11 reasons as to why water helps your body

1) Water is the only liquid on Earth that safely reduces weight. It removes the by-products of fat and keeps you fresh and healthy. Drinking water regularly, suppresses your appetite to a great extent and limits your food  intake. Another distinct feature of water is that it literally contains no calories, hence, contributing significantly to weight loss

2) Do you want to look younger? Problem solved! Just drink lots of water every day! Water is a perfect replacement for your expensive ageing treatments. It moisturises your skin and keeps it fresh and glistening thereby enhancing its overall appeal. In addition, it helps maintain the elasticity and suppleness of the skin and prevents dryness by detoxifying the skin. Hence, one should strictly avoid dehydrating foods and beverages such as caffeine (cola, chocolate, coffee, tea) and alcohol

3) Drinking enough water can also combat skin disorders such as eczema, psoriasis, dry skin, wrinkles and spots

4) Water is an essential component required for the effective working of our body since body parts including our brain and the various tissues are mostly composed of water. Considering this, water can significantly improve our ability to think and make us energetic too.

5) Water removes toxins and most of the waste products from our body contributing to a healthy quality of life. If our body lacks water then our heart has to make an extra effort to pump fresh oxygenated blood to our organs causing severe health issues

6) A study conducted in the Loma Linda university in California, involving 20 men and woman in the age range of 38 to 100 years, concluded that those who drank enough water throughout the day were less likely to have a heart attack (41% in women and 54% in men). Hence, it can be suggested that if you substitute water with milk, tea, coffee or other beverages then you will have increased chances of incurring a heart attack, with a precise rate of 50% in women and 46% in men.

7)  Water helps to relieve headaches and back pain. Although there are many reasons that contribute to headaches, dehydration is one of the most common ones

8) Regular intake of water increases your metabolic rate and improves your digestive system. If you are constipated, try drinking more water - it can work wonders!

9) Drinking plenty of water helps fight against the flu and other ailments like kidney stones. Water, along with lemon or lemon juice is often used to overcome respiratory diseases, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis. On the whole, water plays a fundamental role in strengthening your immune system

10) Research suggests that drinking substantial amounts of water is likely to reduce the risks of bladder and colon cancer. This is because water has the ability to dilute the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and reduce the time they take to come in contact with the bladder lining

11) The human body needs a neutral Ph 7 range in order to function properly. Drinking enough water throughout the day helps maintain this balance.

The Panda ant

First described in 1938, this fascinating species was quickly nicknamed the Panda Ant (Euspinolia militaris) after its markings which resembled those of a Giant Panda. While it looks just like a fluffy ant, it’s actually not an ant at all! It’s really a species of wingless wasp related to the Red Velvet Ant, or “cow killer” as it is eerily dubbed. The killer nickname comes from the ants’ painful sting which is said to be strong enough to subdue a cow.

Like the Red Velvet Ant, the Panda Ant also packs a powerful sting that can temper just about anything – or anyone – that crosses its path. That’s really all anyone knows about this unique creature as it has been spotted only a handful of times and barely even studied. I can tell you that it would be all I could do not to give this guy a little tickle, though. That fuzzy black and white panda coloration is just too cute! Too bad it would probably destroy me in a single bite. Sigh.

The Woman Who Scratched Through Her Skull

The woman known only as “M” has had a rough life. After her marriage fell apart, she lost her kids, became a junkie, contracted HIV, and developed a terrible case of shingles. But nothing compared to the “itch.” Two years after kicking her heroin habit and getting a handle on her disease, the right side of her head started inexplicably itching like crazy.

It began after a nasty shingles attack, and when she sought help, the doctors were baffled. She had no parasites, rashes, or red marks. No creams helped, and M couldn’t stop scratching. The itchiness was constant and especially unbearable at night. She sometimes scratched so hard that she woke up to find her pillow caked with blood. She tried wearing caps to bed, but nothing could stop her from scratching her head.

One night, M woke up to find green liquid dripping down her face. Alarmed, she visited her doctor, and after a quick glance, her physician called for an ambulance. M was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was told she needed surgery immediately. It turned out that, during the night, M had scratched straight through her skull, digging down to the brain. It seems impossible for fingernails to claw through bone on their own, but because of an infection called osteomyelitis, M’s skull was soft enough that she was able to dig a hole in her head.

