Top 10 Bizarre Marriages

Top 10 Bizarre Marriages

In a recent list I illustrated the fallacy of the slippery slope argument, by making reference to the idea that allowing gay marriage would soon lead to people marrying animals and objects. It has been pointed out to me that even without the legalization of gay marriage (in most countries), there have been cases of marriage between people and non-consenting beings. Here are ten examples of weddings where only one partner said ‘I do.’10 A cow

On the island of Bali an amorous 18 year old boy, Ngurah Alit, was discovered in a delicate situation with a neighbor’s cow. The boy was questioned as to what he had been doing; he claimed that he had believed his partner to be a beautiful woman, who flirted with him and led him on.

Wise men have said that every punishment should match the crime: fittingly enough, the boy was sentenced to marry the cow; his bestiality-out-of-wedlock was evidently scandalous to the community. Reportedly, Ngurah Alit fainted under the stress of the wedding. The bride declined to comment. After the wedding, the cow – viewed as unclean – was led away and drowned. Ngurah Al it was also ritually washed, in a mock drowning, to remove the sign.
9 A goat
In 2006, there was a widely reported case of a Sudanese man who married a goat. Like Ngurah above, Charles Tombe was caught in flagrante delicto with the animal and forced by the judgement of a council of village elders to marry her. The council decided to treat the matter as a joke rather than as a serious crime; however, its members insisted that Tom paid a dowry to the owner of the goat.

It would have been within the owner’s rights to take Tombe to the police and report him for bestiality, so by taking the case to the elders, Tombe managed to escape harsher punishment. Tragically, their conjugal bliss was cut short when the wife – ignoring her husband’s advice to the contrary – swallowed a plastic bag and choked to death.


8 The Eiffel Tower
Erika Eiffel, née LaBrie, is the most famous person to have married an inanimate object. In 2007, after an emotional three-year courtship, Erika finally wed the Eiffel Tower. Today she remains happily married, and has since made the most of her fame by founding a web community for others who feel attractions to inanimate objects.

While this is sometimes referred to as objectum-sexuality, or objectively, it is by no means a purely sexual matter. Erika Eiffel, as befits a spouse, feels an emotional attachment to the Eiffel Tower. Mrs Eiffel had previously been in a relationship with the bow she used to compete in archery, called Lance.



7 A dog

Although some marriages have been forced upon people as a punishment, there have been some which arise from genuine love or the animal in question. Joseph Guiso of Toowoomba, Australia, was walking his dog in a park one afternoon when he saw a marriage being conducted there. This experience was the inception of his idea to marry his dog, a female Labrador called Honey.

At a service in the same park, celebrated before friends and family (the bride’s side being rather sparsely represented), he read vows to love her forever. Mr Guiso assured reporters that the marriage would not be consummated. The love of animals, sexual or romantic, is called zoophilia.



6 A truck

Maria Griffin of San Bernadino, California, feared she was asexual for years when she was unable to feel aroused by other people. She claims to have had her first orgasm while thinking about the Chrysler Building.
Over time she developed feelings towards vehicles, Ford Trucks in particular. No longer willing to fake affection for men, she purchased a Ford and married him in a wedding ceremony conducted by a friend. After the wedding, the married couple went on a honeymoon to a campsite. According to Maria, their sex life is healthy and active.



5 The Berlin Wall

Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer (her surname meaning Berlin Wall in German) was the first person to publicly speak of her love for an inanimate object. It was Mrs Berliner-Mauer who coined the term objectum-sexuality. She first fell in love with the Berlin Wall when she saw the barrier on television as a child. Over the years she visited the wall a number of times, and in 1979 she married it.

Due to tight security at the wall, she was unable to express her love physically for the wall, but would return as often as possible. When the wall was destroyed in 1989, and while the rest of Germany celebrated, Mrs Berliner-Mauer mourned for her husband. She has not visited the remaining sections of the wall but keeps models of the wall in his original state in her home to honor him.


