A list of intriguing things

One: Let’s begin with creepy-looking orchids. There’s Dracula simia—which look like monkeys (and smell like oranges for some odd reason). You are unlikely to see them at the local florist. The plant is exceedingly rare—and only thrives at high altitudes in the cloud forests of Ecuador and Peru. FYI: There are 124 types of Dracula orchid species—but only two of them looks this surreal, Dracula simia and Dracula Dracula marsupialis:

Also native to South America: the swaddled baby orchids aka Anguloa uniflora—see: lead image. Ok, maybe these are even creepier. The flowers are also found up in the Andes—which seems to be nature’s incubator for demented-looking flora. (Orchids Plus)

Two: No one knows why there is a ceremony to mark the “changing of the guards”—when one set of soldiers replaces another. Many are very impressive—and a popular tourist trap. Like the high-stepping ceremonies on the Wagah border with Pakistan, and at Buckingham Palace. But our favourite is the rite performed by the Evzones—a special unit of the Hellenic military in Greece. They guard the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Hellenic Parliament in Athens—wearing three-kilo shoes with 60 nails in their soles known as Tsarouchia. We’re just as impressed with the skirt. It has 400 folds representing 400 years of Ottoman occupation—and requires 30 metres of cloth.

Forces and Sydney Morning Herald have more weird ‘changing of the guard’ ceremonies—Hindu Businessline profiles the guards in front of the Rashtrapathi Bhawan.  

Three: Say hello to the ‘tippe top’—which does a 180-degree flip when you spin it—unlike normal tops: 

Apart from looking cool—as you can see above—it is also a scientific mystery that has intrigued Winston Churchill and two Nobel prize winners—Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli:

Tippe tops are round tops that, when spun fast enough, tip sideways and eventually turn upside down so that they are spinning on their thin handles. To do this, the tops have to actually lift their bodies up, off the surface they're spinning on. How does a lateral spinning motion push a top upwards?

FYI: A humble hard-boiled egg can perform the same trick. No, we are not even going to attempt to explain why (there’s good reason why we never majored in the sciences). We leave Science Alert, Gizmodo and Popular Mechanics to do so. We’re just saying this stuff is intriguing. Look how intrigued Bohr and Pauli are: