A list of curious facts
One: Did you know that some visitors to Florence, Italy, experience a strange illness known as “Stendhal syndrome”—a “psychosomatic condition brought on by exposure to Florence's embarrassment of artistic riches.” Clinically labeled as a psychiatric disorder in 1989, it describes:
“[T]ourists, who experienced dizziness, palpitations, hallucinations and depersonalisation upon viewing works of art such as the sculptures of Michelangelo and the paintings of Botticelli. They were suffering ‘panic attacks, caused by the psychological impact of a great masterpiece, and that of travelling.’”
BBC Travel has more on this strange syndrome.
Two: One of the creators of the failed Google Glass is working on creating super-smart braces (retainer, the kind that straightens your teeth):
“Called SilentSpeller, the project is a communication system that allows people to send texts using a high-tech dental retainer to spell out words without actually voicing them... The device works by tracking the movement of the user’s tongue. Researchers claim the system identifies letters with 97% accuracy, and 93% accuracy for entire words.”
Buzzfeed News details this weird project. FYI, this is what it looks like:
Three: A farmer in Turkey has purchased VR headsets for his cows so they’ll produce more milk and be less anxious. Basically, it fools them into thinking they’re in a beautiful, green pasture. Of course, the fact that it’s successful–“The milk average of the two cows [that] wore virtual reality glasses was up to 27 liters.”—makes it a creepy version of a bovine Matrix. (Futurism)
Four: Ok, we are not exactly how to break this to you…but a doctor on Twitter had to put out this public service announcement:
“Stop putting Maggi into your anus. Stop putting Maggi into your anus. Putting stock cubes like Maggi into your anus to make your buttocks larger and rounder does not work and is extremely harmful.”
No, he’s not a lunatic. This is actually a thing in some parts of the world. Read more here. Watch a somewhat alarming Vice vid below:
