Lessons learned from addressing myths about Zika and yellow fever outbreaks in Brazil

When disease epidemics and outbreaks occur, conspiracy theories often emerge that compete with the information provided by public health officials. A Dartmouth-led study in Science Advances finds that information used to counter myths about Zika in Brazil not only failed to reduce misperceptions but also reduced the accuracy of people's other beliefs about the disease.

The results provide important context as countries launch public information campaigns about the new coronavirus (COVID-19), including how to protect oneself and prevent the spread of the disease.

"It is essential to evaluate public health messaging and information campaigns," said co-author Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth. "Our results indicate that efforts to correct misperceptions about emerging diseases like Zika may not be as effective as we might hope."

The study was based on a nationally representative survey conducted in Brazil in 2017 and online survey experiments conducted there in 2017 (not long after the 2015-2016 Zika epidemic) and in 2018 (just after an unusually severe yellow fever outbreak). Using survey data, the team first demonstrated the prevalence of misperceptions among Brazilians about whether Zika can be transmitted through sexual contact (true) or casual contact (false).

The researchers then conducted three preregistered experiments testing the effectiveness of information provided by public health officials to dispel myths about Zika and yellow fever. These studies, which were conducted online among Brazilian adults, showed that corrective information about Zika not only failed to reduce misperceptions but also frequently reduced the accuracy of other beliefs people held about the disease (a finding that was replicated in both the 2017 and 2018 data).

The researchers found that corrective information about yellow fever was more effective than the material about Zika. However, exposure to this information did not increase support for public policies aimed at preventing the spread of either disease nor did it change people's intentions to engage in preventive behaviors.

From Science Daily

Celebrated ancient Egyptian woman physician likely never existed

For decades, an ancient Egyptian known as Merit Ptah has been celebrated as the first female physician and a role model for women entering medicine. Yet a researcher from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus now says she never existed and is an example of how misconceptions can spread.

"Almost like a detective, I had to trace back her story, following every lead, to discover how it all began and who invented Merit Ptah," said Jakub Kwiecinski, PhD, an instructor in the Dept. of Immunology and Microbiology at the CU School of Medicine and a medical historian.

His study was published last week in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.

Kwiecinski's interest in Merit Ptah (`beloved of god Ptah') was sparked after seeing her name in so many places.

"Merit Ptah was everywhere. In online posts about women in STEM, in computer games, in popular history books, there's even a crater on Venus named after her," he said. "And yet, with all these mentions, there was no proof that she really existed. It soon became clear that there had been no ancient Egyptian woman physician called Merit Ptah."

Digging deep into the historical record, Kwiecinski discovered a case of mistaken identity that took on a life of its own, fueled by those eager for an inspirational story.

According to Kwiecinski, Merit Ptah the physician had her origins in the 1930s when Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead, a medical historian, doctor and activist, set out to write a complete history of medical women around the world. Her book was published in 1938.

She talked about the excavation of a tomb in the Valley of Kings where there was a "picture of a woman doctor named Merit Ptah, the mother of a high priest, who is calling her `the Chief Physician.'"

Kwiecinski said there was no record of such a person being a physician.

"Merit Ptah as a name existed in the Old Kingdom, but does not appear in any of the collated lists of ancient Egyptian healers -- not even as one of the `legendary'; or `controversial cases," he said. "She is also absent from the list of Old Kingdom women administrators. No Old Kingdom tombs are present in the Valley of the Kings, where the story places Merit Ptah's son, and only a handful of such tombs exist in the larger area, the Theban Necropolis."

The Old Kingdom of Egypt lasted from 2575 to 2150 BC.

But there was another woman who bears a striking resemblance to Merit Ptah. In 1929-30, an excavation in Giza uncovered a tomb of Akhethetep, an Old Kingdom courtier. Inside, a false door depicted a woman called Peseshet, presumably the tomb owner's mother, described as the `Overseer of Healer Women.' Peseshet and Merit Ptah came from the same time periods and were both mentioned in the tombs of their sons who were high priestly officials.

This discovery was described in several books and one of them found its way into Hurd-Mead's private library. Kwiecinski believes Hurd-Mead confused Merit Ptah with Peseseth.

"Unfortunately, Hurd-Mead in her own book accidentally mixed up the name of the ancient healer, as well as the date when she lived, and the location of the tomb," he said. "And so, from a misunderstood case of an authentic Egyptian woman healer, Peseshet, a seemingly earlier Merit Ptah, `the first woman physician' was born."

The Merit Ptah story spread far and wide, driven by a variety of forces. Kwiecinski said one factor was the popular perception of ancient Egypt as an almost fairytale land "outside time and space" perfectly suited for the creation of legendary stories.

The story spread through amateur historian circles, creating a kind of echo chamber not unlike how fake news stories circulate today.

"Finally, it was associated with an extremely emotional, partisan -- but also deeply personal -- issue of equal rights," he said. "Altogether this created a perfect storm that propelled the story of Merit Ptah into being told over and over again."

Yet Kwiecinski said the most striking part of the story is not the mistake but the determination of generations of women historians to recover the forgotten history of female healers, proving that science and medicine have never been exclusively male.

Read more at Science Daily

Harmful, unfounded myths about migration and health have become accepted, used to justify policies of exclusion

Silhouette of a family with children.

Public health protection and cost savings are often used as reasons to restrict migrants' access to health care, or to deny them entry. Yet, as the new UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health lays out with new international data and analysis, the most common myths about migration and health are not supported by the available evidence and ignore the important contribution of migration to global economies.

In 2018, there were more than one billion people on the move, a quarter of whom were migrants crossing international borders. The Commission is the result of a two-year project led by 20 leading experts from 13 countries, and includes new data analysis, with two original research papers, and represents the most comprehensive review of the available evidence to date. The report, including its recommendations to improve the public health response to migration, will be launched on 8th December at the UN Intergovernmental Conference to adopt the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in Marrakech.

"Populist discourse demonises the very same individuals who uphold economies and bolster social care and health services. Questioning the deservingness of migrants for health care on the basis of inaccurate beliefs supports practices of exclusion, harming the health of individuals, our society, and our economies," says Commission Chair Professor Ibrahim Abubakar, UCL (UK). "Migration is the defining issue of our time. How the world addresses human mobility will determine public health and social cohesion for decades ahead. Creating health systems that integrate migrant populations will benefit entire communities with better health access for all and positive gains for local populations. Failing to do so could be more expensive to national economies, health security, and global health than the modest investments required to protect migrants' right to health, and ensure migrants can be productive members of society."

The Lancet editor Dr Richard Horton adds: "In too many countries, the issue of migration is used to divide societies and advance a populist agenda. With one billion people on the move today, growing populations in many regions of the world, and the rising aspirations of a new generation of young people, migration is not going away. Migrants commonly contribute more to the economy than they cost, and how we shape their health and wellbeing today will impact our societies for generations to come. There is no more pressing issue in global health."

Myths about migration and health not supported by the available evidence:

Are high income countries being overwhelmed by migrants?

Discussions about migration often focus on rising numbers of people crossing international borders and overwhelming high-income countries, but changes in migration are more complex. Although international migration receives the most political and public attention, most movement globally is internal migration. A quarter of all migrants (an estimated 258 million people) are international migrants. In the past four decades, the percentage of the world's population that is considered an international migrant has changed very little -- from 2.9% in 1990 to 3.4% in 2017 globally.

Most international migrants are labour migrants (approximately 65%) -- and a much smaller proportion are refugees and asylum seekers.

While high-income countries have seen a greater rise in the percentage of international migrants (from 7.6% in 1990 to 13.4% in 2017), they are more likely to be students who pay for their education or labour migrants who are net contributors to the economy. Refugees make up a larger proportion of the total population in low income countries compared to high income countries (0.7% vs 0.2%).

Are migrants damaging economies?

An overwhelming consensus of evidence exists on the positive economic benefits of migration, which is insufficiently acknowledged. In advanced economies, each 1% increase in migrants in the adult population increases the gross domestic product per person by up to 2%. Additionally, migration contributes to global wealth distribution. An estimated US$613 billion was sent by migrants to their families at origin in 2017. Approximately three quarters of these remittances are to low- and middle-income countries -- an amount three-times larger than official development assistance.

Are migrants a burden on health services?

Migrants constitute a substantial proportion of the health care workforce in many high-income countries. Rather than being a burden, migrants are more likely to bolster services by providing medical care, teaching children, caring for older people, and supporting understaffed services. In the UK, 37% of doctors received their medical qualification in another country.