Still, the itching remained. M tore off two skin grafts in her desperate attempt to kill the itch and had to be restrained. Doctors put a foam helmet on her head, tied her hands to the bed at night, and kept her locked up in a medical ward for two years. All this time, experts were still unsure what was causing M’s condition. Some surmised that since her shingles had destroyed 96 percent of M’s nerve fibers in the right side of her scalp, perhaps the remaining 4 percent of nerves were active itch fibers. However, when they snipped the main sensory nerve leading to the front of her head, nothing changed. The itch kept on itching.

If nerve fibers aren’t to blame, what’s going on? Science writer and surgeon Atul Gawande believes M’s brain is very confused. Since most of the nerve fibers are gone from the front of M’s head, the brain isn’t sure what’s really going on in that region, and for some reason, it’s decided she must be itchy. Since there aren’t any nerves to contradict the official story, the itching goes on and on. It’s a horrible scenario similar to the suffering of amputees with phantom limbs whose invisible appendages sometimes contort into uncomfortable positions.

Sadly, M has never been cured of her hellish itch. Today, she’s wheelchair-bound because the left side of her body is partially paralyzed. The itch is still there, and while she has overcome her nighttime compulsion to scrape her scalp, she keeps her nails very short, just in case.

Who knew how useful a lemon could be?

In World War I, several so-called “lemon juice spies”—German agents operating in England—used citrus as their means of communication. The British government had stepped up its censorship of letters in wartime. One agent, Mabel Beatrice Elliot, flagged letters written by three of these men, heated them up, and unmasked them as spies. The lemon-juice operation was a clumsy one: several spies, once caught, had lemons on their persons, or pens with pulp still stuck on the nibs. In the end, the British executed 11 German spies in the Tower of London in 1915; four of them had used lemon juice. “After the painful and visible loss of … the lemon juice spies,” Macrakis writes, “the Germans began to develop more sophisticated invisible ink methods.”

Orange You Glad

A Catholic prisoner in England used invisible ink with far happier results in 1597. The Jesuit priest John Gerard came to England in 1588 to carry out a secret mission for the Catholic underground. Caught and detained in the Tower of London, Gerard was tortured for information. The priest befriended his prison guard and began to ask for oranges, whose juice he saved to write to confederates to on the outside. With the help of this guard, Gerard even communicated with a fellow Catholic prisoner whose cell he could see from his own, miming directions for developing the orange-juice letters over flame. The two eventually conspired to escape the Tower, with the help of outside accomplices who brought a rope—a feat made more impressive by the fact that Gerard’s fingers had been wrecked during his torture sessions.

Top 10 places you aren't allowed to visit

10. RAF Menwith Hill (U.K) – Worlds largest electronic monitoring site. This place is able to detect any type of missile attack around the globe, reportedly.

9. Club 33 (Disneyland California, USA) – This may be one of the few places on Earth that are not government controlled, yet is almost just as hard to gain access to. This address is located in the New Orleans Square part of the theme park and is a club exclusively for VIPs with a membership. Some people wait half their lives just to get access to this club.

8. Bohemian Grove (California, USA) – A secret place in the woods reserved only for the worlds most powerful people.

7. Vatican Secret Archive (Vatican City) – While you are able to request texts to be delivered to you from the archive for browsing, the archives themselves are off limits to everyone except a few people.

6. Lascaux Caves (France) – This delicate site is home to part of our human heritage. Only a few very important scientists are allowed in the caves due to the ancient age and nature of the artwork contained within.

5. Pine Gap (Australia) – Only place in Australia Designated as a No Fly Zone.

4. Metro 2 (Moscow, Russia) – Underground train system in Moscow supposedly reserved for use by Russian secret services and top government officials.

3. Room 39 (Pyongyang, North Korea) – Supposedly a government controlled operation that deals in illegla drug trafficking and smuggling.

2. Mezghhorye (Russia) – The supposed location of Russia’s nuclear missile site. This is heavily guarded by Russian troops at all times.

