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Gender absolutely exists on a spectrum – and these animals prove it. Getty Images/ATI Composite For definitive proof that gender is indeed fluid, look no further than the animal kingdom. There, certain organisms change their reproductive identities or adapt the behavior of the opposite sex based on a time-specific need. Some animals even have working male and female genitalia. Here are ten fascinating animals whose sex isn’t black-and-white: hermaphrodite Animals: 1....

Hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq and sold on the black market since the early 1990s. U.S. District Court Eastern District of NYThe Gilgamesh Dream Tablet in question is only one of 12 inscribed with the tale. This fragment contained a portion of the epic poem in which the protagonist describes his dreams to his mother. In 2014, arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby spent $1....

In March 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley disappeared from the Rhapsody of the Seas on its way to Curacao. Seven years later, her family received a disturbing photograph that seemed to reveal her fate. At around 5:30 AM on March 24, 1998, Ron Bradley glanced out at the balcony of his cabin aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship and saw his daughter Amy Lynn Bradley lounging peacefully. Thirty minutes later, he looked again — and she was gone, never to be seen again....

Nine years after his conservative family was featured on the ABC show “Wife Swap,” Jacob Stockdale fatally shot his mother and brother before attempting to kill himself. The show Wife Swap has a light-hearted premise. For two weeks, families with opposing values and ideologies “exchange” wives. But many viewers don’t know about the so-called Wife Swap murders, when one of the children featured on the show ended up killing his real-life mother and brother....

Jeff Lowe used to work alongside “Tiger King” Joe Exotic at the G.W. Zoo, but then he took it over — and helped land Exotic in prison. Ever since the seven-part Netflix series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness introduced us to the bizarre world of “exotic animal lovers,” we’ve had a hard time believing that any of it is real. In order to prove it to ourselves, we’ve taken a deeper dive into the lives of these strange characters, like the conman Jeff Lowe....

Justin Jedlica earned the nickname “the human Ken doll” because of the almost 1,000 cosmetic procedures he’s undergone. @justinjedlica/InstagramJustin Jedlica has undergone up to 1,000 cosmetic procedures and surgeries. Plastic surgery has become far more widespread and affordable in the past few decades. Most customers typically request to have one or two areas fixed that have bothered them. Justin Jedlica, meanwhile, has undergone up to 1,000 cosmetic procedures and surgeries that altered virtually his entire body — and is now known as the “human Ken doll....

In the 1980s and 1990s, gay men were frequently attacked in Sydney and sometimes forced to jump from the city’s cliffs. Police photoScott Phillip White was sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for the brutal 1988 murder. For years, Australian Scott Phillip White had two secrets. The first was that he’d killed Scott Johnson, a 27-year-old gay American, by pushing him off a cliff in Sydney in 1988. The second was that White, a father of six, was gay himself....

In the 19th century, Manuelita Sáenz shirked convention for noblewomen of her time by becoming a colonel in the fight for South American independence. Marcos Salas/Wikimedia CommonsManuelita, or Manuela, Sáenz wearing the Order of the Sun medal. History largely remembers Manuelita Sáenz as the beautiful lover of Venezuelan revolutionary and president, Simón Bolívar. Known for the passionate letters she wrote to Bolívar throughout their torrid affair, Sáenz was much more than a mistress....

Researchers believe that Indigenous people in Peru’s Chincha Valley developed the practice of stacking spines on posts to reassemble bodies of the dead destroyed by Spanish colonists. C. O’SheaA collection of the spines found threaded on posts in Peru. In Peru’s Chincha Valley, local farmers have long considered spines threaded onto posts as “ancient objects.” But it was only recently that archeologists began studying the phenomenon of “vertebrae on posts” in depth....

The 87-year-old patient had electrodes placed on his head to detect seizures after he suffered a fall. When he died during treatment, doctors recorded unprecedented activity. Wikimedia CommonsScientists managed to observe the neural activity of a dying man for 900 uninterrupted seconds. Civilizations throughout time have pondered what really happens during death. Now, for the first time, scientists have recorded a dying brain, and they have made a shocking discovery: Our life may truly flash before our eyes when we die....