A new, comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis concludes that international migrants in high-income countries have lower rates of mortality compared to general populations across the majority of disease categories. The study used mortality estimates on more than 15.2 million migrants from 92 countries and found that international migrants had lower rates of deaths for cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, neoplasms, nervous and respiratory diseases, mental and behavioural disorders and injuries than people in the general population in the receiving country. There was no evidence of a difference for blood, genitourinary, or musculoskeletal disorders.

The only two exceptions were for infections such as viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, and HIV, and external causes, such as assault, where migrants had increased rates of mortality. However, as the report also highlights, several studies (eg on tuberculosis) have shown that the risk of transmission of infections is elevated only within migrant communities, and is negligible in host populations.

The findings are most likely to apply to international migrants in high income countries who are studying, working, or have joined family members in these countries. Vulnerable groups, such as refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants, may have different health needs, but, as the authors note, rather than form policies based on exceptions, evidence about the healthy benefits of migration should be at the forefront of decisions.

Are migrants disease carriers that pose risks to resident populations?

The stereotype of migrants as disease carriers is perhaps one of the most prevalent, and the most harmful. However, there is no systematic association between migration and importation of infectious diseases, and the evidence shows that the risk of transmission from migrating populations to host populations is generally low. Studies on tuberculosis suggest that the risk of transmission is elevated within migrant households and communities, but not in host populations.

Migrants may come from regions with higher disease burden, especially if they come from regions of conflict, with weak public health systems. But illness and infection can also be acquired or during transit -- for example air travel can facilitate the rapid spread of infection. Indeed, recent examples of spread of resistant pathogens was driven mainly by international travel, tourism, and the movement of livestock rather than migration.

Strong public health systems are needed to prevent outbreaks of disease, whether associated with migration or not.

Do migrants have higher fertility rates than among host populations?

Populist rhetoric often claims that migrants have many more children than host populations. The Commission collates data from several long-term studies that suggest the birth rates among migrants are barely at the level of population replacement (2.1 births per woman) and often falling. A study of six European countries found that fertility rates among migrant women were, in general, lower than host populations.

Studies in India and Ethiopia, for example, have shown that internal migrants are more likely to use contraception than host populations. Ensuring access to services is key to ensuring the sexual and reproductive healthcare of migrant women and girls.

Unfounded myths: harmful to individuals and society

Unfounded myths about migration have wide ranging impacts on how migrants are treated within society. Despite evidence that migrants have positive health benefit to societies, many men and women who migrate are subjected to laws, restrictions, and discrimination that put them at risk of ill-health. Protection of the public is often invoked as a reason for the denial of entry, detention or deportation, but too often these policies leave migrants facing worse health situations.

The Commission calls for governments to improve migrants' access to services, strengthen migrants' right to health and tackle the wider determinants of migrant health, including taking a zero-tolerance approach to racism and discrimination.

Restricting entry based on health status is increasingly common. In Australia, permanent residency application can be rejected because the applicant has a health condition -- the five most common reasons were intellectual or functional impairment, HIV, cancer and renal disease. 35 countries have imposed some form of travel ban on people with HIV. Too often, policies are not based on the overall contribution of migrants to host societies, but only in terms of costs to the state. Restrictions on entry or deportation for diseases with low risk of casual transmission are impermissible on both public health and human rights grounds.

Linking health status to migration enforcement also reinforces distrust in the health profession, and Iimits migrants' ability to access health care on a non-discriminatory basis. The fear of deportation can mean migrants will not seek health care or assistance when needed, hindering individual and public health. In practice, health-related enforcement regimes can pressure health workers to act as immigration control agents. The Commission points to a growing trend of states limiting access to health care for migrants, despite commitments to provide "health for all." In the UK, the hostile environment policy was highlighted in the Windrush scandal of 2018 with long-term migrants being deported midway through medical treatment. Upfront charging regulations are still in place.

"Migrants are healthier and contribute to our economy and the NHS. There is no evidence that migrants are a drain on the NHS or that they spread infectious disease. Exclusion of migrants in health systems and the increasing negative rhetoric is political and not evidence based. The hostile environment towards migrants in the UK has led directly to migrants and British citizens being denied health care, with direct severe public health and health economic consequences. Migrants constitute a considerable portion of the heath care workforce in the UK, making important contributions to the country which should be recognised," says Professor Abubakar.

States are increasingly treating unauthorised border crossings as a criminal offense, leading to detention, at times indefinitely. Indefinite offshore detention of migrants on Nauru island was introduced as an immigration policy in Australia in 2013, and the USA recently announced a zero-tolerance policy, resulting in migrants arrested or jailed and children separated from their parents. Detention poses clear violations of international law, and findings from a systematic review of 38 studies shows that detention is associated with negative health outcomes, especially mental health.

"Contrary to the current political narrative portraying migrants as disease carriers who are a blight on society, migrants are an essential part of economic stability in the US. The separation of migrant children from their parents creates long term psychological damage -- and is a cruel and unnecessary aspect of US policy. The criminalization and detention of migrants seeking internationally protected refuge violates international law, and puts them at greater risk of ill health. Migrants are vital to our wellbeing as a society. Addressing the healthcare needs of migrant populations is an essential strategy to stemming costs associated with any avoidable disease burden in these populations," says co-author Professor Terry McGovern, Columbia University, USA.

Finally, the health of migrants depends on the social and structural context of their journey, and destination. Migrant related discrimination is a profound determinant of health, especially mental health and social wellbeing. Access to justice, and education are important determinants of health. Yet a study of 28 developed and developing countries found that nearly half did not allow immediate access to education for irregular migrant children, and migrants face many barriers accessing justice, through poor information, employer intimidation, language barriers or unfamiliarity with the system.

Professor Bernadette Kumar, Norwegian Institute for Public Health (Norway) adds: "Too often, government policies prioritise the politics of xenophobia and racism over their responsibilities to act forcefully to counter them. Racial and ethnic discrimination fuel the exclusion of migrant populations, not only violating the rights of individuals, but hindering social cohesion and progress of society at large. Racism and prejudice should be confronted with a zero-tolerance approach."

The Commission is accompanied by four linked Comments, including by Louise Arbour, UN Special Representative for International Migration; David Miliband and Mesfin Teklu Tessema, International Rescue Committee; Kolitha Wickramage, International Organization for Migration, and Giuseppe Annunziata, Regional Office for Europe, WHO; and Walid Ammar, Director General of the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

Commission co-author Dr Nyovani Madise, African Institute for Development Policy (Kenya), adds: "Africans have always been highly mobile people, moving mostly within national and regional borders. The Commission's report confirms that migrants boost the economies of their destination countries while many also remit money back to their places of origin. Most African countries find themselves as host to refugees and displaced people running away from conflicts in neighbouring countries. Migration policies in Africa must take on board the Commission's recommendations to provide good healthcare for all people on the move and to acknowledge the positive benefits of migration when formulating and implementing development policies."

Read more at Science Daily

Paleontologists discover largest dinosaur foot ever

Photograph from the excavations in 1998, with the brachiosaur foot bones below a tail of a Camarasaurus. University of Kansas expedition crew member as a scale.

The Black Hills region of the United States is famous today for tourist attractions like Deadwood and Mount Rushmore, but around 150 million years ago it was home to one of the largest dinosaurs known. This dinosaur was a member of the sauropod family with long necks and tails. These giant plant-eating dinosaurs like Brontosaurus and Diplodocus were the largest land animals that ever lived on this planet.

The foot described in a new scientific paper recently published in the open-access journal PeerJ -- the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences was excavated in 1998 by an expedition from the University of Kansas, with Anthony Maltese, lead author of the study, as member of the crew. As he writes, it was immediately apparent that the foot, nearly a meter wide, was from an extremely large animal -- so the specimen was nicknamed "Bigfoot."

Now, after detailed preparation and study, Maltese and his international team of researchers from the USA, Switzerland, and Germany identified it as belonging to an animal very closely related to Brachiosaurus, famous for its appearance in the 1993 film Jurassic Park.

Anthony Maltese, Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda, and David Burnham used 3D scanning and detailed measurements to compare Bigfoot to sauropod feet from numerous species. Their research confirmed that this foot was unusually large. According to Holwerda, a Dutch PhD student at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany, comparisons with other sauropod feet showed that Bigfoot was clearly the largest dinosaur foot discovered to date.

It also confirmed that brachiosaurs inhabited a huge area from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming, 150 million years ago. "This is surprising," says Tschopp, a Swiss paleontologist working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, "many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas during that time."

Read more at Science Daily

DNA Analysis Reveals the True Identity of Himalayan Yetis

Recreation of Yeti (left), brown bear cubs playing in water (right)

Yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman, has vexed scientists for over 200 years.

