be hot any day of the year – why not take the opportunity to be scary?’ (via Fark)
A gruesome true crime Halloween story.
Ghost stories don’t just scare us – they remind us of historical injustices.
The struggles of a wannabe Halloween cat.
My mother donated her body to science. I really wasn’t prepared for what came next. (via Damn Interesting)
People with celebrity names made headlines long ago. And another couple dozen. (via kottke)
Flocken Elektrowagen: The Electric Vehicle That Arrived Before Its Time.
Elon Musk and His Doge Pals hunt down the threat to Western Civilization. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
30 Then-And-Now Pictures Showing How Familiar Places Changed Over Time.
Dead Man's Bones
Every Halloween needs a dancing skeleton! Comedian Nathan Barnatt dances all over dressed as the bones of a dead man, accompanied by the 2009 song "Dead Man's Bones" by the group Dead Man's Bones. His lanky, creepy moves are just as you'd imagine a skeleton would dance -if that skeleton were a decent dancer! (via Buzzfeed)
Thursday, October 29, 2026
An Entertaining and Effective Ad
This ad is short, engaging, and the payoff is priceless. I don't know whether it's a real advertisement, or someone trying to get hired at a creative agency. If the latter, I hope they got the job.
It’s a Wonderful Night of the Living Dead
The Bell Brother remixed It's a Wonderful Life with Night of the Living Dead. It works, because if you recall, It's a Wonderful Life was rather depressing, tense, and downright scary in the first couple of hours. (via Damn Interesting)
Pumpkins Should Have Gone Extinct
Plants that produce fruit want to be eaten, because that's how they disperse their seeds. Long, long ago, the ancient ancestor of pumpkins evolved to be eaten by megafauna like mastodons. They were too bitter and toxic for creatures like humans. Besides, they had a really hard rind. Only those large animals could open the fruit, tolerate the taste, and properly spread the undigested seeds around with some handy manure for fertilizer.
Then around 12,000 years ago, humans wiped out the mastodons, giant sloths, mammoths, giant bears, and other animals that ate those proto-pumpkins. Those bitter pumpkins weren't appealing to other mammals, so how did they survive to today? They are an evolutionary anachronism, a species that should no longer exist. You might not be surprised to learn that it was because of humans, who do weird things. PBS Eons explains how we got pumpkins even though they should have died out thousands of years ago. (via Laughing Squid)
Bert & Ernie's Pumpkin Painting Challenge
Bert and Ernie dip their toes (or would if they had any) into the world of internet DIY tutorials. Bert has started a series called Backyard with Bert, and the first episode is about painting pumpkins for Halloween. It may also be the last episode, as things got off to a rocky start. See, Ernie has some ideas of his own, and that complicates things immensely for Bert. I now wonder how well mineral spirits will remove paint from a pumpkin. (via Laughing Squid)
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
The Terror
1963. Directed by Roger Korman, starring Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff. From IMDB:
France, 18th century. Lieutenant Andre Duvalier has been accidentally separated from his regiment. He is wandering near the coast when he sees a young woman. He asks the road to Coldon, where he hopes to rejoin his regiment. But the woman doesn't answer, doesn't even greet him and walks away. Eventually she takes him to the sea, where she disappears in rough water. Andre loses conscience when he is trying to following her, and is attacked by a bird. He awakes in a house with an old woman and a numb man. She claims to never have seen the woman. After he leaves, he sees her again and when trying to follow her is saved by a man from certain death. He learns that to help the girl, he must go to castle of Baron Van Leppe. When he arrives, Andre sees the woman looking from a window. Baron Van Leppe is old and seems reluctant to let André in however. He claims there's no woman in the castle, but shows André a painting which does indeed portray her. Andre learns that she is the baroness, who died twenty years ago.
A Nuclear Bomb in the Mariana Trench
We've done underground nuclear tests, and we've done underwater nuclear tests. We found out that they work, and they did some nasty environmental damage. But what if we were to take those tests to an even deeper, more remote location, like, say, the Mariana Trench? And let's make it a big bomb, like the Tsar Bomba! That's the question in the latest episode of What If? from Randall Monroe and Henry Reich.
They take these questions seriously, so we find out what would happen. However, the world's largest nuclear bomb is no match for the deepest part of the ocean. That's not very fun, so our guys came up with a new scenario in which the bomb is equivalent to the Chicxulub impactor (which is fun to Google). That gives us results more in line with what we expect from the What If? series.
Chemotherapy
Kurzgesagt doesn't usually tell personal stories, but this one is different, and it's full of science anyway. Philipp Dettmer, the founder and head writer of Kurzgesagt, went through chemotherapy treatment for cancer in 2018. A few years later, he is ready to tell the story, narrated by Steve Taylor and illustrated in the neon minimalist Kurzgesagt style. The drug is called Cisplatin. Like most chemotherapy drugs, it is very toxic and does quite bit of damage to a human body. Cancer therapies were developed by calibrating how much was required to kill cancer without killing the patient. That's why chemotherapy is so debilitating, and only worth it at the end when you are deemed cancer-free.
Dettmer explains how Cisplatin was developed and how it works in the body. His body, in this case. It's particularly effective against testicular cancer because of the unique role those organs' cells are designed for. There's a lot of violence at the molecular level, with success at the end. And the cancer battle is directly related to why we have Kurzgesagt in the first place. The story is only 12:24; the rest is promotional.
