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User:Ionek/wtf

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Articles that make you wonder how Mankind has managed to survive this far:

Cosmic

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  • Asteroids - space rocks that can...
    • Chicxulub crater (66 million years ago) - some three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth went extinct, including dinosaurs.
    • Great Meteor (1860) - Earth-grazing meteoroid reported from locations across the US.
    • Tunguska event (1908) - Flattening 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi) of forest, never impacted the Earth.
    • Sikhote-Alin meteorite (1947) - large iron meteorite, an estimated 70 metric tons of material survived the fiery passage through the atmosphere and reached the Earth.
    • Great Daylight Fireball (1972) - Earth-grazing meteoroid entered atmosphere in daylight over Utah, United States (14:30 local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada.
    • Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (1994) - On Jupiter; created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km across estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal).
    • Eastern Mediterranean event (2002) - explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth - occurred during the 2001–2002 India–Pakistan standoff (both nuclear powers)
    • Carancas impact event (2007) - Caused arsenic poisoning in nearby village
    • Chelyabinsk meteor (2013) - 1,491 injured; over 7,200 damaged buildings, collapsed factory roof, shattered windows
  • Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) - a massive burst of solar wind and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space, mostly harmless though unless they cause a Geomagnetic storm
    • Carrington Event (1859) - Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks.
    • ? (1984) - Contact with Air Force One with Ronald Reagan aboard was lost due to a geomagnetic storm effectively severing the head of the US government at the height of the Cold War.[1]
    • March geomagnetic storm (1989) - The James Bay network went offline in less than 90 seconds lasting 9 hours; some satellites in polar orbits lost control for several hours. As this occurred during the Cold War, an unknown number of people worried that a nuclear first-strike might be in progress.
  • Gamma-ray burst (GRB) are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. These blasts of energy travel at near-speed of light speeds making their observation and arrival simultaneous. Depending on the distance and intensity a GRB can sterilize an entire planet from light years away.
    • WR 104 - A binary star with a 220 day orbital period. Stellar winds form a pinwheel pattern indicating that the axis is aligned to the Earth. Although 8,000 light years from Earth, a possible GRB from the eventual Hypernova can have potential implications (like wiping out one quarter of Earths Ozone layer increasing solar UVB ration by 50% which may lead to a mass extinction event). [2]
  • Black hole - a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping.
    • Supermassive black hole - Most—and possibly all—galaxies are inferred to contain a supermassive black hole at their centers. (see also Sagittarius A*)
      • 3C 321 - dubbed the "Death Star Galaxy", has an energetic jet directed towards its companion galaxy blasting its stars planets and just about anything else.

Chemicals

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  • Chlorine trifluoride - mixing this with many other substances will cause immediate combustion. (The Nazis did not consider Chlorine trifluoride too dangerous to use in warfare, they built bunkers to manufacture this as an agent for chemical warfare, just that they were conquered by the Russians before they could make enough of the stuff: http://www.bunkertours.co.uk/germany_2004.htm - thanks to Shogunu (talk · contribs))
  • Hydrofluoric acid - one of few substances that can dissolve glass. Also, it destroys your bones by dissolving through your skin.
  • Methyl isocyanate, not especially horrific by itself compared to other chemicals, but when you read Bhopal disaster... (suggested by 76.10.183.218)
  • Nickel carbonyl, aka "liquid death". Enough said.

Food

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  • Balut - boiled ready-to-hatch duck eggs.
  • Casu Marzu - Sheep's milk cheese infested with maggots.
  • Escamoles - Ant eggs / "insect caviar"
  • Lutefisk - lye-soaked fish.
  • Pacha - Boiled sheep's head (Needs disambig and article, sadly)
Source: 6 most terrifying foods in the world
Source: Steve, don't eat it!

Animals

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Not all of these are huge, some are either just scary or completely opposite the human concept of cuddly.

Some invertebrates from 5 most horrifying bugs
  • Invertebrates:
(Aquatic)
Coconut crab. That thing it's on? That's a small tree man...
(Non-aquatic)
  • Army ant - Moves in swarms which eat everything they come across, other than rock.
  • Dorylus - Driver ants, specifically, will send an ant down your throat to deliver a poisonous bite to the inside of your lungs, to kill you. Fun fun.
  • Asian giant hornet - it's bite contains a neurotoxin and chemicals that will melt your skin off. Srsly.
Asian giant hornet
  • Vertebrates
Aquatic
  • Candiru - also known as the "penis fish" ... wanna guess where it likes to get stuck?
  • Epaulette shark - also known as a walking shark. As in, it can walk with its fins.
Non-aquatic
  • Extinct (various)
  • Non-animal live
Fungus
Teensy tiny
  • Viruses
Ever wanted to be immortal? Henrietta Lacks is, or more specifically, some of her is, in the form of an immortal cancer that killed her, and has been commercialized. Still, it could have been worse, she could have been parasitic. (Thx to Splarka)
So, why's this here?
  1. . Hospitals/Physicians own your discarded tissue, you have no say in the matter...
  2. . Your cervical cancer + HPV = new species of contagious cancer...
  3. . It's in the fucking wild now
  4. . It's got its own species name, and outlasted its original host.

Plants

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  • Tifton 85 a grass that occasionally mutates into carrying cyanide. Harmless to us only because humans rarely eat raw grass; has killed many cows.

Places

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a/k/a The Gates of Hell
Why it's interesting:
  1. The least accessible point on the planet.
  2. Rather close to where the Bloop (an unexplained biological sound from an unknown giant animal was heard)
  3. Also rather close to the Monahans underground/undersea nuclear weapons test (~ 20kT, no article)
  4. Did I mention it's right next to Cthulhu's home of R'Lyeh?
  • Prypiat, Ukraine
  • Sedlec Ossuary
  • Sha'ar Menashe - While the location itself is nice and peaceful, the psychiatric hospital there is dedicated to caring for survivors of the Holocaust. PTSD has resulted in people there who have, mentally, been in the concentration camps for 70 years. sfgate.com - Could be useful for the expansion of the Sha'ar Menashe article?

Paranormal

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People

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Humanity

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Forteana

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Other

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See also

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