In 1925, for example, Royal Geographical Society photographer N.A. Tombazi observed a creature — deemed by others as Yeti — about 15,000 feet near the largest glacier in the Eastern Himalayas. Tombazi at the time wrote: "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes."

Supposed remains of Yeti were even collected over the centuries, including desiccated fecal material, hair, a scrap of skin, a fragment of bone from a decayed body found in a Tibetan Plateau cave, and other items.

The British production company Icon Films, creator of the documentary Yeti or Not, gathered such remains and presented them to Charlotte Lindqvist and her team for DNA analysis. Lindqvist is an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

The results of the scientific investigation have just been released. Lindqvist and her team report that six of the supposed Yeti remains were from Tibetan brown bears, one was from a Himalayan brown bear, another was from an Asian black bear, and one turned out to be from a dog.

Himalayan brown bear from Deosai National Park, Pakistan

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, represent the most rigorous analysis to date of samples suspected to derive from anomalous or mythical human-like creatures, according to the researchers.

"Our evidence strongly points to a biological basis for the Yeti myth, and the more evidence we have that confirms that, the more unlikely it becomes that there is some other explanation for the myth," Lindqvist told Seeker.

"But," she added, "that will most likely never change the belief in the myth."

The appearance and behavior of the bears identified in the study provide clues as to how the myth might have begun and persisted for so long.

Co-author Muhammad Ali Nawaz from Quaid-i-Azam University and the Snow Leopard Trust Pakistan program explained to Seeker that Himalayan brown bears are smaller than other bear species and can look human-sized when standing, which they do, he said, "while smelling around, perceiving threats, climbing trees" and more. He added that their fur color is quite variable, with some sporting light brown shades.

A femur from the decayed body of a purported Yeti that was found in a cave in Tibet. Biologist Charlotte Lindqvist tested DNA from the bone for Yeti or Not, which aired on Animal Planet in 2016. The bone was found to belong to a Tibetan brown bear.

"They hibernate during winter in areas close to villages," he continued, "and sometimes visit houses to steal food. Attacks on humans are extremely rare, though, based on our monitoring of Himalayan brown bears in Deosai National Park, Pakistan for about 20 years."

Co-author Richard Bischof from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences added, "One attribute of Himalayan brown bears that may further facilitate the myth is the fact that they can range up to very high elevations. Encounters there must leave an impression, especially if the bear rears up to get a better look at the human intruder, before disappearing."

Okapi at Disney's Animal Kingdom

The Yeti myth isn’t the only one to be debunked by scientific analysis. The longstanding Western legend of an "African unicorn" was explained in the early 20th century as being an okapi: a giraffe relative that resembles a mix between not only a giraffe, but also a zebra and a horse.

Creatures from Australia's Aboriginal Dreamtime mythology are now believed to have been drawn from ancient encounters with real megafauna, known today from that country's fossil record.

"Ancient myths could have a basis in long extinct animals, or perhaps even other human species that modern humans encountered when they colonized the area," Lindqvist said. Some myths could therefore have been in existence for tens of thousands of years, passed down orally before the emergence of written accounts.

Not all mysteries associated with Yeti have been solved, however. A few years ago, another research team led by Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford analyzed 30 hair samples attributed to Yeti, Bigfoot, and other anomalous primates.

Sykes and his colleagues told Seeker that two of the studied hairs could not be matched to a known bear species. They said the animal possibly was a hybrid, a bear with an unknown "color variant," or "a previously unrecognized bear."

"Although none of the Bigfoot hairs were from an anomalous primate, this does not prove that Bigfoot does not exist,” Sykes said. “Absence of proof is not proof of absence."

There is further puzzlement about the bears identified in the latest paper. The researchers' analysis of mitochondrial DNA — genetic information passed down through the female line — showed that while Tibetan brown bears share a close common ancestry with North American and Eurasian bears, Himalayan brown bears belong to a distinct evolutionary lineage.

"Our data suggests that Himalayan brown bears may be representative of the most ancient lineage of brown bears, having shared a common ancestor with all other living brown bears more than 600,000 years ago," co-author Stephanie Gill of the University of Buffalo explained to Seeker.

"They appear to have migrated into the area and been isolated ever since," Gill added. "Thus, Himalayan brown bears living today may provide a sort of window into what the ancestor of all brown bears was like."

Lindqvist admitted that she and her team are missing the male side of the story. “It is possible that these bear populations are more connected than we realize,” she said, “but that it is only the male bears that move across the mountains."

Another possibility is that around 650,000 years ago, during a period of glaciation, Himalayan brown bears became separated from other bears. That population could then have undergone a prolonged period of isolation and evolved on an independent path.

In the future, the researchers hope to sequence the nuclear genomes of Himalayan and Tibetan brown bears, permitting a more complete look at these species' history.

Read more at Seeker

'Cursed' Medieval Well Found in England

A Medieval well that was once believed to wash away sins, while healing eye and skin diseases has been recovered in England. Legend has it that the well was also cursed and records indicate a strange death occurred there.

St. Anne's Well was found on the lands of a private farm on the border between the townships of Rainhill and Sutton St Helens, near Liverpool, UK.

According to Historic England Heritage, which commissioned the excavation, "the well had become completely filled with earth due to ploughing."

"When we first got to the well we found that there was very little indication of it on the surface, but after excavation it was found to be in reasonable condition," Jamie Quartermaine, an archaeologist who supervised the dig, told Discovery News.

The well was built of local sandstone blocks and consisted of a shallow square basin with two steps leading down into the bottom.

"The fabric of the well is consistent with a Medieval date," Quartermaine said.

The archaeologist noted that St. Anne is quite commonly associated with holy wells.

"This well was probably a late Medieval foundation as the cult of St. Anne did not become widespread in England until after the end of the 14th century," Quartermaine said.

The dating is important. Alexandra Walsham, professor of modern history at Cambridge's Trinity College, told Seeker that "a Medieval past for many healing wells was assumed or even invented by later antiquaries, especially in the 19th century."

After descending the steps, pilgrims submerged themselves in the pool, which was about 4 feet deep. Water seeped in from below the floor, while a stone conduit, now lost, took water from the overflow of the well, which measures 6.5 feet by 6.5 feet.

According to Historic England Heritage, local legend suggests St. Anne's Well was associated with a nearby priory of about 12 monks, which was lost during Henry VIII's draconian dissolution of the monasteries.

The legend said the priory held an extensive estate from which the monks had an income. The story goes that St. Anne had bathed in the well, which was reputed to have healing powers for eye and skin afflictions.

"The well attracted numbers of pilgrims, necessitating the building of a small three-roomed structure around the well and the custodianship of two of the monks," Quartermaine said.

According to local folklore, a dispute rose in the 16th century about boundaries and access to the well between the prior, Father Delwaney, and Hugh Darcy, the estate manager of the neighboring landowner.

One day, when the two stood nearby the well, Darcy predicted the prior would not be in position for much longer. Two days later the king's commissioners arrived and took possession of the priory and the well.

Father Delwaney promptly understood Darcy's role in the action as he was clearly known to the commissioners.

"With teeth tightly clenched, and his face white with suppressed passion," the prior hissed out his curse, according to a 1877 report on local legends in the St. Helens Leader.

Darcy would be dead within a year and a day, Delwaney predicted. He then collapsed and died himself.

A series of disgraces fell on Darcy: three months after the curse, his only son died of a mysterious illness. He suffered financial losses and "plunged recklessly into dissipation," according to the St. Helens Leader.

Read more at Discovery News

Stonehenge Myths and Conspiracies

With the news earlier this week about the discovery of a “super-Stonehenge” circling one of the world’s most famous monuments, attention has once again focused on the Wiltshire marvel. There are thousands of ancient stone circles across Europe, of which Stonehenge is by far the best known and most impressive.

While there are many genuine historical mysteries about Stonehenge — such as who built it and for what purpose — there are just as many fabricated ones trading in myth and conspiracy.

In his book “British Folklore” historian Marc Alexander notes that “Theoretical explanations for Stonehenge are plentiful and varied. Ley hunters — those who research imaginary lines claimed to connect important sites around the world such as the Great Pyramid — find great significance in its geographical relationship to other sites. UFOlogists gleefully point to the usual number of flying saucers reported over Wiltshire and draw obvious conclusions, and those who believe in ‘earth forces’ see it as a gigantic ‘battery’ for storing ‘terrestrial energy.’”

Others claim that the stones are designed to be some sort of cosmic portal, perhaps to other dimensions or realities; as one speculative commenter noted, “It’s said that Stonehenge is a sound resonator that when a sound is played at the right frequency and the right placement it’s supposed to have an effect. Maybe a portal to another dimension or a (alien) base.”

