Zilfer's Blogs

The picture below is a world war two Soviet propaganda leaflet. It shows a partisan being forced to take his hat off to a German officer, and then coming back with a sword and grenades and chopping his head off. So what's so mind-blowing about some old Soviet propaganda? Well, unlike most Soviet propaganda over-glorifying the common soldier with bravery like above,  this actually happened:  a German officer got his head chopped off by a Soviet, except instead of a sword there was an axe, and the Soviet partisan wasn't holding his grenades, he was  throwing  them towards 53 German soldiers and officers who surrounding him. This man below is Dmitry Ovcharenko Dmitry Ovcharenko was a peasant from the village of Ovcharovo in the Lugansk Region who was horrible at school, in fact, he was so bad at school he was kicked out in year 5. But to make up for his terrible reputation for not being able to cope with school life he was extremely strong, being able to carry pretty much anything

Advertisement One thing that never ceases to blow my mind is how long Ancient Egypt actually existed in relation to the rest of the world. Ancient Egyptian history took place over a  LONG  time. Scholars will debate on specifics but generally Ancient Egyptian society lasted from around 3,150BC until at least 332BC with the Macedonian invasion. That is almost 3,000 years of history for those of you doing the math. The Egyptian pyramids, for example, were constructed over a period of almost 2,000 years. That means when the last major pyramid was being constructed, in the 7th century BCE, some of the oldest pyramids were already ancient, at over 2,000 years old. 2,000 years is a long time. It’s over 100 generations of ancestors, it’s the amount of time between the death of Julius Caesar and today. When ancient Egyptians living in the 7th century BCE went outside and looked upon the pyramids, it was akin to you or I going to Rome today and looking at the Coliseum. The Coliseum is ancient t

Delhi teen who stabbed parents 26 times was addicted to online game PUBG: Police!! Here’s the full story : The 19-year-old boy from Delhi who stabbed his father and mother 26 times, and sister seven times, may have been "addicted" to an online game called PUBG. According to the police, Suraj alias Sarnam Verma, had rented a room in Delhi where he would spend hours with his friends watching TV and playing online games, including PUBG. PUBG is an online game that involves explicit violence and killing on the virtual space. The Delhi Police arrested Suraj on Wednesday evening. He is accused of killing his family members because they would scold him for his poor academic performance. Police said that they have come across a WhatsApp group that Suraj had created. The group, which had 10 of Suraj's friends as members, featured conversations about bunking classes and spending time at Suraj's rented room in Mehrauli. "His friends idolised him and considered him an icon.

The Boy Who ate 150 gummy vitamins for breakfast  A  14-year-old  boy ate  150 gummy vitamins for breakfast , thinking they were gummy candies. He and his mother were immigrants, and he didn’t know the difference between gummy vitamins and actual candy. Up until this point, he ate  30  to  40  gummy vitamins every day, thinking they were candy. As time went on, his belly swelled up. His mother just assumed that he was eating too much. Then one day, he ate  150 gummy vitamins . One hour later, he can't stop urinating and complains to his mother that he has terrible stomach pain. He trips and falls, and breaks his arm. Then his mother calls 911 and an ambulance takes them to the hospital. As he’s sitting in the waiting room, he begins to lose consciousness. He then slips into a coma. A physical examination showed that there was fluid building up in his stomach, causing hypercalcemia, a high calcium presence in the blood. Which is strange because there was no calcium i n the vitamins.

Advertisement Thankfully, the virus exclusively affects members of the order  Lagomorpha,  which is to say namely rabbits and hares.   The most notable characteristic of the shope papilloma virus (or SPV for short) is the formation of keratinous growths across the face, head, and neck of the host. These thick, horn-like growths are entirely rigid and stiff, and grow in such a way that they push through the skin of the animal, forcefully parting it away as they continue to develop. To make matters worse, additional symptoms may include an unnatural tilt of the head or staggering gait — namely from the tumors that tend to develop under the skin in the neck, ears, or brain. Fortunately, the virus isn’t an absolute death sentence. Only 25% of cases turn malignant, and growths may go into remission altogether within six months. Out of all the animals that recover, partial or complete immunity is an expected outcome. Perhaps the most threatening aspect of the condition is the ma

The Lycurgus Cup Lycurgus Cup Made during the 4th Century Roman Empire, the Lycurgus cup is another example that shows how far our ancestors were ahead in their time. This magnificent cup is the only surviving complete example made of dichroic cup that changes colour depending on which side you shine the light through. It ranges from translucent red to opaque green. The cup’s glass contains tiny proportions of nano particles of gold and silver The glass contains tiny amounts of colloidal gold and silver, which give it these unusual optical properties. They were so advanced that maybe they were the first inventors of nanotechnology. Although the technology was long lost, we were able to recreate it using 3D printing technology with small traces of gold and silver which gave a “dichroic” effect but not quite dichroic glass.

Murderous Mary Mary was a five-ton Asian elephant, also known as  Murderous Mary , who performed in the Sparks World Famous Shows circus. After killing a trainer in Kingsport, Tennessee, she was hanged in 1916. Her death is sometimes interpreted as a cautionary tale of circus animal abuse during the early 20th century. On September 12, 1916,  a hobo named Walter Eldridge , nicknamed  Red  because of his rusty-colored hair, was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the Sparks World Famous Shows circus. A drifter who had been with the circus only a day, he had no experience of handling elephants, but the only qualification required was the ability to wield an ‘elephant stick’ — a rod with a sharp spear at one end. Eldridge led the elephant parade riding on the top of Mary’s back; Mary was the star of the show, riding at the front. There have been several accounts of his death. One, recounted by  W.H. Coleman  who claimed to be a witness,  is that he prodded her behind the ear with a

The Fish that Invades the Penis Meet this cutie Awwww This is the Candiru fish, a species that lives in Brazil And what he does for living? Well, the usual fish stuff. Swimming, being slimy, entering the urethra of random men to suck the blood from their penises… WHAT? Yes, you read it right. This fish is one of the most feared parasites on earth. You will never see it coming, you are in Brazil, taking a bath in a lake and a week later you will find yourself unable to piss, with excruciating pains in your genital area. The good news? You have to be stupid to take a bath in a lake in the Amazonian jungle. The bad news? If you find this thing in your penis, you will have to undergo a surgery to remove the bastard and, while you wait for it, you will have your blood sucked from an area of your body that you’d rather keep safe from vampires-penis-entering- fishes Sweet dreams.

Ancient Ware-fare Elephants cannot jump; they are too heavy for even their massive bones to absorb the shock of landing. Ditches they cannot step across, but are too steep-sided for them to safely descend or ascend will act as barriers, channelling them into the killing zone. They are vulnerable to pit traps and caltrops. Like almost all animals, they fear fire.  Jan Meyer  suggested coating a pig with pitch and lighting it on fire, and allowing the burning, terrified animal to run loose. That’s fine, except that there is no guarantee that some of the pigs won’t turn around and run toward the defender’s forces. Human beings don’t hold formation very well when fear-crazed flaming pigs run at them. Fire arrows and fire pots are effective, especially if aimed at the elephant’s trunk. Elephants won’t usually cross a broad line of fire. As several posters pointed out, long spears and pikes can pierce an elephant. Arbalests, specialized crossbows with very high tension arms (o

Strange Face in the mirror illusion There’s this well-known, generic jumpscare cliché you get in horror films where the main character is staring into a mirror and they, for a split second, see some sort of horrific apparition. This is that - but in reality. It’s called the ‘strange-face-in-the-mirror’ illusion (bit of a mouthful, I know). You turn off all the lights in your room except for a dimly lit candle or lamp. Then, you pull up a chair and sit in front of a large mirror. The visual illusion is easy. All you have to do is stare at yourself for around ten minutes, without removing your gaze from the mirror, and ensuring you pick a point to focus on. You can see the effects taking place even after about a minute or so of doing this. What starts to happen is that your face distorts and morphs, and after a while, a lot of people start to see unpleasant, disturbing, and often frightening images. The results, to say the least, are simultaenously intriguing and terrifying. The initial

Massive Celestial Missiles that can annihilate the world Frequently, if you start to speak about threats from outer space, people would reply “Asteroids… and Aliens?”. Still, there are things far more frightening. For example Stars. What’s wrong with Stars? They’re just light years away, can’t do anything to us. Indeed, except when they can move. Because, yep  Hypervelocity Stars  are a thing. Ultrafast Stars Discovered Racing Through Milky Way Those are Stars which travel so fast, they go at 2 Millions Miles per Hour. Oh and in case you ask, no, those aren’t tiny objects, except if you think that something with a similar mass as our own dear Sun, is tiny. We’ve seen only roughly twenty so far, but you know Space is a big place and it’s been theorized that there might be 1000 of them out there. Oh and weirdly enough,  they have a high probability of being in the Milky Way. But at least, we can spot them through our telescopes before they anihilate us. The same cannot be said of  Rogue