Headless Portraits From the 19th Century. Why Did They Do That?

Welcome back. Let’s continue our search for intelligent life on planet Earth.

Did you know there was a headless photography trend in 19th-century Britain? The first camera was invented in 1816. The possibilities were endless with this new invention. So, photographers were experimenting. Take a look at these Victorian headless portraits.

People are holding their heads on platters or directly in their hands. In some variations, they also hold the equipment that was supposedly used to separate the head from the body. You can consider this as the early days of Photoshop. Photographers took numerous photos of the same subject and combined the negatives. This way, they created an illusion that the head and the body were apart from each other. Hmm, yet another way to get a head in life.

The Shigir Idol is the oldest wooden sculpture in the world. It’s approximately 12,000 years old. For comparison, it’s twice as old as the Pyramids. Experts say that the Shigir Idol is covered in ’encrypted code,’ which is sort of a message from a lost civilization. Apparently, people passed on knowledge with the help of the statue. The carvings may be about their belief system. No one has been able to crack the code yet — even after years of attempts.

The Joanina Library in central Portugal is not only a place with loads of books but also a home for a colony of bats. Bats come there to fill their bellies with flies, gnats, and other pests. After the feast, they swoop out of the library windows and fly across the town in search of some water. The library has many manuscript books. So this is a win-win situation.

Bats eat insects, and insects don’t eat books. It’s a mystery how the creatures first entered the building. Yet, experts do know that they’ve been there since at least the 19th century. You can see the library’s flying residents yourself if you come to the doors of the building at night. Or you can pay a visit to the library on a rainy day. Ooh, guano go see the library?

In December 2019, a man robbed a bank two days before the holiday. Interestingly, he threw all the money into the air in the street. Witnesses said that after doing it, he went to a nearby Starbucks, where he waited to be arrested. And the money? Passers-by brought it back to the bank. Yes, every single banknote. Not even a dollar ended up in someone’s pockets.

In the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, locals keep their car doors unlocked. But it’s not an invitation for thieves — it’s done for protection against potential polar bear attacks. Imagine a resident facing a polar bear in the street! Luckily, there’s another person’s car nearby. So, they can easily hide inside that vehicle. Polar bears look innocent and even cute, but they’re wild, unpredictable animals. With claws. And teeth.

The town has the largest number of polar bears in the world. I mean, it’s literally the Polar Bear Capital of the world. Seems like locals have got used to co-existing with bears. They’re part of the community. So to avoid conflicts between the two species of mammals, the town authorities have developed some strategies to eliminate the risks. For instance, an open-air dump was closed so that polar bears wouldn’t find food if they visited. And the bears wouldn’t be “down in the dumps”.

Ever wondered where apples originated from? It might be strange to think about it. Apples seem like such a common fruit! But no, it was originally cultivated in one specific region of the world. The birthplace of the modern apple is the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. Scientists believe apple seeds were first transported out of Kazakhstan by birds and bears. By the time people began to grow and trade apples, the fruit had already taken root in Syria.

The Romans discovered it there and spread apples further around the world. One thing led to another, and finally, the Silk Road trade network brought the apple from Kazakhstan to Europe and other parts of the world, like North America. It may not come as a surprise, but the name of one of the biggest cities of Kazakhstan, Almaty, means “full of apples.” Alma Ata is a mythological person. Legend has it that he planted the first apple tree in the world.

Imagine going on a hike with your friend but getting lost on the way. If your friend says, “Wait a minute, I think we’ve been here before,” they are probably right. People tend to walk in circles when they are lost unless there’s some kind of external reference point. Several blindfolded people took part in an experiment that was studying this phenomenon.

Scientists discovered that the reason people walked in circles was hidden in the brain. When people are blindfolded, the brain can only figure out the way based on the input coming from the sense of balance and movement sensors in the muscles and joints. This limited information is not enough to find the way. Now, think about all those horror movies: if the main characters didn’t start wandering in circles after getting lost, there would be no plot!

Robert Kearns invented intermittent windshield wipers. He patented his design in 1967. These wipers pause between swipes in very light rain or mist. The invention allows the driver to set the interval at which the wipers sweep the window. Anyway, Kearns started to have meetings with carmakers and speak about his invention. Yet, he didn’t sign a contract with any of them. Later on, car manufacturers began “inventing” intermittent wipers, too. You’ve probably already figured out where this is going.

Kearns sued Ford in 1978 and Chrysler in 1982, accusing them of patent infringement. In 1990, a jury decided that Ford had indeed violated Kearns’s patent. But the court added that this hadn’t been a deliberate effort. The two sides continued to argue about the product’s uniqueness. But eventually, Ford paid Kearns $10.2 million and settled the case. As for Chrysler, this company was ordered to pay Kearns $30 million. That’s a lot of bucks to wipe.

Sylvan Goldman had a grocery chain in Oklahoma. He tried to make it profitable. So he studied his customers’ behavior. Some time later, he began to notice something that would ultimately change the way people shopped — even today.

Shoppers generally went to cash points when their hand-carried baskets became heavy. After making this observation, Goldman created an early-day version of a shopping cart in 1936. With heavyweight out of the equation, he thought, customers would buy more stuff. Or at least they would shop longer and look around more. Nope, not yet.

People stuck with hand-held baskets. They preferred the known to the unusual thingy. Goldman didn’t give up. This time, he hired “decoy shoppers.” These customers were wandering around the stores with new carts, providing a visual demonstration of what a shopping cart was capable of. He also placed a worker at the front door to greet customers and offer them carts when they entered.

Ah, humans... It worked! People began using wheeled baskets as if they had been around for years. Shopping carts were quickly adopted by other chains, too. Soon, they became a regular part of the shopping experience. Goldman left a fortune worth more than $400 million.

Do you know octopuses have blue blood? This color is caused by hemocyanin, which carries oxygen around the octopus’s body. Human blood contains iron, but in octopuses, it’s copper instead of iron. Copper-based hemocyanin is more efficient at transporting oxygen in cold environments and places where the oxygen level is low. But it’s only blue when the animal is alive. When the blood becomes deoxygenated, it loses its blue color.

One species of jellyfish is immortal. Really. A fully grown creature is only about a quarter-inch long, or, to put it in perspective, it’s smaller than the nail on your pinky! But this tiny creature is a survivor! It has the skill to transform back into a polyp when it faces physical damage or starvation. They practically get re-born.

Scientists first observed this fascinating phenomenon in the 1990s. Since then, the species has been called “the immortal jellyfish.” So two jellyfish are in a bar. One says to the other “Hey, what took you so long?” The other one says “Look, I’m immortal, so sue me. Plus I had to get this polyp removed.” Ba dum dum.