Stonehenge Conspiracies

Ironically some of the most outlandish conspiracies about Stonehenge were created by attempts to preserve it. When most people see the monument they believe (or assume) that they’re seeing more or less what has always been there. And indeed that’s the story promoted in guidebooks: the idea that what today’s visitors see is what has stood for thousands of years.

But that’s not quite true; in fact most of Stonehenge has been moved at one point or another. It’s not the result of a hoax, fraud, or deception, but instead merely early attempts to preserve and restore the site — for example reinforcing the stones with concrete.

Over the millennia some stones have fallen into the soft earth, and it’s not known whether they fell straight back or twisted slightly at an angle, and so on. At least a dozen of the stones were straightened and re-erected between 1900 and 1960, and early depictions of Stonehenge (such as artist John Constable’s 1835 painting) look quite different than what is seen today. Those restoring the area made an effort to give a sense of what Stonehenge might have been like thousands of years ago, but in fact no one really knows what it originally looked like — or was supposed to look like.

For most visitors, of course, whether a given stone was originally 10 or 20 degrees off kilter to one side or another is irrelevant: Just being among the immense stones is awe-inspiring enough.

However for others such details may be crucially important. If the monument was designed to cast a shadow or serve as some sort of astronomical calendar corresponding with celestial bodies, for example, a difference of a few degrees could lead to vastly different interpretations about its role or significance.

Many mystics and paranormal buffs have carefully analyzed the exact positions and angles of the Stonehenge rocks, hoping to glean some information left behind four millennia later that might reveal clues to its meaning. The layout of Stonehenge — as it is now, not as it was created — has been subjected to countless crank theories, ranging from numerology to astrology to calculating lunar eclipses.

Because the restoration work at Stonehenge is not widely known, it has generated conspiracy theories. Some have even suggested that the monument dates back less than a century, created to spur tourism profits or for other unknown — and possibly nefarious — reasons.

Mick West, a British researcher who writes for the Metabunk web site, has visited the site several times and investigated such conspiracy claims. “The idea that Stonehenge is a relatively modern construction is appealing to a certain type of conspiracy theorist who has fallen far down the rabbit hole,” West told Discovery News. “Images appearing to show the construction of Stonehenge with cranes and concrete are an intellectual delight to them. No particular reason is needed for Stonehenge to be faked, because in their mind everything is faked, and this is simply pleasant circular confirmation that they were right all along.”

West notes that “By the 1800s Stonehenge had fallen into ruin. Several stones had fallen over and others were leaning perilously. Some large sarsen stones were so eroded by thousands of years of inclement British weather that they were in danger of falling to pieces. Numerous restoration projects were carried out between 1901 and 1963, and of course many photos and film clips of these restorations exist.

“It’s easy to take these images out of context and present them as construction when they are actually just restoration. This concrete can be seen in several places today, and a modern visitor to Stonehenge (unaware of the restorations) might be forgiven for thinking they have discovered some evidence of forgery or hoax.”

Stonehenge fell out of use around 1500 B.C., and has stood as a mute mystery ever since. However one by one several of the mysteries of Stonehenge have been solved. Last year, for example, a new analysis of some of the stones determined that many of them had been quarried in a place called Carn Goedog, several miles further away than previously believed.

Read more at Discovery News

Loch Ness Monster Hunter Hooked on Catfish Theory

A man who has spent 24 years scanning Scotland’s Loch Ness for its legendary mysterious monster reckons Nessie is most likely a giant catfish — although he is not prepared to give up looking just yet.

Steve Feltham, who holds a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous Nessie vigil, says it is the most probable explanation for the enigmatic beast that has captivated people’s imaginations the world over.

“The current frontrunner is the Wels catfish. It’s the most likely explanation,” the 52-year-old told AFP.

“I’m not saying it’s the final explanation. It ticks most of the boxes with sightings — but it doesn’t tick them all.”

Feltham left his home and girlfriend in 1991 to go looking for Nessie and has spent the years since in a caravan on the lake shore, scanning the waters.

Media reports this week suggested Feltham had given up his vigil after favouring the catfish theory, but he insisted he would keep searching for the definitive conclusion.

“We still have this world-class mystery and for the next several decades I hope to carry on trying to find the answer,” he said.

Catfish are native to central and eastern Europe but Feltham believes the Victorians might have introduced them to the deep freshwater lake so they could catch them for sport.

Wels catfish can group up to four meters (13 feet) long and weigh more than 400 kilogrammes (800 pounds) — though they are rarely more than half this size. The scaleless fish can live for at least 30 years.

Sightings dwindling

Feltham concedes there is no record of Wels catfish being released into Loch Ness, Scotland’s largest at 37 kilometers long and over 200 meters deep in some places.

But he said: “Given the number of hunting estates that there are around here, it’s plausible they (the Victorians) may have put a few in, giving themselves some good sport of catching one of the biggest freshwater fish in the world.

“If they did that here in the (late) Victorian era, they would have reached maturity in the 1930s” — the time when the Nessie craze took off.

He said in the early years of his vigil, there would be up to a dozen good sightings per year, but now there might only be one.

“Whatever Nessie turns out to be, it is dwindling. We are looking for the last one or two now,” he said.

Read more at Discovery News

Vaccine Fears Not New - Here's Why

There has been a lot of discussion and controversy about vaccinations over the past few months. In February the Toronto Star issued — and later retracted — a sensational front-page investigation suggesting that vaccines were dangerous; the next month talk show host Jimmy Kimmel encouraged his audience to get their kids vaccinated and ribbed vaccine-averse parents with a mock PSA from exasperated doctors.

All this happened as a measles outbreak that began in December 2014 at Disneyland unfolded; 147 people became infected with the disease before the outbreak ended in April. Many who fell ill were not immunized against measles, and spurred in part by public concern over the episode California governor Jerry Brown introduced (and last week signed) a law requiring all school-attending children to be vaccinated for public safety.

The law does not require childhood vaccinations for every child — only those enrolled in California public schools. Parents are not required to vaccinate children who go to private home schools or are home-schooled.

The move was widely praised by doctors but had many detractors. For example actor Jim Carrey took to social media to claim that Brown’s “fascist” law would “poison more children with mercury and aluminum.” During his rant Carrey used a photo of an autistic boy, without his family’s permission, suggesting that his condition had been caused by vaccines; Carrey later apologized. With passionate advocates on both sides of the issue the debate is far from over.

Anti-Vaccination Efforts

Why do some people doubt vaccine safety and efficacy? One reason is that their effectiveness cannot be proven on an individual basis. For example even people who are effectively vaccinated against a specific disease can still catch it (no vaccination is completely effective, and you might catch a different virus strain than the one you were inoculated against). This can lead people to doubt the usefulness of vaccines: if it’s possible to catch a disease with or without a vaccination, what’s the point?

But this position misses that fact that vaccinated people are far less likely to get the disease in the first place, and if they do happen to get it the symptoms will be less severe and more survivable.

A specific person’s experience with a specific vaccine (or any other medicine) is not a valid measure of the overall effectiveness. However the institutions best equipped to conduct the necessary large-scale studies (i.e., governments and big drug companies) are also those that the public often distrusts, leading to conspiracy theories.

Indeed one reason the anti-vaccination theme is so persistent is the strong conspiracy theory element to it. Conspiracy theories are of course notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to disprove. Many people distrust the medical establishment and “Big Pharma” almost as much as they distrust the government. The assumption is that the dangers and risks of vaccines are being intentionally hidden from the public by doctors and drug companies, in collusion with the government, for big profits.

Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent, in their book “American Conspiracy Theories,” note bluntly that “Conspiracy theories about vaccines are partially to blame for decreased rates of vaccination and an increased incidence of disease.”

Andrea Kitta, an Associate Professor at East Carolina University and author of “Vaccinations and Public Concern in History,” notes that “The content of vaccines, especially in the case of preservatives, is a widely debated issue. Ingredients such as thimerosal, formaldehyde, mercury, and others, are frequently linked [in anti-vaccination claims] to the causation of diseases… All of these ingredients, regardless of whether or not they have been linked to an actual disease, are to blame because they are considered not ‘natural’.”

Many of the claims about “natural” versus “unnatural” chemicals used in vaccines have been thoroughly debunked. A USA Today article notes, for example, that “Vaccines have never contained methyl mercury, the toxic metal that can cause brain damage” and that while it’s true that vaccines contain aluminum, “babies get far more aluminum from food, including breast milk, than from vaccines.”

Given the current controversy some may think that protests about vaccinations are a recent phenomenon, but in fact the concerns date back centuries. There was resistance to the first smallpox vaccine, created in the late 1700s. Parents and the public — unfamiliar with medicine and how vaccination works — were horrified and disgusted when they learned that the vaccine was created by taking pus from the wounds of infected cows. Nevertheless, that procedure, as unappetizing as it may be, was effective and saved countless lives.