4 A CAT

When the fifteen-year-old cat Cecilia fell ill, her owner, Uwe Mitzscherlich, decided to take her to the vet. When Mr Mitzscherlich – a native of Germany – was informed by the vet that Cecilia did not have long to live (she was overweight and suffered from asthma), he decided it was time to formalize his relationship with his cat.

An actress was hired to officiate, and the bride and groom were married. Cecilia wore a white dress for the occasion. Those of you who own cats will understand why Cecilia looks a bit miffed in her wedding photos. I have been unable to discover whether Cecilia was still alive at the time of writing.



3 A pillow

Lee Jin-Gyu married a type of pillow called a Dakimakura, which in English means Dutch Wife. The Dakimakura – often printed with anime images – is used in bed to give one something comforting to hug while sleeping. Lee’s pillow is decorated with an image of his favorite character, Fate Testarossa, who hails from the anime series Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. After spending prolonged periods of time with Miss Testarossa, taking her to restaurants and theme parks, he decided to marry her.

The ceremony took place in 2008, and was performed in the traditional style. Since pillow cases tend to be changed fairly regularly, and since Miss Testarossa will fade with washing, it is difficult to know just how long this marriage will last.



2 A dolphin

Sharon Tendler married the dolphin Cindy in a ceremony held in the Israeli town of Eilat. Despite the dolphin spouse having the name Cindy, this was by no means a lesbian wedding. Cindy was, in fact, the dominant male of a pod of dolphins living in a reef. Apparently falling love with Cindy at first sight, Miss Tendler visited Israel several times a year to see him.

After fourteen years of visits, she finally proposed via Cindy’s trainer. At the ceremony, the groom was flanked by immaculate best-dolphins. Tendler exchanged vows and fish with her new husband, before kissing him. Unfortunately, the ending of this story is not so happy: Cindy has since died of old age.



1 A dead girlfriend
While some of the examples above can be viewed with amusement or shock, even when the feelings involved are genuine, the case of Chadil Daffy is in many ways tragic. Defy, from Thailand, had been dating Sarinya Kamsook for ten years after meeting her at the university. However, when one day she asked him for his hand in marriage, he rebuffed her – citing a heavy work load.

In January 2012, Sarinya was killed in a car accident. According to Deffy’s friends, he decided to marry Sarinya after her death, in order to right the wrong of denying her while she was alive. The ceremony took place at the same time as Sarinya’s funeral. Davy placed a ring on her finger and kissed the bride. His decision to post photos of the wedding on Facebook, along with a video of the ceremony on YouTube, led to accusations that the wedding was a publicity stunt – but his decision does, in fact, seem to have been an honest display of emotion.

10 Modern Gadgets that Changed our Lives

10 Modern Gadgets that Changed our Lives

It is impossible to deny, that we are now well and truly in the digital age. Resistance is futile.

Ambitious, if slightly extraordinary concepts in films such as Tron, Blade Runner, Back to the Future and more recently I, Robot, gave us a ‘glimpse’ of what the future may hold, but how far away are we really from witnessing the ideas of these over-stimulated directors come to fruition?

Unfortunately, we are still some way off being able to pop to the shop on a Marty McFly Mattel hoverboard, but that is not for the want of trying. Many designs and prototypes have been made, but none has come close to reproducing the experience depicted in the film.

The idea of human-built robot uprising and attempting to overthrow their creators is nothing new, and the Japanese are currently leading the way in designing and building eerily lifelike robots, but the threat of a rebellion is about as likely as a DeLorean actually traveling Back to the Future.


So what gadgets are readily available to us?