During the 1969-1971 occupation of Alcatraz, Native American demonstrators took control of the former prison in protest of government abuses. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesNative Americans stand inside the prison during the occupation. Alcatraz Island was home to America’s most infamous prison for about 100 years — first as a military prison, then as one for federal convicts — before closing its doors in 1963. But for a brief period beginning in 1969, Native American activists occupied the “The Rock” in protest of the U....

Tom Mansfield was no stranger to pre-workout supplements, but a miscalculation when weighing his caffeine powder caused him to go into cardiac arrest. Tom Mansfield/FacebookTom Mansfield overdosed on caffeine powder at his home in Colwyn Bay, Wales. Tom Mansfield prioritized three things above all else: his family, his physical fitness, and the health of his clients. Before exercising on Jan. 5, 2021, however, the personal trainer made one fateful mistake. After accidentally measuring out far too much pre-workout caffeine powder, he drank the equivalent of almost 200 cups of coffee — and died within an hour....

Discover why China’s Reed Flute Cave first captivated humans more than 1,000 years ago — then vanished from our history for more than a millennium. Flickr Located in China’s Guangxi autonomous region, Reed Flute Cave is one of the country’s most famous natural landmarks — and with good reason. Visitors can walk the length of the cave’s massive 787-foot interior and see an array of stunning rock formations including stalagmites and stalactites, many of them bathed in the vivid, multi-colored lights that have been placed among them....

For years, Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant claimed he would die before 30. Then when he was still 29, he was killed in a brutal plane crash in the Mississippi woods. Tom Hill/Getty ImagesRonnie Van Zant, a little over a year before the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that killed him and several members of his band. Ronnie Van Zant always had a feeling that he’d die young. The Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman mentioned his premonition to multiple people, even telling a bandmate in Tokyo that he wouldn’t live to see 30....

The first victims of Stockholm syndrome found the symptoms as unexplainable as the doctors who examined them. Wikimedia CommonsThe Kreditbanken building, where Jan-Erik Olsson took his hostages. In 1973, Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot coined a most interesting psychiatric phenomenon. He called it Norrmalmstorgssyndromet, after Norrmalmstorg, the area of Stockholm where the phenomenon had originated. To people outside of Sweden, however, it became known as “Stockholm syndrome.” The case for his newfound condition was a curious one....

See how the U.S. and Europe compare on average sexual partners. Pixabay A new survey has revealed what the average number of sexual partners in the U.S. and Europe is for both men and women. Health and beauty product retailer Superdrug has conducted a massive survey of sexual attitudes and histories from over 2,000 men and women from the United States and Europe. From this data they have been able to conclude much about the sexual mores of modern society....

Though Frederick Valentich vanished almost 40 years ago, his unexplained disappearance still captures the attention of UFO hunters. In 1978, a 20-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentich disappeared. Valentich had been attempting a training flight over the Bass Strait between the Australian mainland and Tasmania. He was flying a Cessna 182L, a light aircraft, and was a moderately experienced pilot, clocking roughly 150 hours of flying time. On the evening of October 21, Valentich departed for a training flight, from Moorabbin to King Island, a 125-mile trek over the Bass Strait....

The name was initially meant to be a dismissal The term “big bang” was coined live on BBC radio in 1949 by Fred Hoyle, a scientific opponent to what was then the fringe “primeval atom” hypothesis proposed by Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre. Hoyle’s equally alliterative Steady State theory had been accepted by everyone from Einstein to Hubble, but contradicting discoveries in the 1920’s had slowly started to dismantle the erstwhile pillar of astronomical thought....

Utilizing the wide-reaching power of Google Maps and Google Earth, the Flight 772 Memorial commemorates its legacy to the world. It was a plane passenger’s worst nightmare. On September 19th, 1989, a bomb was stowed among the cargo of UTA Flight 772; a bomb that would claim the lives of all 170 passengers. While the Congo-based flight was destined for Paris, the plane would touch down not in the city of lights but the endless sands of the Sahara desert....

Jimi Hendrix’s death has remained a mystery since he was found in a London hotel on September 18, 1970. But how did Jimi Hendrix die? A performance by Jimi Hendrix was sure to be frenetic, full of energy, and wild. He would rip fast on his guitar and oftentimes smash his instrument to pieces at the end of a show. Watching Hendrix play was more than merely observing a performance — it was an experience....