A British Anti-Vaccination League was created in 1853, asserting that the smallpox vaccine was dangerous, ineffective, and an infringement on personal rights by the government. Over 160 years later that theme continues to resonate strongly with anti-vaccination activists. Medical folklorist Kitta told Discovery News that “People who choose not to vaccinate truly believe their rights are being violated and believe they are in danger of further violation… Some people will now reject vaccines solely on the basis that they feel their rights are being violated—not because they necessarily oppose or are even uncertain about vaccination.”

Read more at Discovery News

Genies Blamed For School Sickness, Possessions

Last week in Saudi Arabia nearly 200 elementary and middle school students “refused to attend classes after nine students claimed that genies — or jinn, as they are better known in the Arabic world — had made them sick” according to ArabNews.com, which added that “the students had fainted and experienced spasms at the start of the second semester, prompting many parents to believe jinns were present at the school.”

Jinn are described in the Koran, the Muslim holy book, as creatures made by Allah of smokeless fire. Belief in jinn is widespread throughout the Arabic and Muslim world. Just as many Christians readily accept the literal reality of angels, many Muslims accept the existence of genies as self-evident. Both religions share the belief that spirits such as demons and jinn can take possession of humans. Jinn are believed, like ghosts, to haunt buildings, homes and other locations.

It will often begin with one or two people exhibiting symptoms and as others in the same location see the behavior they unconsciously begin experiencing the same or similar symptoms. Episodes are most common in closed social units such as schools and factories, and among females — likely because they tend to have stronger social bonds than males. The symptoms are not serious and go away on their own, often within hours or days.

This is not the first time that jinn have been blamed for unexplained fits in Saudi schools. In his book “Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar” Robert Lebling notes that in 2000:

“Newspapers in Saudi Arabia reported the haunting of the al-Fikriyah Institute of Education, a functioning girls’ school in the Red Sea port of Jeddah, in an incident with unusual psycho-social overtones. A number of teachers at the school were reportedly subjected to fits and epileptic-like seizures, supposedly as a result of a (jinn) haunting.”

Though many doctors attributed that incident — like the one last week — to mass hysteria, some, including a cleric tasked with investigating the matter, insisted that jinn did in fact inhabit the school and were responsible for the symptoms.

As with many folk beliefs, the reality of jinn is less important than whether people believe in them; if a group of students or teachers believe that jinn can make them faint and there is no other ready explanation, then jinn will be blamed.

Though the school fits were harmless and soon passed, sometimes these beliefs can be dangerous; earlier this month a Moroccan woman who was believed to be possessed by a jinn died during an exorcism. According to a news story:

“To cast out the evil spirit from her body, the Fqih (exorcist) loudly recited incantations and passages from the Koran, the holy book of Islam. With the help of four of his assistants, the Fqih hit her with a stick all over her body in order to ‘force the evil spirit’ to leave her.”

In 2012 a Pakistani man and his family was convicted of killing his young wife during an exorcism who he believed was possessed by a jinn.

Read more at Discovery News

Giant Squid Lore and Legends Date Back Centuries

A giant squid washed up on New Zealand’s South Island earlier this week, a specimen whose tentacles reached over 16 feet in length. It caused quite a stir when found, and was rescued from birds and other scavengers by a local museum.

According to an ABC News story, “Marine biologist and aquarium owner Megan Lewis… identified it as a mature female. ‘They tend to grow very fast and live not very long,’ Lewis said, noting that the specimen’s head was in ‘pristine condition.’” It’s not clear how the squid died, but since it was intact and its stomach was full it likely wasn’t the result of predation or starvation.

For centuries scientists had no definitive evidence that the giant squid (genus Architeuthis) actually existed. They are creatures of the deep sea and spend most of their lives far away from mankind’s prying eyes. On the rare occasion that a giant squid was found washed up on a beach (most often in Newfoundland and New Zealand), they were invariably dead and decomposing.

The giant squid’s imposing size and fearsome appearance has long cast them as predatory monsters in human imaginations and fictional depictions (Jules Verne’s novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” describes an attack on a submarine by a giant squid).

In his book “The Search for the Giant Squid” marine biologist Richard Ellis notes that “There is probably no apparition more terrifying than a gigantic, saucer-eyed creature of the depths… Even the man-eating shark pales by comparison to such a horror… An animal that can reach a length of 60 feet is already intimidating, and if it happens to have eight squirmy arms, two feeding tentacles, gigantic unblinking eyes, and a gnashing beak, it becomes the stuff of nightmares.”

It’s a Lovecraftian horror that resonates in the human psyche, though the giant squid are not aggressive against humans and typically feed on other squid and deep-sea fish.

It’s likely that the giant squid served as the basis for centuries of sea monster reports. Ancient sea stories told of the fearsome Kraken, a huge many-tentacled beast, said to attack ships and sailors on the high seas (known to modern audiences in Liam Neeson’s “Clash of the Titans” command to “Release the Kraken!”).

The Kraken was first described in early Scandinavian mythology, a marine colossus so large that its body appeared as a series of small islands. Lured by the promise of fresh water and provisions, sailors would approach just before huge tentacles would rise out of the water and drag them to their doom (this legend was faithfully and dramatically depicted in the 2006 film “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”).

Aside from the occasional specimens recovered and preserved in museums, another important piece of the giant squid puzzle was found in and on sperm whales. Whalers would occasionally notice huge scars on whale skins indicating a battle with some sort of obviously huge and powerful animal.

Read more at Discovery News

8-Limbed Baby Touted as Reincarnated Indian God

A baby born in India with a parasitic twin last week is being touted as a god. Some locals believe he is the reincarnation of the Hindu deity Ganesha who has multiple arms and an elephant head.

As news spread about this as-yet unnamed boy, the faithful have begun making their way across India to see and revere the infant.

Ganesha is associated with success and good fortune, making him one of the most widely-worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. In fact the child’s resemblance to Ganesha is somewhat tenuous; the elephant-headed god has six limbs, not eight, and is typically depicted with four arms and two legs, while the boy has four arms and four legs.

Nonetheless the similarity is close enough, and this is not the first time that an eight-limbed baby has been claimed as a reincarnated Hindu god; in fact it happened as recently as November 2014.

Just last month a girl was born with a facial deformity that resembled a small elephant trunk, leading some to call her “Ganesha’s Wife” and suggest that she, too, is divine.

The “Times of India” reported that local interest in seeing the girl created such a frenzy that peace officers “had to arrive at the locality to keep the crowd under control. One of the officers said they wanted to ensure there were no casualties. ‘The house is small and has a staircase leading to the newborn baby’s room. We wanted to make sure that people don’t rush in at the same time,’ he said. Back in the small room where the baby lay, people formed a queue for the ‘Devi Darshan.” Sixty year-old Omvati, the baby’s grandmother, is excited like the rest. She says she’s never seen so many people jostling with each other to enter her house.”

The baby’s father, a vegetable seller who earns less than $5 per day, was delighted with the birth defect and said he hoped that the child would bring him good luck.

For most Indian children the deformity is anything but a sign of providence; a story on the “Medical Daily” web site noted that the defect was likely the result of chemical contamination: Doctors say the deformity “is most likely triggered by a gene mutation from malnutrition and heavy pollution levels in the area.”

Though modern medicine can explain the deformity, the idea that such a baby may be holy is ancient. In fact in Medieval times children born with deformities were often believed to have been “touched by God” and thus partially divine.

Cultural Explanations for Birth Defects

For most of human history (and long before genetics were understood) birth defects were blamed either on the gods or on the mother. The most common belief was that physical deformities, ranging from extra arms and legs to unusual or prominent birthmarks, were caused by the emotional state of the mother during pregnancy. This notion, fueled in part by the sexist stereotype of the emotionally fragile nature of the “weaker sex,” held that anything that startled or frightened a pregnant woman could be imprinted on her fetus. These “maternal impressions,” as they were called, could take many forms but were most often associated with animal encounters.

Jan Bondeson, author of “A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities,” notes that if an expectant mother “saw a duck, the child might be born with webbed hands and feet; if she was frightened by a snake, the baby might have staring eyes and a flickering tongue; if she kicked a pig, the child might speak in grunts through its nose…The belief in maternal impressions is of great antiquity; it has been traced to ancient India and China, as well as to early African and Asian folklore, to the old Japanese and to the Eskimos.”

In fact it can even be found in the Bible; Genesis 30 describes an experiment in which animals’ fur color was changed by the color of the trees where they drank and mated. “Many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century medical scientists and biologists of great repute embraced the maternal impression creed,” Bondeson writes, noting that “Maternal impressions were of common occurrence all over Europe” during the 1500s and 1600s.

By the 1800s the idea of maternal impressions fell out of favor, though the belief remains in some places into modern times. In their book “A Dictionary of Superstitions” Iona Opie and Moira Tatem recount a story told by a midwife from 1939 about “how a patient of hers brought forth a child with a wing instead of an arm because the mother had previously been frightened by a bird.”

Read more at Discovery News

Dwarf Dragons Discovered in the Andes

Three new lizards that researchers describe as "dragon-esque" have just been discovered in the Andean cloud forests of Ecuador and Peru.

The woodlizards, which really do look like tiny dragons, are described in the latest issue of the journal ZooKeys.

"That more than half of the diversity of a group of large, dragon-looking reptiles from South America has been discovered in recent years should be heard by people in charge of conservation and funding agencies," lead author Omar Torres-Carvajal of Ecuador’s Museo de Zoologia said in a press release.

The discoveries increase the known number of woodlizards to 15.

He and colleagues Pablo Venegas and Kevin de Queiroz explained that the reptiles are active during the day and live in lowland tropical rainforests, such as the Chocó and western Amazon basin, as well as cloudforests on both sides of the Andes.

Although the finds were made in a region known as the "Tropical Andes hotspot," cloudforests are known less for heat than for their near-persistent low-level cloud cover. They typically are located at altitudes between 3000 and 8000 feet, and are characterized by wet tropical mountain forests.

DNA analysis proved that the newly found lizards represent new species.

Could ancient people have noticed the lizards and been inspired to create dragon myths about them? It's possible.

At least three indigenous cultures from South America created stories about dragons. Folklore from Patagonia, the Jivaro of Ecuador's Amazon region and certain other cultures referred to dragon-like animals. Dragon myths, however, seem to be a worldwide phenomenon. Countries like China and India also have popular dragon myths.

Indonesia, in particular, has its Komodo dragon lizards. With some imagination, these huge carnivorous lizards do sort of look like they are spitting fire when they forcefully stick out their long tongues. The mouths of Komodo dragons may also contain venom-like proteins that can cause intense pain in victims.

The "dwarf dragons" -- some of which measure just under 5 inches in length -- aren't nearly as threatening. There could be a lot more of them, though.

Read more at Discovery News

Fantastically Wrong: The Weird, Kinda Perverted History of the Unicorn

This woman is a virgin. How do I know? Because unicorns ain’t got time for no non-virgins.

In late 2012, the North Korean regime made a rather bizarre announcement, even by the standards of the North Korean regime. According to The Guardian, the country’s archaeologists had discovered “the lair of one of the unicorns ridden by the ancient Korean King Tongmyong,” just 600 feet from a temple in the capital city. What might have tipped the scientists off was, no joke, the words “Unicorn Lair” written right in front of the damn thing.

But a week later, The Guardian ran a second article with a frank admission. “There is only one problem with the story,” they wrote. “It isn’t exactly true.” North Korea’s claim was in fact referring to the kirin, a mythical creature not too dissimilar from the unicorn, with the same hoofed, quadruped look but sometimes having two horns instead of one. But eccentricities of the North Korean regime aside, why is it that the unicorn, or a unicorn-like beast, pervades both Asian and European cultures?

On the Horn

If you’re looking to figure out how an ancient myth started to get out of hand, a good place to start is with the great Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, whose epic encyclopedia Natural History stood largely as fact for some 1,600 years. Problem was, Pliny wasn’t the most incredulous of writers, and crammed his encyclopedia with pretty much any account he could get his hands on.

A father and son pose with a kirin statue at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China.

“The unicorn,” Pliny wrote, “is the fiercest animal, and it is said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead. Its cry is a deep bellow.”

The unicorn then shows up in various places in the Bible, at least according to some translations (it’s sometimes instead referred to as the oryx, a kind of antelope whose antlers were indeed sold as unicorn horns in medieval times, or as the auroch, a massive type of cattle that went extinct in the 17th century). Here, its fierceness is affirmed. In Numbers 24:8, for instance: “God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.”

In the 7th century, the scholar Isidore of Seville chimed in, noting that the unicorn “is very strong and pierces anything it attacks. It fights with elephants and kills them by wounding them in the belly.” He also helped popularize the myth that would serve as a hallmark in European folklore for centuries to come: Catching a unicorn is impossible…unless you have access to a virgin woman. “The unicorn is too strong to be caught by hunters,” he writes, “except by a trick: If a virgin girl is placed in front of a unicorn and she bares her breast to it, all of its fierceness will cease and it will lay its head on her bosom, and thus quieted is easily caught.” It’ll suckle until it’s lulled to sleep. So…yeah.

This is one alarm that the unicorn shan’t be sleeping through.

The scene (above) is one of the most iconic images in wildly popular medieval books known as bestiaries, encyclopedias of sorts that cataloged nature’s beasts, both real and imagined. Not only was the natural history of the animal given, but each was then compared to a biblical figure. And the unicorn stood for Christ, since he was captured and put to death like the unicorn is done in by the virgin (though pretty much every other animal was also compared to Christ, even the pelican, which was said to peck at its own breast to revive its young with blood, like Jesus shed his own blood for us).

Thus the unicorn became firmly implanted in European lore. What followed was a full-blown mania for their horns, which were said to detect poison if you stirred them around in your food or drink. They went for tens of thousands of dollars in today’s money, and were particularly popular among paranoid royalty. More industrious users who didn’t want to wait around to have their food poisoned would grind up the horns—usually those of the oryx or narwal (whose horn is actually a giant tooth)—to gain immunity from toxins.

Over in the East, royalty had a rather more complicated relationship with their version of the unicorn, the aforementioned kirin, or qilin. Its appearance was said to foretell the birth of a royal baby, which is nice of it, but can also predict an imminent death, which is not so nice. In the 15th century, a giraffe was brought to China for the first time and presented to the emperor as a kirin, which was a gutsy move considering its proclivities for letting royalty know they’re going to die soon. The emperor, though, dismissed it as a fraud and went on to live another 10 years.

This is what it looks like when an artist draws a rhino without ever having seen one with his own eyes…while maybe huffing a bit of glue.

A Myth Is Born

The myth of the unicorn may have come from sightings of antelope and such ungulates with only one horn, having either been born with the defect or lost the horn when scrapping with a predator or one of its own kind. Less likely still is seeing a normal antelope from afar in profile, since that would only last as long as the animal didn’t move.

A far more likely culprit is the Indian rhinoceros, and clues for this are sprinkled throughout the early accounts—indeed, the unicorn is sometimes referred to as the Indian ass. Pliny, for instance, mentions that the unicorn has “the feet of an elephant,” a rhino’s feet in fact being not hooved like a horse’s, but fleshy like an elephant’s. He also notes that it has “the tail of a boar,” much like a rhino’s, “and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead.” Writers would only later describe the horn as white.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, you see, had been making forays into India and bringing back tales of the strange beasts there, and the facts tended to get a bit…lost. Cotton, for instance, was said to grow in India as an actual lamb that sprouted from the ground, just hanging there patiently producing cotton. And while Pliny actually did a pretty good job of describing the rhino, his popularization of the “unicorn” picked up more and more improbabilities as the centuries wore on. We also know that the ancient Chinese had contact with rhinos from art made out of their horns, so the animal could well have also inspired the kirin.

Read more at Wired Science

Fantastically Wrong: The Bizarre Mirages That Once Scared the Bejesus Out of Sailors

The mysterious fata morgana: making people question their sanity since the beginning of time.

Jesuit priests aren’t especially known for their heavy drug use, but it would seem that Father Domenico Giardina was tripping pretty hard on August 14, 1643. Looking out over the sea from Messina, Sicily, Giardina saw “a city all floating in the air, and so measureless and so splendid, so adorned with magnificent buildings, all of which was found on a base of a luminous crystal.” The metropolis suddenly transformed into a garden, and next a forest. And then in a flash it all descended into chaos. Huge armies sprang forth, as did the towns they had laid waste to, before the whole mess disappeared.

Father Giardina, you see, was high on life. The “great and marvelous theater” he had witnessed was the mysterious fata morgana, an incredibly complex mirage that has historically both fascinated and scared the hell out of sailors and landlubbers alike. Whether it be the work of necromancers or fairies or a god, few phenomena have captivated humankind quite so thoroughly as fata morgana.