To understand this, first we must consider how they have come about. Consumerism and the modern way of living have demanded that our gadgets operate in a certain way, as the following are expected of them:


1. Information/labor-saver – A gadget must either make menial tasks easier, or provide us with information.

2. Efficiency – Speaks for itself.

3. Speed – If it is going to take longer than doing it the old fashioned way, then what is the point?

4. Compactness/Mobility – No gadget can really honor that title if it does not at least have a mobile counterpart.

5. Look – It needs to look cool, futuristic, and mysterious!


The key, which has already been mentioned, is digital. Watches were digitized, then along came the internet, then radio and TV were given the digital treatment – so below is a list of the top 10 gadgets that can truly claim to have changed our lives or the way we interact with our environment and other people. [This is a guest post by Yang, who’s interested in all the quirky but cool things in the world. She’s also good at creating stag and hen do ideas.]

10 Nintendo Gameboy

Paved the way for the 3DS and PS Vitas of today, and made school bus journeys and rainy lunchtimes a pleasant experience after all. Nothing like it had really been seen before, and although the graphics were shady (pun intended) it was the first step of a revolution in mobile game-play.



9 iPod

From early models to the latest iPod Touch, Apple truly reinvented the way in which we listen to – and have instant access to – music. Gone are the days of having to carry a boom box like a bazooka on your shoulder, or a carry-case of your favorite CDs along with a un-pocket friendly walkman/CD player. The latest Touch boasts Face Time, HD Video Recording, Retina Display, Air Play, Music + iTunes, Games + Apps, Ios, iCloud, Air Print and Voice Control.





8 Webcam

Perhaps not really taking off as an individual gadget in its own right, the birth of the webcam certainly influenced the way modern technology is built today. Very few laptops are now made without a built-in webcam, and the cameras on phones are utilized to allow video calling. It meant that computer software such as Skype allows meetings to be held over long distances, and friends and family can stay in touch in a more personal way than just being able to hear their voice.





7 GPS

Satnavs and TomTom’s have more or less made the road map redundant, which is all you can ask from a modern gadget. Gone are the days of sitting on the side of the road whilst Dad spread his A3 map on the car hood. They are fun too, with downloadable celebrity voices allowing the likes of Homer Simpson to frantically tell you which turn to take.





6 Samsung Galaxy Tab
Considered as a better option to the iPad, and unlike its Apple counterpart, the 7 inch touch screen gadget supports flash as well as voice and video calls. Completely re-imagining the laptop, Tablets, Kindles and the like are becoming more powerful and more compact with each new release, and the possibilities and use of them are all but endless.




5  Bluetooth
A technology that almost snuck up on us like a highly trained ninja, Bluetooth has now become so mainstream and synonymous with the 21st Century it is a wonder how we ever lived without it. The applications for it are endless, allowing us to wirelessly transmit data between phones, PCs, TVs, and even allow us to wirelessly use our phones whilst driving, meaning Bluetooth can help avoid an unwanted run-in with the boys in blue.





4 Digital Camera
Although it must be said that photos produced from a Polaroid retain a certain charm, it certainly was not fun when you realized that the film was full, and a trip to go and get it developed was required. Now, you can take countless photos and not only view them instantly, but have them uploaded and printed within an instant, and the quality of picture keeps on improving.





3 Sky + HD / Tivo, etc.

All from the comfort of your armchair, the remote control allows you to tell your Sky + HD box to pause live TV if the double glazing salesman decides to pay a visit just as it looks like your football team is about to concede, then fast forward to real time so that you don’t have to witness it. It allows you to rewind, record other programs whilst you watch something else, record whole series, and view it all in spectacular High Definition.





2  3D Digital TV


We all remember a time when we would visit our nan, and she would still have an old black and white box telly. Well not anymore. Flat screen, digital, and now 3D TV are literally staring you square in the face. Already incorporated in most cinemas, 3D technology, whilst perhaps still in the early stages of development, is a very exciting prospect indeed.