1. Area 51 (Nevada, USA) – This list probably wouldn’t be complete without including Area 51. This is the rumored location of alien corpses, the Roswell crash remains, and test site for various strange aircraft.

The man who stuck his head in a particle accelerator

Anatoli Bugorski might be the luckiest scientist of all time. On July 13, 1978, the Soviet researcher was repairing a particle accelerator intimidatingly named the Synchrotron U-70. As he was repairing a faulty piece of equipment, he made a slip-up worthy of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. While poking around the machine, Bugorski stuck his head inside the accelerator and straight into the path of a proton beam.

Made out of hydrogen atoms without electrons, proton beams are often used to obliterate cancer cells, but only in carefully controlled doses—just over five grays (“grays” measure absorbed doses of ionizing radiation) will normally turn humans into irradiated toast. When the beam zapped Bugorski, it measured about 2,000 grays. When it exited near the left side of his nose, it blasted out at 3,000.

As it coursed through his skull, the proton beam burned a hole through Bugorski’s brain. While it was painless, he said he was blinded by a flash “brighter than a thousand suns.” After staggering away from the machine, the left side of his face swelled to enormous proportions. Later, the skin near the entry and exit wounds peeled away, and Bugorski lost hearing in his left ear. However, this Soviet survived his mind-blowing experience, perhaps because the proton beam was moving at nearly the speed of light.

Despite his good luck, Bugorski eventually lost every nerve in the left side of his face, becoming partially paralyzed. The proton beam also damaged Bugorski’s mental capabilities, though not as badly as you might expect. Despite his handicap, Bugorski earned a PhD and is still alive today, proving that it takes a lot more than a proton beam to kill a Russian.

Mars on April 8th!

On April 8, 2014, our planet Earth in its orbit passes in between the sun and the red planet Mars. Because Mars is opposite the sun in our sky at this juncture, astronomers say that Mars is at opposition. Thus, Mars rises in the east around sunset, climbs highest in the sky around midnight and sets in the west around sunrise. For much of April 2014, you can watch this brilliant world shine from dusk till dawn.

At or near opposition, Earth comes closest to Mars for the year, and Mars, in turn, shines most brilliantly in our sky. Mars’ disk not only covers more area of sky around opposition time, but Mars’ surface reflects the light of the sun most directly back to Earth, making Mars all the brighter. Quite literally, this is Mars’ day in the sun. Take advantage, for Mars won’t be returning to opposition again until May 22, 2016.

Mars ranks as the second-brightest planet in the April 2014 evening sky, after the giant planet Jupiter. Mars and the star Sirius exhibit about the same brightness, but it should be fairly easy to distinguish Mars from Sirius – or from Jupiter.

Einsten's brain journey

After the genius Einstein died, he didn't want researchers going around his brain for analysing it etc.
But Thomas Harvey didn't care. At peril to his job, he went and clamied that he had permission to take the brain during the autopsy. However Harvey was not a neuroscientist. Next, when hospital officials asked him to give the brain back he refused. He next drove to Philadelphia where he found a technician to cut Einstein's brain into 200 pieces. Over the next 40 years these cubes ended up in all weird places. He stored them in jars at the basement of his house and it nearly got destroyed by his wife! When he moved to Kansas he kept them in a box under the beer cooler. Once Harvey, by mistake left it in Einstein's granddaughter's house! She wasn't too pleased with this. Harvey tried to mail pieces of the brain to scientists but either they they didn't study it or the very few of them who showed interest cranked out studies that were inconclusive, derided or discredited. Dissapointed Harvey returned the brain to the hospital. He died in 2007. 

Tank Tag

At its core, Tank Tag seems like some good, clean fun, and for the guests of Action Park, it probably was. But for the workers, it was literally the worst station in the park to be posted.

Think of the ride like most bumper cars, with riders in a relatively small fenced in area, but the bumper cars are tanks, and the tanks are armed with tennis ball cannons. The perimeter of the enclosure was lined with mounted tennis ball cannons that other park visitors could pay money to fire at the tanks.

Every now and then, one of the tanks would stall out, requiring one of the workers to run out and start it back up. Despite countless signs posted to dissuade this very thing, the park employees (who were totally unarmed and unprotected) would suddenly become everyone’s target and get pelted with tennis balls. Talk about a stressful work environment.

Sources: www.listverse.com

Announcement

After a lot of thinking I came to a conclusion. I've got to stop this blog. Its been a long time- a month. Happy that its got about 350 hits. But that's it! I'm stopping this.









Happy Belated April fools day




















hope you fell for that!

April Fools Day with Google!

Google is known for their April fools pranks. Last year I actually fell for google nose but no the Youtube retiring rubbish. So here the list for this year

1. Google Magic Hand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u1zoaJYAmw

2. Google maps pokemon challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u1zoaJYAmw

3. Gmail Shelfie
Loved this one. Made my old dp(mcfc logo) my background!

4. Emoji translation in Chrome for Android and IOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3NXNnoGr3Y

5. Auto Awsome Photobomb
Makes David Hasselhoff photobomb your picture!

6. Top planets and moons in Adsense

7. Official Cat Keyboard

8. Adbirds!

Glacus Atlanticus

Was going through the net and  I came across this weird animal that actually exists. Its called Glacus Atlanticus.

Thats how it looks!

Odd Object

The 2010 excavation of a trash heap from about 1810 near New York's City Hall turned up a puzzling three-inch-long (7.6-centimeter-long) cylinder of animal bone. "We thought it might be a pin case or some sort of spice grinder," said archaeologist Lisa Geiger in an email, "but we weren't confident in either of those ideas."

The mysterious cylinder was sent to storage at Brooklyn College along with the ceramics, glassware, and butchered bones that were also found at the site.

When Geiger later volunteered briefly at Philadelphia's Mütter Museum—home to all manner of historic medical curiosities—she came across a clue that helped her solve the puzzle of the cylinder. It was a similar-looking object from the mid-19th century, identified as a metal vaginal syringe.

"Once I had that to go on, I started to realize there were many of these syringes recovered from 19th-century sites, usually made of metal, glass, or early Bakelite plastic," she says. "My research revealed how many women began adopting vaginal syringes for douching as a hygienic practice and as a contraceptive. Ads for syringes used a lot of coded language suggesting they were for 'married women'—approved sexually active women—and could be used with a variety of astringent tinctures."

Now that the cylinder's place in history has been established, Geiger hopes a museum will find a place for it in the future.

the World's Longest bus

This is the worlds longest bus!-

The Grand autotram extra grand has can carry 256 people and is the longest bus in the world. Developed by the boffins of the Fraunhofer Institute for Traffic and Infrastructure Systems in Germany, this bus has three accordion-linked cabins. But here is the thing. It isn't the largest capacity bus. The largest capacity bus record is currently held by China's 82 feet long bus carrying 300 passengers! 

Red lipped Batfish

One of more than 60 different species of fishes found in warm sea, this fish has a broad head, slight body, and is covered in large gnarled lumps. Batfish are not good swimmers; they use their pectoral fins to “walk” on the ocean floor. When the batfish reaches adulthood, its dorsal fin becomes a single spine-like projection that lures prey. Batfish eat shrimps, mollusks, small fish, crabs, and worms.

The red-lipped batfish (Ogcocephalus darwini) is an unusual looking fish found on the Galapagos Islands. Red-lipped batfish are closely related to rosy-lipped batfish (Ogcocephalus porrectus), which are found near Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Rica. Both fish species look and behave very similarly to one another.
Batfish are not good swimmers; they use their pectoral fins to "walk" on the ocean floor. When the batfish reaches adulthood, its dorsal fin becomes a single spine-like projection that lures prey.

Sources:http://factspod.blogspot.in/2013/02/red-lipped-batfish.html

10 year old mexican wants to join Harvard!

Now everybody wants to go to big named colleges like Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford. But wanting to join the college at an age as young as 10? Well Roberto Ramirez Alvarez who has an IQ par Einstein wants to head to Harvard now and study Quantum Physics. He wants to launch his own company to improve social-networking and technology after graduation. When he's 16 in this case!?!?

He's not only interested in science and engineering. When he was 5 years old he taught himself English, Mandarin and French!

Now thats a genius!

This thing was found by mistake!

On February 21, 1978, electrical workers were putting down lines on a busy street corner in Mexico city when they discovered a 20 ton stone bas-relief of the Aztec night goddess, Coyolxauqui. It is believed to have been sculpted in the early fifteenth century and buried prior to the destruction o the Aztec civilisation by the Spanish conquistadors in 1521. The stone was moved 200 yards from the site to the Museum of the Great Temple.

Clown College!

You may have heard “clown college” used before to insult a particularly low performing school, or simply as a joke about studying something silly. However, many different schools really will teach you all about clowning, even if they don’t necessarily qualify as a college.

Clowns put long hours into learning everything from how to juggle to how to apply ridiculous makeup. They need to spend a ton of time practicing—and, maybe more surprisingly, a ton of time on the road, chasing talent scouts and hunting auditions.

Ringling Brothers receives more clown hopefuls than they know what to do with, so they have a selective application process. The trope of “running away to join the circus” no longer makes much sense. You can’t just get into such a prestigious group—you have to earn your way in.

Dead Hand

During the Cold War, Russia created a fail-safe device for their nuclear weapons arsenal to ensure a second strike capability even if all command and control were to be destroyed. The system (code-named Dead Hand) utilized seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors to detect an incoming nuclear attack and retaliate if necessary. The best part? The system is almost certainly still operational.

Originally built 25 years ago, the system was created to ensure a nuclear retaliation if Russia were attacked by the US. Should this happen, the system would be triggered by an elaborate network of sensors positioned around Russia, it would then retaliate with an all-out launch of missiles against targets throughout the US.

At the time that Dead Hand was created, many Russian military strategists feared US ballistic nuclear submarines and their first strike capabilities. If the submarines were to stealthily move within Russia’s territorial waters, they could strike with very little notice. This would make it possible for the Americans to destroy the entire Soviet leadership without provoking a retaliation by the leaderless Soviet military. To combat this perceived weakness, the Soviets created Dead Hand to ensure they maintained a second strike capability regardless of a US first strike outcome.

One of the many systems that Dead Hand relies on is an interesting reserve communication system known as “Perimeter.” Perimeter consists of a network of command rockets that are used to transmit launch commands directly to the strategic missile launchers. Once Perimeter received commands to proceed, the rockets would be launched and begin broadcasting launch orders to the missile launch sites continuously for up to 50 minutes. This ensured that, even if communication networks were disabled, launch commands could still be sent to strategic missile regiments in the field and a nuclear strike could proceed.

In typical Cold War–era reasoning, Dead Hand was just one more level of annihilation stacked on top of the already terrifying idea of mutual self-destruction, perhaps (theoretically) giving the Americans one more reason to pause their itchy trigger fingers. However, the scariest part of Dead Hand is the fact that it does not require human intervention at all. If an event, like an asteroid, triggers its detectors in any way that resemble a nuclear attack, Dead Hand is more than capable of beginning the process of nuclear annihilation all on its own. According to reports, it would attempt to contact political and military leaders, and if they could not be contacted within a specified period of time, it could decide its own time for retaliation.

All is not lost it seems, as Russia had the good sense to place human intervention somewhere within this process. Situated deep underground in a bunker sit three Russian duty officers who decide whether or not to begin Armageddon. It rests in their good hands to question whether said event passed from Dead Hand was an actual nuclear attack or something of a much more benign nature. If it is determined that a real attack had occurred and the Moscow leadership had been destroyed or was unreachable, they were tasked with deciding whether or not to initiate the Perimeter system and launch all their remaining missiles.

Luckily for us Russia did not go through with their original, fully automatic version of Dead Hand . . . assuming that we take them at their word on that particular point. What do you say, Ukraine?

The Cyclops Myth Started With Elephant Skulls

We rarely think about what animals look like underneath all that fur and skin. For example, did you know that an elephant’s skull has a huge hole right in the middle?

It’s easy for us, as people who know what an elephant looks like, to realize that the hole marks the location of the elephant’s trunk. However, the ancient Greeks didn’t have the luxury of that knowledge, so when they found the giant skulls of an elephant’s prehistoric relative, Deinotherium giganteum, they made the only assumption they could: It belonged to a giant one-eyed man.

Author Adrienne Mayor suggests that the bones and skull of this early elephant paved the way for the myth of the Cyclops, along with tales of other mythical animals. It may seem silly now, but an ancient Greek probably wouldn’t have thought it any less plausible than a giant four-legged beast with a nose the length of its body. In fact, when more artists from the Middle Ages were tasked with drawing an elephant from such a vague description, they came up with creatures as implausible as the cyclops.

The Basket Star's Hidden arms

The Basket Star’s Hidden Arms

Certain starfish, known as basket stars, grow to more than 60 centimeters (24 in) in diameter and extend long tendrils that act as traps.

When the starfish spots some zooplankton, it wraps the tendrils around the prey and secretes mucus to trap it. Then it draws the food to its mouth, feeds on it, and extends the tendrils again to catch its next victim.

Sigmund Neuberger

Sigmund Neuberger, otherwise know as the Great Lafayette, was a German magician who was the highest paid magician of his time. The Great Lafayette loved animals, but loved his terrier Beauty most of all. Beauty was a gift from Harry Houdini, who was an admirer of the Great Lafayette. He lavished the dog with its own suite, five-course meals, and a diamond-studded collar.

Four days before the opening of his show in Edinburgh, Beauty died. Lafayette made a deal with the city council that he would allow his own body to be buried there when he died if they would consent to burying Beauty in the nearby Piershill Cemetery. On the opening night of the show, May 9, 1911, there was a fire while he was performing his signature trick, “The Lion’s Bride.” He manage to escaped from the building, but ran back inside to save a horse that was part of the show. Besides Lafayette, 10 other people died because the side doors had been locked tight before the show—Lafayette didn’t want anyone sneaking in.

Pee-Powered Smartphones

About half of Americans now use smartphones. These high-end cell phones that can do almost anything won’t be going away soon and it’s only a matter of time before we have to address the issue of their energy consumption.

Thankfully, Dr. Ioannis Ieropoulos of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory is on the job. Earlier this year, he and his team developed a method of charging smartphones using urine. Allowing urine to pass through microbial fuel cells (MFC), which break down our pee into electricity, the researchers were able to power a mobile phone long enough to send messages, browse the Internet, and make a brief phone call.

While this urine-converting process is still in its infancy and can only produce small amounts of electricity, the researchers and their supporters are optimistic about its potential future value. The Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation—who has funded further improvements on this technology—hopes that with pee-powered smartphones, we can expect a more sanitized and energy-efficient future.

Top 10 Bizzare Phobias

10

Agyrophobia

Fear of Crossing the Street

Agyrophobics have a fear of crossing streets, highways and other thoroughfares, or a fear of thoroughfares themselves. This, of course, makes it very difficult to live comfortably in a city. The word comes from the Greek gyrus which means turning or whirling as the phobic avoids the whirl of traffic. The phobia covers several categories, wherein sufferers may fear wide roads specifically down to suburban single lane streets, and can also include fearing jaywalking or crossing anywhere on a street, even a designated intersection. This phobia is considered independent from the fear of cars.

9

Mageirocophobia

Fear of Cooking

The bizarre fear of cooking is called mageirocophobia which comes from the Greek word mageirokos which means a person skilled in cooking. This disorder can be debilitating and potentially lead to unhealthy eating if one lives alone. Sufferers of mageirokos can feel extremely intimidated by people with skills in cooking, and this intimidation and feeling of inadequacy is probably the root cause of the disorder for many. If you suffer from mageirokos and wish to develop some basic skills in cooking, 

8

Pediophobia

Fear of Dolls

Pediophobia is the irrational fear of dolls. Not just scary dolls – ALL dolls. Strictly speaking, the fear is a horror of a “false representation of sentient beings” so it also usually includes robots and mannequins, which can make it decidedly difficult to go shopping. This phobia should not be confused with pedophobia or pediaphobia which is the fear of children. Sigmund Freud believed the disorder may spring from a fear of the doll coming to life and roboticist Masahiro Mori expanded on that theory by stating that the more human-like something becomes, the more repellent its non-human aspects appear. My apologies to those who suffer from pediophobia for the picture above.

7

Deipnophobia

Fear of Dinner Conversation

Now admittedly some dinner conversations can be very awkward, but some people are so terrified of the idea of speaking to another person over dinner that they avoid dining out situations. In times gone by there were strict rules of etiquette that helped a person to deal with these situations – but they are (sadly) mostly forgotten. In today’s society in which rules and formality are out the window, it is possible that the more controlled nature of a dinner party may lie partly behind this phobia. 

6

Eisoptrophobia

Fear of Mirrors

Eisoptrophobia is a fear of mirrors in the broad sense, or more specifically the fear of being put into contact with the spiritual world through a mirror. Sufferers experience undue anxiety even though they realize their fear is irrational. Because their fear often is grounded in superstitions, they may worry that breaking a mirror will bring bad luck or that looking into a mirror will put them in contact with a supernatural world inside the glass. After writing this list I realized that I suffer from a minor form of this disorder in that I don’t like to look into a mirror in the evening when I am alone for fear of seeing someone (or something) behind me.

5

Demonophobia

Fear of Demons

Demonophobia is an abnormal and persistent fear of evil supernatural beings in persons who believe such beings exist and roam freely to cause harm. Those who suffer from this phobia realize their fear is excessive or irrational. Nevertheless, they become unduly anxious when discussing demons, when venturing alone into woods or a dark house, or when watching films about demonic possession and exorcism. Sufferers are most likely to be recognized by the strings of garlic around their neck, crucifixes, wooden stakes they carry, and gun loaded with silver bullets. Okay – I made that last part up.

4

Pentheraphobia

Fear of Mother-in-Law

Of all the phobias on this list, pentheraphobia is probably the most common. It is, as stated above, the fear of one’s mother-in-law. I am sure that most married people have, at one time or another, suffered from this terrible fear. This fear is one that is so common in Western society that it frequently appears in movies and other forms of entertainment. Of the many available therapies for this illness of the mind, divorce seems to be the most popular. A related phobia to pentheraphobia is novercaphobia which is a fear of your stepmother – the most famous sufferer of which is Cinderella.

3

Arachibutyrophobia

Fear of Peanut Butter Sticking to the Roof of your Mouth

I must say that finding information on this disorder is extremely difficult – which does make me wonder if it is perhaps the figment of an over-active imagination, but it is definitely bizarre and fairly well known so it seems to deserve a place here. This disorder seems to be a fear that is quite easily worked around: don’t buy peanut butter. However, for a child who is forced to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day, one can see how it might cause severe trauma in later life. Here is the testimony of one alleged sufferer: “Whenever I’m around peanut butter I start to sweat excessively and my body starts convulsing. The roof of my mouth becomes coarse and itchy. I can’t live with this fear anymore. My thirst for peanut butter must be quenched without me going into a full blown panic attack.”

2

Cathisophobia

Fear of Sitting

Cathisophobia (sometimes spelled with a ‘k’) is a terror of sitting down. This disorder can be sparked off by a particularly nasty case of hemorrhoids but in some serious cases it can be due to physical abuse relating to sitting on sharp or painful objects. Sometimes, the sitting fear is due to some punishment in the school days, or it may be an indication of some other phobia like sitting in front of elite and influential people. Cathisophobia is characterized by sweating, heavy or short breathe, and anxiety.

1

Automatonophobia

Fear of a Ventriloquist’s Dummy

I think we can all see the merit in this disorder – the very act of ventriloquism seems particularly nasty to me. It involves a man with his hand up a dolls butt which he then proceeds to talk to. Sufferers of automatonophobia need not seek treatment – it is a perfectly valid reaction to a perfectly revolting concept. I think that is enough said on this topic.

