Nothing about Bjork’s swan dress?
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I wonder who was unlucky enough to be seated behind her at the ceremonies that night.
“Madam, please remove your… let’s go with ‘hat.’”
“I can’t, it’s glued to my head for stability.”
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Cher’s outfit is conservative compared to some of the stuff she wore in the 70s.
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It was there, but the facts behind it weren’t interesting enough to me.
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And now for something completely different.
Presenting: Survival myths that are completely false and could actually kill you if you try them!
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If you have no water, do NOT drink the water found inside a cactus. The only cactus which has semi-drinkable water is called the Fishhook Barrel Cactus (picture below), but even then it should only be ingested in very small amounts. Most cacti have acids and other things in the water that will, to put it delicately, likely make you have extreme diarrhea to the point that you could kill yourself owing to the dehydration you drank the cactus water to stave off in the first place. Basically, don’t do it.
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Wearing minimal clothing in the desert to keep cool. It is far far better to wear clothing that covers as much of your skin as possible because during the day the sun will burn you and dehydrate you very quickly, and at night things cool off drastically to the point that you could literally die of hypothermia. Plus, there’s the wind blowing sand around, which can cause some pretty severe abrasions if your skin isn’t covered. Basically, the Bedouins have the right kind of dress to wear.
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If you’re running from an alligator, you’re better off just running in a straight line rather than zig-zagging like some people recommend. Alligators don’t really run for long distances, so running in a straight line is far safer and will be less likely to tire you out. Don’t think climbing a fence or a tree will save you either; some alligators have been known to climb both to get at their prey (in this case, you).
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If you’re lost, you can just use the moss growing on the trees to orient yourself to the north! Errr, no; moss can actually grow on all sides of a tree, not just the north side, so it’s not usable as a means of navigation, sadly.
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If you’re in a tornado at home and the internal pressure is getting to you, throwing open windows will… you guessed it… NOT help. Opening windows in a tornado will actually create a wind tunnel which could rip the roof right off your house, so it’s not recommended.
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We all know lightning never strikes the same place twice… except when it does, which is OFTEN. Hence the reason lighting rods, which don’t typically move, work.
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A little while ago there was a viral post making the rounds about changing your voicemail message if you’re lost and have no cell signal so people calling you can hopefully alert the authorities. This is, you guessed it, complete BS. In the first place, you need a cell signal to change your voicemail, so if you have one, why wouldn’t you just call for help to begin with?
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Suffering from frostbite? Just stick your extremities in hot water! Except… don’t. Because it can cause even more damage to the extremity in question. Lukewarm water is best to slowly warm up frostbitten extremities.
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If you’re out hiking, get lost, and think you need to start rationing your water just in case; don’t. It’s far far better to drink when you’re thirsty and just keep an eye out for water while you’re trying to make your way back to civilization.
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Although in a related survival myth; just because water LOOKS clean doesn’t necessarily mean it is. It’s a much better idea to boil or distill water you find in nature (assuming you have the means to do so) than it is to drink it straight.
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If you’re freezing and all you have to drink is alcohol, CHUG, CHUG, CHUG… WAIT! Actually it’s a VERY bad idea to drink alcohol to warm up, because it will actually bring on hypothermia that much quicker.
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And lastly; in an earthquake, which is safer to get into; a doorway, or under a sturdy table? I’ll give you a hint; it’s NOT the doorway. Doorways are much more likely to collapse and bury you, whereas under a table the table should break the fall of much of the debris and will offer you at least some protection from rubble falling on you.
And that does it for survival tips that don’t actually work and could kill you!
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In fact, lightning strikes the same place several times in a row very quickly!
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Meteorologists are at a loss to explain why Billy Batson’s house has been struck over 2,473 times, however.
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But never twice.
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Better idea: change you voicemail before you leave to say where you are going to. Except you may attract burglars. Even better: Tell several people where you are going and when you will be back.
I read Aaron Ralston’s book – he’s the 127 Hours guy with the arm and whatnot-- and the whole book is basically a plea for people to not be dumb like him and 
tell people where you are going He stayed lost because he changed his plans and didn’t tell anyone!
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And don’t go spelunking in the caves not on the map!
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I don’t know, sometimes if you go spelunking in the caves not on the map, you find really cool things:
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You realize that at some point none of the caves on the maps were on the maps, right?
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We don’t speak of those times.
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Thank storm-chasers for debunking this one. It’s their footage of what actually happens to houses hit by a tornado that dispelled the idea that they were destroyed by “internal pressure”.
No, it’s simply the result of being hit by 250mph winds.
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You will never be as goth as Mary Shelley, and here are all the facts as to why:
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Her father taught her to spell by taking her to the grave of her mother, Mary Wollenstonecraft Godwin, and having her trace the letters and numbers on the gravestone.
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Mary Shelley lost her virginity to Percy Bysshe Shelley ON TOP OF her mother’s grave.
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Mary Shelley pioneered the science-fiction genre of literature with her novel Frankenstein. On a DARE.
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After her husband’s death from drowning, Mary proceeded to carry around his calcified heart in a silk bag, and later kept it in her desk wrapped in a copy of her husband’s poem Adonais, which is about a deceased poet’s subjects (nature, spring, the stars) mourning him and wishing they could join him in death, whereupon the poet tells them not to mourn his death for he had gone beyond where the minds and emotions of humans matter, to the natural spirit which is the source of all beauty. She also carried locks of hair from each child of hers that died.
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In 1926 Mary Shelly wrote a post-apocalyptic novel focusing on the extinction of the human race and the meaninglessness of existence titled The Last Man.
TL;DR; Mary Shelley is the epitome of goth.
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A dare by Lord Byron… in an old castle, in Switzerland… during a summer when it snowed in August.
No word on whether she dyed her hair with shoe polish, wore big chunky boots or slept in a coffin.
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She allegedly lived in a crypt after her husband’s death; does that count?
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Speaking of crypts…
This is the crypt hall of Liverpool (Metropolitan) Cathedral
The University of Liverpool uses it as one of it’s exam rooms. Trying to remember the vagaries of the Lend Lease Act was not easy at the best of times; having to try to do so whilst sat in an actual crypt was definitely not the best of times.
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One of the others (John Polidori, Byron’s physician) also took part in that dare. His story “The Vampyre” inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula.
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