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Cotard delusion sounds like a silly disease, but feeling like you’re dead and like your body isn’t your own is no laughing matter. PixabayThose who suffer from Cotard delusion believe that they are dead and their flesh is rotting — even when they’re in perfectly good health. In 1880, a woman known to posterity as “Mademoiselle X” visited French doctor Jules Cotard. She complained of feelings of anxiety, despair, and a more serious symptom: she believed she was dead....

In the early 1970s, the punk scene pummeled through the U.K., sweeping up rebellious youths disenchanted with British society. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York 33 CBGB Photos From The Heyday Of New York City Punk Rock 35 Images That Capture The Beatniks’ Heyday In New York City...

Despite being known as the fastest surgeon of his time, Dr. Robert Liston is famous for performing the only operation with a 300 percent mortality rate. Getty ImagesRobert Liston in 1842. In the days before anesthesia, surgeons had to get creative with their surgeries in an attempt to save lives while minimizing a patient’s pain. One of the most effective ways was to perform the surgery as quickly as possible, sometimes in under five minutes....

During the Golden Age of Piracy, some buccaneers engaged in matelotage, a form of civil union. Sometimes these arrangements were purely financial — but often they were affectionate, romantic, or sexual. Wikimedia CommonsPirate symbols and myths are strong, but there are fascinating under-discussed elements to their communities, like matelotage. Pirates have been an endless source of fascination for centuries — their rootless ways, their quests for treasure, and their sophisticated and stateless societies hold a strong appeal....

How a teenager named Jackie Mitchell struck out two of baseball’s greats and why her story has historians puzzled. Library of CongressJackie Mitchell (second from left) shakes hands with Babe Ruth (right) as Lou Gehrig (left) and team manager Joe Engel (second from right) look on. Jackie Mitchell knew that her presence on the mound was something of a spectacle. Wearing a too-big Chattanooga Lookouts uniform that billowed around her small frame, the 17-year-old pitcher would powder her nose for the cameras before stepping under the stadium’s bright lights....

John Pemberton struggled with addiction for much of his life. Somewhere along the way, this addiction spurred invention. Wikimedia CommonsJohn Pemberton. Coca-Cola marketing executive Wendy Clark once wrote of the man who invented the beverage: “a pharmacist who wanted to create an elixir that would give people a moment of refreshment and uplift, a moment of happiness.” Clark stays true to the brand’s message that Coca-Cola wants only to “make the world happier,” but the real motivation behind its creation tells a different story....

The drug currently known as krokodil was born in the early 1930s as desomorphine, a fast-acting medical alternative to morphine. But by the 1990s, Russian doctors began noticing reptilian patches of skin on some drug addicts in Siberia and Far East Russia. Today, the drug’s cheap, concentrated power makes it ideal for smuggling all over the world–including, recently, the United States. And those scaly patches are just the beginning. The effects of krokodil–fittingly, also known as the “zombie drug” or “cannibal heroin”–get far, far worse…...

After the Winterberg tunnel collapsed in May 1917, almost all of the German soldiers inside it perished over six harrowing days. Pierre MalinowskiSoldiers at the notorious Winterberg tunnel, which currently lies under a forest trail popular amongst dog walkers. In May 1917, more than 270 German soldiers were buried alive in the Winterberg tunnel on the Chemin des Dames battlefront when the French bombarded it, sealing off both sides. Now, that tunnel — and the corpses inside of it — have just been found by an amateur historian and his son....

See the new pictures from Hubble that reveal the Tarantula Nebula’s enormous star cluster containing the largest known star in the universe. The massive star cluster of the Tarantula Nebula, as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Image Source: NASA Recently released images from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal the universe’s largest known cluster of giant stars — including the largest star yet discovered — all huddled together in the R136 cluster of the Tarantula Nebula....

Pattie Boyd was the center of rock and roll’s most epic love triangle. Flickr/Wikimedia CommonsPattie Boyd with George Harrison 1966, and Eric Clapton on guitar 1975. There are women who marry rock stars, and then there’s the woman who married two. Pattie Boyd was a blonde, doe-eyed girl from South West England. After finding success in modeling, she was cast in the famous 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night. She had a single, one-word line....