It was Jesuits like Father Giardina, argues Marina Warner in her brilliant book Phantasmagoria, who made the first “careful” observations of fata morgana, that is, not freaking out about them and instead beginning to apply a dash of science to the matter. The good Father claimed, writes Warner, that the minerals and salts in the region “rise up in hot weather in vapours from the sea to form clouds, which then condense in the cooler upper air to become a mobile specchio, a moving, polyhedrical mirror.” It was wrong, but it actually wasn’t that far off.

Light being refracted downward as it passes from air into a denser material, plexiglass. (Some light is also reflected upward)

At work here is some basic physics. When the sun heats up the atmosphere above the ocean, it creates a gradient of temperatures: Near the surface, it’s still relatively cool because the water is chilling that air, but sitting above that is a layer of warmer air. Now, light doesn’t always travel in a straight line. When it hits a boundary between two layers of the atmosphere that are different temperatures (and therefore different densities), it bends and travels through the new layer at a different angle. This is known as refraction. The change in the light’s angle of travel depends on the difference in density between the two layers.

How does bending light create a mirage? The rest of the effect is caused by how your brain works. When light hits your eyes, your brain assumes it arrived there in a straight path between you and the object reflecting the light. So if light is bent on its way toward you, your brain will think the object is where it would be if the light’s path was straight. This is why when you are looking down on a surface of water, objects under the surface will appear to be in a different spot than they actually are—just ask a spear fisherman…if you happen to know a spear fisherman. The human brain doesn’t automatically account for the refraction. (Interestingly, the brains of some birds like ospreys do correct for the effect so that when they dive headlong into the water after a fish, they are right on target.)

In the case of a fata morgana mirage, light reflecting from a distant object such as a ship is bent downward as it passes through the colder, denser air near the surface of the ocean (or sometimes cold land, particularly ice). But your brain places the object where it would be if the light came to you in a straight path—higher than it actually is. This bending effect can even work with the curvature of the Earth if conditions are just right, which is why some fata morgana images can actually be refracted cities and ships from beyond the horizon.

A superior mirage or fata morgana, left, and an inferior mirage, what you’d see on a hot day on asphalt, right.

The opposite situation is what produces mirages like an oasis of water in the desert. In this case, a hot layer of air just above the surface bends light rays up toward your eyes, causing your brain to perceive things as much lower than they actually are. The desert oasis is actually the sky. This kind of mirage is known as inferior, while the fata morgana, which places objects higher than they actually are, is superior.

But before the Scientific Revolution and all its wonderful advances in physics, mirages were firmly in the realm of mysticism (thank a Frenchman named Pierre de Fermat, by the way, for his pioneering work in decoding inferior mirages right around the same time Father Giardina was making his own observations). Indeed, fata morgana takes its name from Morgan le Fay, the treacherous fairy, enchantress, and half-sister of King Arthur.

Morgan le Fay: fairy, enchantress, sandal enthusiast.

According to Warner, the Normans brought stories of Morgan’s magic to Italy, particularly her penchant for luring sailors to an undersea palace with visions of castles in the air—fata morgana is particularly prevalent in southern Italy’s Strait of Messina, where Father Giardina experienced his own vision. Another Italian version of the legend has Morgan falling in love with a regular fella, granting him immortality, and keeping him in captivity, then putting on shows in the sky when he gets bored with the whole never dying thing.

And long before Arthurian legend, it could have been that sightings of these phenomena gave rise to any number of the “whoa something is appearing in the sky” scenes in antiquity, Warner argues. The Second Book of Maccabees, for example, tells of sky-people coming to the aid of the Jews in their skirmishes with the Romans: “When the battle became fierce, there appeared to the enemy from heaven five resplendent men on horses with golden bridles, and they were leading the Jews.” The ghostly warriors fired arrows and thunderbolts at the rascally Romans, “so that, confused and blinded, they were thrown into disorder and cut to pieces.”

Fata morgana’s most famous offspring, though, is the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship said to sail aimlessly around the high seas. The tale was first popularized in a story called “Vanderdecken’s Message Home” from 1821, which told of a boat from Amsterdam that haunts the Cape of Good Hope, trying to hand off letters from its dead crew to the vessels of the living (uh, no thanks, the sailors would say, you can deliver your own damn mail). Warner connects this to fata morgana showing a ship from beyond the horizon: The mirage vessel could suddenly disappear with no explanation, and there you have your legend.

Read more at Wired Science

Chilean Farmer Finds 'Chupacabra'; Probably Cat Mummy

A goat farmer in Chile who recently found two mysterious dead animals has concluded that he may have the remains of the Hispanic vampire beast known as el chupacabra.

The creature, whose name is Spanish for “goat sucker,” is said to suck the blood from small animals such as chickens and goats. It has never been proven to exist, though is nearly as well known as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

According to the “Daily Star,” “Goat farmer Javier Prohens was having lunch with friends when terrified farmhand 54-year-old Bricio Saldivar alerted them to the bodies of the strange creatures on the outskirts of the small town of Monte Patria in the east central Chilean province Limari.”

Prohens described his farmhand’s reaction: “He was clearly scared and said he had been up at the old winery and found two strange bodies.” The partially mummified carcasses were found amid hay bales in a cellar, and “at first we thought they might be bats, but when we looked closer, we realized they had to be something else as the heads were too big for bats… And then someone said they looked like Chupacabras,” Prohens was quoted as saying.

Chupacabra Explained

The chupacabra was first reported in August 1995 by a woman in Puerto Rico who described seeing a bizarre bipedal alien-like creature with spikes down its back. Soon it was dubbed the “chupacabra” and caused a media sensation that spread throughout the Spanish-speaking world. However, as described in my book “Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore,” it was later determined that the eyewitness had actually (and mistakenly) described a monster in the sci-fi thriller “Species,” which she had recently seen.

Though the original chupacabra report has been discredited, the stories and sightings spread through the media, with the monster’s description changing over time. Fewer and fewer people claimed to see the bipedal, spiky-spined monster, and by 2000 it had completely disappeared, replaced by a variety of four-legged animals left hairless by a skin disease called mange. When medical and DNA tests were done on these “chupacabras” they were revealed to be ordinary animals including dogs, coyotes, and raccoons. Last year a couple in Ratcliffe, Texas, claimed to have found a chupacabra which turned out to be a raccoon.

The word “chupacabra” is now used to describe any animal which cannot be immediately identified or otherwise looks mysterious, either because of hair loss or decomposition. And that is exactly what happened in Chile: a worker found two weird dead things and decided that they must be chupacabras—not because they bear any actual resemblance to most descriptions of the monster, but because that’s the catch-all, genericized term for unknown animals in many places.

“Chupacabra” has become what in linguistics is called an eponym: a word that originally referred to a specific brand name or item but whose definition has expanded to others in the same general category; just as any facial tissues are now called Kleenex, any trash bins are called Dumpsters, and any in-line skates are called Rollerblades, any weird animal is now a Chupacabra.

Mummified Monsters

So if the weird remains found in Chile are almost certainly not chupacabras, what are they? It’s difficult to come to any definitive identification based upon a few photographs, though some characteristics of this creature suggest an explanation. For one thing they lack any spikes down the back that are characteristic of the original chupacabra.

The paws and tail look feline, and the size (about a foot long) would match a common housecat. The skull also resembles a cat’s as well. The fact that the animals were found laying one atop the each other, as kittens sometimes do, may be relevant as well. A mother cat may have given birth to a litter and two of the unfortunate kittens may have been crushed to death by a bale of hay that toppled over onto them.

Where the animals were found provides another clue: inside a wine cellar, where domesticated animals such as cats are known to wander, hide, and even give birth—but conspicuously not a place associated with chupacabras, which are invariably reported outside, usually in desert areas (such as rural Texas) or in rainforests (such as Puerto Rico’s El Yunque preserve, said to be the original home of the chupacabra). An indoor chupacabra would be a first. Furthermore there is no suggestion by Prohens or anyone else that any goats or other animals had been found mysteriously drained of blood, as the chupacabra is known to do; and in any event the mummified mammals had been dead for many months or even years.

Read more at Discovery News

East Africa Tries to Stem Albino Magic Murders

The East African country of Tanzania has reportedly banned witch doctors in an effort to prevent further witchcraft-related murders of albinos.

According to a story reported by Agence France-Presse, “The ban follows the kidnapping last month of a four-year-old girl by men armed with machetes, who took her from her home in the northern Mwanza region. Police have since arrested 15 people, including the girl’s father and two uncles, but she remains missing. ‘These so-called witches bear responsibility for the attacks against albinos,’ interior ministry spokesman Isaac Nantanga told AFP Wednesday.”

In Tanzania and Burundi at least 50 albinos have been murdered for their body parts in recent years according to a 2010 Red Cross report. In November 2009, four people were arrested and sentenced to death in northern Tanzania for killing an albino man to harvest his body parts.