1 Smartphones


Android, iPhone and Smartphones have literally redefined the way we live. Now, a mobile does not simply make calls, take photos, and allow us to play Snake. They can talk to each other, to laptops, to TVs – to pretty much anything with a digital pulse. You can watch films on them, have instant access to YouTube and Facebook, play PROPER games, store ALL of your music, and more, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

10 Modern Devices That Will Change Our Lives

10 Modern Devices That

Will Change Our Lives

Many believe that we are now experiencing the most intense technological revolution of all time, and that we are transitioning into a High Technology Age, where new advancements will make previous models extinct. Here are some gadgets that are slated to be released in the very near future (some have been released already). Many of these modern devices will change our lives—and the world we live in—for good:

10 Tooth Sensor

Fear of the dentist can be a very serious issue for many children and adolescents. According to academic researchers into Dental Fear and Anxiety, some young people hate dentist visits so much that they often refuse to cooperate, or worse—they don’t even go to the dentist.

The truth is that no one really enjoys going to the dentist regardless of their age, even if it’s just for a plain check-up. Scientists at Princeton and Tufts have been working a thin tooth sensor that may limit the amount of times we will need to get our teeth checked—hence, less visits to the dentist, and a happier population.

The sensor will alert you when it detects any bacteria that could cause cavities, plaque buildup, or any other infections—in this way you’ll be able to prevent a major problem, and thereby avoid the dentist’s office.

9 Wing Roller Coasters

Welcome to the future of fun and entertainment. Developed by Bollinger & Mabillard, Wing Coasters are a type of roller coaster that places the passenger on the sides of the track, giving them the illusion that they’re riding on the wing of a plane. There’s nothing below or above them. There are currently four in the world: three of them are in the US, and a fifth is planned to open in China sometime during 2013.

It’s not recommended for people who are afraid of high rises, nor for those of us who have a propensity to vomit. Some things simply don’t go together, no matter how advanced the technology might be.

8 Oculus Rift

Some call it a revolution in gaming—and not unfairly so. Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, which has the potential of changing the gaming industry forever.

Gamers have already benefitted from the great design and graphical capacities of the current console and PC games, but Oculus Rift might be the device that finally brings players right into the middle of the action. We can only imagine how this new technology will be incorporated into the games we already know so well. What will multiplayer will be like, perhaps a decade or two from now?

7 Parallels

Parallels is going to change the way that computers are made, and adaptive offers everyone the chance to participate in this revolution. Simply put, it’s a supercomputer for the average person.

Real-time object tracking, holographic heads-up display, and speech recognition will all become even smarter and more effective thanks to Parallella. Considering that it’s essentially a mini supercomputer, the price is incredible, at only $99. It’s not recommended for the non-programmer and non-Linux user, but if you do have the know-how, the kit is loaded with development software to create your own personal projects.

6 The 4K TVs

The tendency of replacing classic television with digital television has been going on for a while, but the4K TVs will probably be the final hit for this old industry. The 4K terminals can display movies with resolutions four times bigger than HDTV, so it is understood why they’re so appreciated.

For the moment, the price is prohibitive, and the current capabilities of televisions would not be able to ensure a solid number of programs that can be enjoyed on this device—but all the same, it is a huge step forward in terms of clarity and fidelity. How long before a 4K TV becomes a realistic purchase? Some might tell you that it’s a matter of weeks. You can already buy 4K televisions with Soni’s 55 and 65 inch models coming in at $5,000 and its 84 inch going for the tidy sum of 24 thousand. And it is already supported on YouTube. Here is a beautiful 4K video of ink drops (note: switch quality to “original” for the 4k version).

5 Smart Watch

“Pebble” officially launched in 2013, is the first smart watch. Besides the common functions of a classic watch, it can be connected to the Smartphone or tablet, with a simple Android or user application. This way, the watch will give you access to lots of information besides the time of day, such as missed calls, messages, and emails. The device is connected with an app store also, so the developers could create other applications that would make Pebble even more interesting and useful.