When the noblewoman’s tomb was uncovered in 2012, researchers were stumped as to why she’d been buried with the beasts of burden. Songmei Hu/AntiquityResearchers radiocarbon-dated the skeletons to 2,300 years ago, during China’s Tang dynasty. When researchers entered ancient noblewoman Cui Shi’s tomb in Xi’an, China in 2012, they were stunned to find it littered with donkey bones. Researchers thought it odd that a woman of such status would be buried among lowly animals like this....

Under the American Health Care Act, rape and domestic abuse qualify as “pre-existing conditions,” able to send insurance rates through the roof. The new Republican healthcare bill could allow states to make coverage unaffordable for rape victims. That’s because under the American Health Care Act — which was approved in the House on Thursday — sexual assault qualifies as a pre-existing condition. This does not mean that the bill’s passage will make all rape victims uninsurable....

The family was covered in beads that would have taken tens of thousands of hours to make. Philippe Froesch, Visual Forensic 21st century technology has made it such that many of us cannot go a day — sometimes even an hour — without seeing some sort of image of the world’s upper crust. Now, some of that very technology allows us to bear witness to elites of millennia past. Just opened up for public viewing this week, two Canadian museums have created digital renderings of an ancient, elite family from British Columbia....

Whether ironic, shocking, or just plain gross, these embarrassing celebrity deaths throughout history show that not everyone gets to go out with dignity. When the revered, celebrated, or merely famous among us die, we’re forced to confront the fact that they were mortals like everyone else. Still, when the great artists, entertainers, and leaders do meet their end, we’d probably like to imagine that their final moments were as consequential as the rest of their existence....

Despite being fake, the Scopes Trial ultimately got evolution to be taught in schools. Flickr CommonsSpectators gather to hear testimonies being read during the Scopes Trial. The Scopes Trial is generally held up as an example of the triumph of science and modernity over religious fundamentalism and close-mindedness. Most people are familiar with the basic facts: namely that there was a teacher in the South who was put on trial for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution to his class....

Crusades-era hand grenades discovered, protohuman hominids of Indonesia reportedly sighted, ancient Roman sandal unearthed. Mysterious 12th-Century “Jars” Unearthed In Jerusalem Turn Out To Be Hand Grenades Used In The Crusades Robert Mason/Royal Ontario MuseumThough the true recipe for these primitive hand grenades is a secret lost to history, experts have detected traces of sulfur, mercury, and magnesium. Researchers in Canada recently analyzed four 900-year-old containers that had been found in Jerusalem in the 1960s....

The tiny waxworm may hold the key to contending with one of our biggest environmental problems. Wikimedia Commons Plastic bags have made a mess of our waterways and have helped create veritable high-rises out of landfills. In front of such a large, expensive problem — the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that California coastal communities spend $428 million a year cleaning up plastic trash from waterways — many advocates are looking for similarly robust solutions....

According to government officials and agencies, the peculiar red sky over Indonesia’s Jambi province was a result of the country’s severe forest fires. Syarif Abdullah/ANTARAAn Indonesian town was covered by a bizarre red sky following the continuing forest fires. It’s not an Instagram filter, nor is footage beamed over from the Mars rover. In fact, the jaw-dropping images are from Indonesia’s Jambi province, where a blood red sky recently loomed over the landscape....

From its dead bodies serving as guideposts to its most remarkable climbers to its enormous feces problem, these Mount Everest facts are even more fascinating than you could imagine. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Explore The Unparalleled Magnificence — And Unprecedented Danger — Of Mount Everest The Finals Hours Of Francys Arsentiev – Mount Everest’s “Sleeping Beauty”...

History shows that people have a way of silencing women by criticizing their sexuality. These women responded by changing history. Today’s woman can wear just about any label she pleases. These women throughout history weren’t as lucky. Lambasted for their sexual choices, these five women have generally gone down in history as “sluts.” Still, that didn’t stop them from transforming what many would consider a moral blemish into a beauty mark....