A month earlier, albino hunters beheaded a 10-year-old boy and hacked off his leg. In May of last year two witch doctors were arrested in connection with the death of an albino woman who was murdered for her body parts.

Throughout Africa witch doctors are consulted not only for healing diseases, but also for placing (or removing) magic curses or bringing luck in love or business. The belief and practice of using body parts for magical ritual or benefit is called muti. Muti murders are particularly brutal, with knives and machetes used to cut and hack off limbs, breasts, and other body parts from their living victims.

Laws Against Witchcraft

Some of the news headlines about Tanzania’s effort are misleading; for example AFP wrote that “Tanzania Bans Witch Doctors in Attempt to End Albino Killings.” Sensational headlines aside, as a practical matter there is no chance that witchcraft will be effectively abolished in Tanzania or elsewhere in Africa.

It’s been tried before: Colonial governments, and the British Empire in particular, instituted various anti-witchcraft laws in the 19th and 20th centuries. By passing those laws the governments did not officially endorse the reality of magic or witchcraft but instead implemented them to curb accusations of witchcraft.

Tanzania’s neighbor Zambia, for example, passed a law known as the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957, which criminalized “on the advice of any witchdoctor, witch-finder or other person or on the ground of any pretended knowledge of witchcraft, uses or causes to be put into operation any means or process which, in accordance with such advice or his own belief, is calculated to injure or damage any person or thing.”

This would of course include the harming or killing of albinos for their body parts to be used in magic spells.

Despite such efforts, attempts by African countries to outlaw witchcraft have historically failed. Gerrie ter Haar, a professor of Religion, Human Rights and Social Change, writing in “Imagining Evil: Witchcraft Beliefs and Accusations in Contemporary Africa,” notes that “a law that makes witchcraft a criminal act punishable by the state…would seriously undermine the integrity of the law. Whereas the law properly operates on the basis of written rules and strict procedures that follow international standards, witchcraft accusations are generally based on gossip and hearsay that lacks actual proof since it is based on belief, and not on evidence of a type required in court. Whereas law enforcement is fully institutionalized, witchcraft accusations operate beyond any institutional control…. The Witchcraft Suppression Act that is still in force in South Africa appears to have done nothing to reduce the widespread fear of witchcraft.”

“Most of the literature on the efficacy of Western education for combating witchcraft belief holds that insight into the natural causes of diseases and other misfortunes will show Africans that their fear of witchcraft is unfounded.”

South African Professor of Theology and Religious Studies Selaelo Thias Kgatla, writing in the same book, explains that legislation against witchcraft is ineffective because it fails to address the root of the problem.

In other words as long as people believe that the bad things that happen to them are caused by enemies’ black magic instead of random chance or bad luck, they will seek magical protections and remedies against them — including, sometimes, albino body parts.

The vast majority of witch doctors and traditional healers throughout Africa are not involved in muti murders, though they routinely offer magical services to attract luck or dispel curses.

Read more at Discovery News

Fantastically Wrong: Why So Many People Think They’ve Seen Ghost Dogs With Glowing Eyes

This one’s eyes are closed so you can’t tell that they’re glowing. Promise.

At the height of World War II, a four-year-old British girl was sent to bed but could not sleep. Sitting on edge of her bed, fiddling with its ornamental knobs and staring out the window, the girl heard a scratching noise. Then, out of the corner of her eye, a massive black dog appeared and trotted in front of her, turning its head to stare at her as it passed between the bed and the window.

“It had very large, very red eyes, which glowed from inside as if lit up,” she later recounted, “and as it looked at me I was quite terrified, and very much aware of the creature’s breath, which was warm and strong as a gust of wind.” But before it had reached the door, it vanished.

It was a hound that goes by many names: black shuck, the hellhound, black jack, gallytrot. Depending on the observer, it can also be white or yellow; it rarely speaks but sometimes laughs; every once in a while it’s missing its head completely; and a few have been known to shapeshift. And it’s not just England that the hellhound stalks—similar tales can be found all over the world. (I’ll be referring to it as the hellhound from here on out, because that best encompasses all of the versions out there.) But why is this myth so widespread? And how can we explain why so many people have claimed to have seen the hound?

This tale necessarily begins with the wolf. Humankind has had a long, complicated relationship with the beast, largely because before we’d fully ascended to the top of the food chain, wolves were a serious threat. But with time they warmed up to us. They’d hang around our fires, waiting for our scraps, while the bolder ones slowly edged closer. In time, we domesticated the wolf into the dog. Their wild brethren, though, remained hostile, and to this day have been known to attack humans (our attacks on them, it should be noted, have been far more frequent and devastating).

Don’t get much more majestic than the wolf. Except maybe a wolf with like, a top hat or something.

Fast-forward several thousand years to ancient Greece and the dog is firmly planted in mythology with Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guards the underworld. But this is far from the only association of dogs with the underworld, according to Bibek Debroy in his book Sarama and Her Children: The Dog in Indian Myth. “For instance,” he writes, “in ancient Persia, dogs were the preferred means of disposing dead bodies.” Elsewhere around the world, stray dogs resorted to scavenging—at times on humans—earning them an association with death.

However, Debroy notes, “this association with the afterworld or dead souls did not prevent dogs from being elevated to divinity.” There’s the ancient Egyptian Wepwawet, a dog-like god that opened roads to the underworld. The Aztecs also deified the dog as Xolotl, who carried the sun through the underworld. So just as our relationship with wolves was complicated, so too is our relationship with dogs the world over. We’ve feared them as creatures of the underworld, yet rely on them for companionship.

Alcohol and Other Factors That Just Might Have Led to the Hellhound

So that’s the cultural background, but what about the cause of the hellhound phenomenon? It’s worth relating another experience, this time from Simon Sherwood of England’s University of Northampton. When he was around three to five years old, he awoke to the patter of feet. “I looked up thinking it was my dog, but to my terror I saw a massive black animal probably with horns, but perhaps ears, galloping along the landing towards my bedroom. I tried to scream but I found it impossible. The creature’s eyes were bright yellow and as big as saucers. The animal got to my bedroom door and then vanished as quick as it has appeared. I then managed to scream and my mum came in to calm me down.”

There’s a very important clue here, which Sherwood himself quite rightly recognizes (he goes on to uncritically report other more paranormal and impossible potential causes of the phenomenon, but whatever). Not being able to speak or move while still seemingly conscious is a classic symptom of sleep paralysis, which happens when the brain and the body are out of sync during sleep.

Tales of ghost dogs have been floating around England for hundreds of years, and I’m willing to bet they’ll be around for hundreds more.
During REM sleep, your muscles are so relaxed that they’re essentially worthless (which, by the way, may be an evolutionary trick to keep you from acting out your dreams and injuring yourself). Should you wake up, though, and your muscles don’t immediately kick back into gear, you can feel paralyzed and probably quite a bit panicked. But soon enough it’s all over. This would explain why Sherwood was unable to scream at first, then eventually recovered his voice.

Some people like Sherwood even hallucinate and see a giant black dog, for example. But why would reports of the hellhound be largely consistent? Well, folklore is a powerful thing, even for a child, especially when it’s terrifying. Tales of ghost dogs have been floating around England for hundreds of years, and I’m willing to bet they’ll be around for hundreds more. Well, at least until we come up with a good treatment for sleep paralysis.

There are other stories, though, of wide-awake folks seeing evil dogs out in the open. An account from 1908 of an Englishman walking home from an inn: “I suddenly saw an animal that seemed to be like a large, black dog appear quite suddenly out of the hedge and run across the road quite close in front of me; I thought it was the dog belonging to the curate. I was just going to call it to send it home, when it suddenly changed its shape, and turned into a black donkey standing on its hind legs. This creature had two glowing eyes, which appeared to me to be almost as big as saucers. I looked at it in astonishment for a minute or so, when it suddenly vanished.”

Fun fact: Hellhounds love car rides, just like regular dogs. Except they fall out easy, because they’re ghosts and just kinda float through things.

Whether or not the man had tied on a few at the inn is lost to history, but I suspect as much. Experiences like this can be explained by … the existence of big dogs and the existence of alcohol and drugs. And those glowing eyes? They have a perfectly rational explanation as well.

Some creatures, including cats, raccoons, and dogs, have a layer of reflective tissue in their eyes known as the tapetum lucidum. This acts like a mirror to bounce light at the retinal cells for a second pass, greatly enhancing night vision. It’s responsible for eye-shine, that glow you get if you snap a flash at your dog or cat. And it’s not hard to imagine that it’s this eye-shine that gave rise to the myth of a hound with burning eyes.

Read more at Wired Science