Miss Cellania's Links
Just Eat Proves That Artificial Intelligence Still Needs Human Supervision.
In Alabama, an emergency room doesn't have to have a doctor on site. The solution is either a non-profit government health care system, or just don't live in Alabama.
Trump administration has pushed 5m Americans off food stamps. So far. (via Fark)
The bloody palette of the animal kingdom. Red isn’t the only color when it comes to blood — critters produce the vital fluid in a variety of hues. (via Damn Interesting)
Minnesotastan tells about the time he got polio. Here are some other polio survivors.
49 Real-Life Photos That Look Like Someone Accidentally Stepped Into A Horror Movie.
The Real Kevin Bacon. Other actors are more connected with all other Hollywood actors, and you won't be surprised at who is actually at the center. (via Nag on the Lake)
The rape allegations against Trump: what we know and what is still being hidden. (via Metafilter)
A Blast from the Past (2010): 8 of the Undead from Around the World.
Pee-Wee’s Big Halloween
The 2018 movie Halloween stars Jamie Lee Curtis in her never-ending role as a horror protagonist, and she's out to end the curse once and for all. You know what the movie needs? Pee-Wee Herman! This mashup from Funny or Die takes the edge off the horror, or maybe enhances it, depending on how you feel about Pee-Wee. (via Digg)
An Old Halloween Pun
— Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken (@papawoof.bsky.social) October 25, 2026 at 9:38 PM
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
They Didn't Mind
TikTokker 2Krispii tells the story of how we got here. In 2024, it was the price of eggs, never mind any of that other stuff. And here we are. (via a comment at Metafilter)
No One Loves You More Than Exxon
Woody Harrelson narrates this satirical ad from Exxon making sure you place the blame on anyone but them. Here's the link the ad directs you to. (via Metafilter)
This Ad Has All the Internet Nostalgia
In the early days of this millennia, the internet was a delightful playground of nonsense. That was back before everything turned political, there was no AI slop, scams were fewer, and monetization really wasn't much of a thing. Even bots and trolls were just a minor annoyance. The World Wide Web was full of people who just wanted to share a laugh and show off their creativity. An ad for Firefox takes us back to those days by resurrecting the biggest viral memes of the early internet, from Numa Numa to Chuck Testa. Beware, some of these folks have aged, especially the kids, so this compilation may make you feel old. If you show this to your children or grandchildren, you'll have to find the original videos and then you'll probably find yourself patiently trying to explain why they were funny. (via Metafilter)
The Shironeko Cats Celebrate Halloween
The most chill cats in the world are all dressed up for Halloween! And as usual, it's a non-stop party atmosphere... if your idea of a party is a good nap. This video will have you on the edge of your seat -Shiro’s eyes almost opened once! (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tahmi
This is a really cute story from Cooper Lit Comics. Click to the right to advance the story. Chickens are definitely birdbrains, but one brain fart in a newly-hatched chick sends him on some edifying adventures. Here's part two.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Monitor
This horror short will make you never want to put your baby down again. Or then again, it might make you wish you had this kind of monitor in your home, so your mileage may vary.
When TV Came to Bhutan
Television has had a tremendous effect, showing people what's going on in the rest of the world, even if it's just entertainment. Imagine growing up without TV, knowing only your local culture, and then suddenly being exposed to 45 channels. That's what it was like in the kingdom of Bhutan in 1999, when it became the last populated place on earth to get television. There are advantages in learning about the world outside your nation, but it also became an instant time suck and introduced their children to American violence. (via Nag on the Lake)
The Haunting of Borley Rectory
Borley Rectory was once known as the most haunted house in England. A rectory is a home for a priest or clergyman, and this one was built for the Anglican parish of Borley, Essex, specifically for Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull along with his wife and 14 children. Built in 1862, Borley Rectory was the home of four different priests, three of them from the same family. For the entire 80+ years the rectory existed, it was the scene of supposedly paranormal encounters.
These encounters included ghostly apparitions, poltergeist activities, strange sounds, fires, written messages, and spirits contacted by seances. These tales were first just spoken accounts, but with the rise of radio and other technology, Borley Rectory became famous. That was due to paranormal investigator Harry Price, who began looking into the rectory in 1929 and followed through for years, going as far as renting the house after the last priest left. The story sparked a new media sensation of paranormal investigation as entertainment. Dr. Emily Zarka tells us everything we need to know about Borley Rectory.
Miss Cellania's Links
Mitchcraft! A Halloween song parody about the undead from Randy rainbow.
In 1976, a college paper blamed the Salem witch trials on moldy bread. It wasn’t true. (via Strange Company)
Ivan the Terrible Wanted to Marry Elizabeth I. How Did England’s ‘Virgin Queen’ Reject the Russian Czar Without Souring Trade Relations?
Atlas Obscura’s Guide to America’s Most Haunted Cemeteries.
We're Still Talking About David S. Pumpkins, Ten Years Later.
Coffin Torpedoes: The Explosive 19th-Century Answer to Grave Robbers.
Florence Thompson, the Subject of Dorothea Lange’s Iconic 1936 Photograph Migrant Mother. (via Nag on the Lake)
1915: Bill Nichols, the Cat Who Could Have Been a Rikers Island Hero. (via Strange Company)
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