Aokigahara / Suicide Forest

Lying at the base of Mount Fuji, Aokigahara Forest has a rather unsettling reputation as a suicide hotspot . This documentary follows a geologist as he performs a walk through of the forest, looking for both those who have, and may soon, succumb to depression. Spotting an abandoned car in the parking lot on the way in, passing signs dissuading suicide, and taking an ill trodden path into the bewildering forest, it isn’t long before we’re shown our first images of forsaken souls—all of whom hang from Aokigahara’s thick ligatures. From this point onwards, it only gets worse. I encourage all with a strong heart to watch this bleak, but brief, portrayal of the utter desperation in full.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4FDSdg09df8
- The Documentary

MH370: Relatives erupt with grief as Malaysia confirms plane is lost

BEIJING: Stunned relatives in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur reacted with grief and anguish on Monday as Malaysia confirmed their worst fears by announcing that missing flight MH370 had gone down in the Indian Ocean. 

In dramatic scenes in Beijing, stretcher-bearing paramedics were drafted in to tend to family members devastated by the news, which was broken to them by the airline at a hotel where they had gathered throughout the 17-day ordeal. 

At least two people were borne out on stretchers, including a woman whose body was shaking, her eyes glazed and heavy with tears, as a family member held her arm. 

Cries of deep pain rang out as relatives burst forth, sobbing uncontrollably, while the news left others appearing disoriented, with one man lying on the floor holding his head. 

One Chinese relative who spoke to AFP by phone said: "We know we have no hope left now." 

Two-thirds of passengers were from China. Both Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed on Monday that the ill-fated flight, which disappeared on March 8 with 227 passengers and 12 crew, "ended in the southern Indian Ocean." 

The conclusion was based on new satellite analysis of the Boeing 777's path. Malaysia's government had previously held out increasingly dim hopes of finding survivors. 

In the lobby of a hotel outside Kuala Lumpur where relatives, including many flown in from China by Malaysia Airlines, had gathered, an elderly woman sat down hard on the floor and wept.

"He died too young, I want my son back," she cried out in Mandarin before security escorted her into an elevator. 

Subramaniam Gurusamy, 60, whose 34-year-old Malaysian son Puspanathan Gurusamy was on board, had continued to hold out hope of his return throughout the agonising 17-day wait. 

"I had the belief that my son would return home safely. But what can be done? This is fate. We must accept it," he told AFP, choking back tears. 

Some relatives in Beijing lashed out as they left their meeting with the Malaysian flag carrier, with one man throwing punches and kicks at assembled media. 

One woman left the room shouting "Murderers! Murderers" and crying uncontrollably as she was held by two other family members, while another swiped at cameramen with her handbag, shouting "Get away!" 

At about 2am a group of around 30 relatives came out of the room to meet waiting reporters. 

"The Malaysian government, Malaysian Airlines and the Malaysian armed forces are the real murderers who have killed our loved ones," a man said, appearing to read from a prepared statement on a laptop on behalf of the group. 

"The relatives of the passengers launch the strongest protest and condemnation" against them, he added. 

The man also said the relatives would use "all possible means" to protest. 

As the Lido Hotel emptied, a small number of relatives appeared to refuse to accept that their loved ones had died. 

"The rational mind sometimes gives way to the emotional mind, and there are some who are still not letting go," a psychologist who was speaking to families told AFP. 

For Sarah Bajc, partner of American passenger Philip Wood, the announcement brought "no real closure" in the absence of confirmed wreckage. 

"I need closure to be certain but cannot keep on with public efforts against all odds. I STILL feel his presence, so perhaps it was his soul all along," she said in an emailed message. 

In others, the power of denial remained strong. One distraught woman in Beijing approached reporters saying she believed her daughter was being "hidden", and had not died. 

Malaysian Maira Nari, the teenage daughter of Chief Steward Andrew Nari, and who has captured hearts in her country with poignant and hopeful tweets calling for her father's return, put on a brave face. 

"God loves you more, daddy.... God loves them more," she tweeted. "I will never forget the look on his face when he opened his birthday present the other day. He was so happy!" she added. 

On China's hugely popular Weibo microblogging site, a succession of electronic "candles" were lit in tribute to the dead. 

"I just can't believe it nor accept it, after having searched so many days, and waited so many days, only to finally receive news of the crash!" wrote one user.