This French guy has an inspiring autistic collection.

An ambigram, also sometimes known as an inversion, is a typographical design or artform that may be read as one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also from another viewpoint, direction or orientation.

Some anglerfishes employ an unusual mating method. Because individuals are presumably locally rare and encounters doubly so, finding a mate is problematic. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few inches in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these “parasites” were highly reduced male ceratioids.

Bruno Bischofberger ads on the backcover of Artforum. Totally sublime.

Albanian sworn virgins (burrnesha) are women who take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to be viewed as men in the highly patriarchal Northern Albanian society.

The Capgras delusion (or Capgras syndrome) is a disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that a friend, spouse or other close family member, has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.

Sacha van Loo, 36, is not your typical cop. He wields a white cane instead of a gun. And from the purr of an engine on a wiretap, he can discern whether a suspect is driving a Peugeot, a Honda or a Mercedes.

A diplomatic bag, also known as a diplomatic pouch, is an envelope, parcel, shipping container or any other kind of receptacle used by diplomatic missions. As long as it is externally marked to show its status, the bag has diplomatic immunity from search or seizure,as codified in article 27 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It may only contain articles intended for official use. It need not be a bag. In fact, no size limit is specified by the convention. It is often escorted by a diplomatic courier, who is similarly immune from arrest and detention.

Ryan McGinley owes so much to this concept.

Dominion of Melchizedek is a micronation known for facilitating large scale banking fraud in many parts of the world.

Fasciation is a condition of plant growth in which the apical meristem, normally concentrated around a single point, producing approximately cylindrical tissue, becomes elongated perpendicularly to the direction of growth, producing flattened, ribbon-like, crested, or elaborately contorted tissue. The phenomenon may occur in the stem, root, fruit, or flower head.

The language of flowers, sometimes called florigraphy, was a Victorian-era means of communication in which various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken.

The most interesting man in the world.

The Indian Head Test Pattern was a black and white television test pattern which was introduced in 1939. Its name comes from the original art of a Native American featured on the card.

The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries were a cause célèbre in 1790s’ London, when author and engraver Samuel Ireland announced the discovery of a treasure-trove of Shakespearean manuscripts by his son William Henry. Among them were the manuscripts of four plays, two of them previously unknown. Such respected literary figures as Johnson biographer James Boswell and poet-laureate Henry James Pye pronounced them genuine, as did various antiquarian experts. Sheridan, the leading theater manager of his day, agreed to present one of the newly-discovered plays with John Philip Kemble in the starring rôle. Excitement over the biographical and literary significance of the find turned to acrimony when it was charged that the documents were forgeries. Edmond Malone, the greatest Shakespeare scholar of his time, showed conclusively that the language, orthography, and handwriting were not those of the times and persons to which they were credited, and William Henry Ireland, the supposed discoverer, confessed to the fraud.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is one of several species whose numbers have dwindled to the point where it is uncertain whether any remain.

In Greek mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. His most prominent remnants in modern culture are his namesakes: the month of January, which begins the new year, and the janitor, who is a caretaker of doors and halls.

Kuru – also known as laughing disease

Lichtenberg figure may appear on the skin of lightning strike victims. These are reddish, fernlike patterns that may persist for hours or days. They are also a useful indicator for medical examiners when determining the cause of death. Lichtenberg figures appearing on people are sometimes called lightning flowers, and they are thought to be caused by the rupture of small capillaries under the skin due to the passage of the lightning current or the shock wave from the lightning discharge as it flashes over the skin. A lightning strike can also create a large Lichtenberg Figure in grass surrounding the point struck. These are sometimes found on golf courses or in grassy meadows. Fulgurites may also be created as sand and soil is fused into glassy tubes by the intense heat of the current.

A mechanical floor is a storey of a high-rise building that is dedicated to mechanical and electronics equipment.

Mongoloids have a deep sensitivity that we must learn from.

Mount Meru. The center of the universe.

Mystery clocks.

Yoshiro Nakamatsu is a Japanese inventor claiming to hold the world record for number of inventions with over 3,000, including “PyonPyon” spring shoes and the basic technology for the floppy disk, the CD, the DVD, the digital watch, CinemaScope, armchair “Cerebrex”, sauce pump, and the taxicab meter.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a parasitoid fungus that infects ants such as Camponotus leonardi, and alters their behavior in order to ensure the widespread distribution of its spores. The fungus’s spores enter the body of the insect likely through the cuticle by enzymatic activity, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues. Yeast stages of the fungus spread in the ant’s body and presumably produce compounds that affect the ant’s brain and change its behaviour by unknown mechanisms, causing the insect to climb up the stem of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the plant. Infected ants bite the leaf veins with abnormal force, leaving telltale dumbbell-shaped marks. A search through plant fossil databases revealed similar marks on a fossil leaf from the Messel pit which is 48 million years old.

The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow as its mycelia invade more soft tissues and structurally fortify the ant’s exoskeleton. More mycelia then sprout out of the ant, and securely anchor it to the plant substrate while secreting antimicrobials to ward off competition. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, its fruiting bodies grow from the ant’s head and rupture, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days.

The changes in the behavior of the infected ants are very specific, giving rise to the term zombie ants, and tuned for the benefit of the fungus. The ants generally clamp to a leaf’s vein about 25 cm above the ground, on the northern side of the plant, in an environment with 94-95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30 °C.

Project Cybersyn was a Chilean attempt at real-time computer-controlled planned economy in the years 1970–1973 (during the government of president Salvador Allende). It was essentially a network of telex machines that linked factories with a single computer centre in Santiago, which controlled them using principles of cybernetics. The principal architect of the system was British operations research scientist Stafford Beer.

Super black is a surface treatment developed at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom. It reflects much less light than the darkest conventional matte black paints available previously. Conventional black paint reflects about 2.5% of the incident light. Super black absorbs approximately 99.6% of light at normal incidence, and only 0.4% is reflected. At other angles of incidence, super black is even more effective. At an angle of 45°, super black reflects 1/25 as much as black paint.

All great people have it. Including me.

A trap street is a fictitious entry in the form of a misrepresented street on a map, often outside the area the map nominally covers, for the purpose of “trapping” potential copyright violators of the map, who will be unable to justify the inclusion of the “trap street” on their map.

Udaff.com is a Russian Padonki counter-culture site devoted to publishing short stories. Although technically anything can be posted on the site, it is pre-moderated by its creator, so boring or homosexual-sympathetic stories will most likely will end up in “/dev/null”. Most stories contain outrightly obscene and grammatically incorrect language, as well as scenes of nudity, violence and alcohol/drug consumption, although this is not a must.

Ugland House is a building located at South Church Street, George Town, the capital of the Cayman Islands. The building is the registered office address for 18,857 entities and has for years been linked by American politicians to tax evasion.

The World Passport is a document issued by the World Service Authority, a non-profit organization founded by Garry Davis in 1948, citing Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. World Passports have reportedly been accepted on a de facto, case-by-case basis by over 150 countries, including Ecuador, Tanzania, and Togo.