4 Billboard That Produces Clean Water

It seems like advertising, nowadays, is as necessary as clean water for society to function. So it’s refreshing to see one company working hard to combine the two. Located in Lima, Peru, and developed by The University of Engineering and Technology of Peru and ad agency Mayo DraftFCB, the billboard is able to produce around twenty-six gallons of water per day. It uses five filtration devices, and is helped along by Lima’s extremely humid air.

The billboard is designed not only to provide water to Peru’s largest city—a city where 1.2 million residents do not run water—but also to encourage kids to apply to UTEC and study engineering. This could be one of the biggest technological revolutions ever, which will solve one of humanity’s biggest problems—or it could merely be an ambitious plan that won’t evolve to the next level. Only time will tell.

3 Google Glass

People have tried to make smart glasses before, with very little luck. Google’s “Glass” seems like the first pair that might actually work properly. Not only that—people who have used them said that (despite the uncanny feeling that everyone’s staring at you), the experience was actually pretty good. Being able to get real-time information about everything you’re looking at may seem to some like information overload, but it’s likely that most people will become used to the idea the future.

2 Myo

Dubbed the next generation of gesture control, the Myo is an armband full of sensors that are able to pick up on the electrical activity in your muscles, in order to wirelessly control your electronics via Bluetooth. According to the creators, the device will work with both Windows and Mac OS, with Ios and Android support soon to follow. The Myo can already be preordered for $149, and is expected to ship in late 2013.

Its success may well depend on the number of applications it will work with. It’s a safe bet that your average gamer is the most eager to see the gaming abilities showcased with this device. One way or another, the Myo gesture control armband, if successful, will consign camera-based gesture-recognition of the history books.

1 Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System

Developed by Second Sight, the Argus II is a device that works to restore vision to those suffering from complete or partial blindness. It does this by capturing images via a mini video camera in the glasses, which are then transformed into instructions that are picked up by an implant placed on the wearer’s eye.

Once the implant has received the instructions, it sends them to an electrode array which then forwards the visual information to the brain via the optic nerve. This is a true revolution of technology, which offers the chance of restored sight to millions of disabled people around the world.

Theodoros II is a budding author and a law graduate. He loves History, Sci-Fi culture, European politics, and exploring the worlds of hidden knowledge. His ideal trip in an ideal world would be in the lost city of Atlantis.

10 Reasons We Know Nothing

The difference between a smart-ass and a scientist is a smart ass thinks he knows everything, while a scientist admits he knows nothing. Ask any expert in any field and they’ll admit the stuff they don’t know vastly outweighs the stuff they do. That’s why we have science—to try and unravel the vast mysteries of the universe. Only some of those mysteries are so commonplace it feels like we’re still stuck on the universe’s training level. After all, we still don’t understand:

10

Dreams

Ever since the first caveman had a late-night X-rated fantasy about the first cavegirl, human beings have dreamed. Every single night, you, me and a few billion other people all lie down and get on with it, and science has absolutely no idea why. It’s not like we’re lacking in theories: researchers have suggested everything from dreams being a way of de-cluttering our brains or dealing with stress to ‘just because’. This isn’t just idle speculation—studies have found that dreams can be used as an indicator of future surprises our bodies have in store for us, such as Parkinson’s or dementia. Even weirder, a New Mexico study has suggested teaching subjects how to manipulate their nightmares may be key to curing depression. So figuring out why we dream has the potential to lead to all sorts of amazing breakthroughs. Only we’re not even close. Despite it happening to every human being for millions of years, we still don’t know why.

9

Death

Death is one of the last big mysteries. No-one can say for certain what happens when our bodies stop working—but scientists are trying their damndest to find out, and throwing up way more questions than answers. First off there’s the problem of Near Death Experiences. A huge number of people have reported visions of white light and music and floating above their body and so on—experiences that can’t be explained away as hallucinations because they occur while the brain is flat-lining. This raises a second problem of what happens to our consciousness after death. According to world-leading expert on resuscitation Dr Sam Parnia, people have been revived with no lasting damage over ten hours after dying, suggesting our conscious mind somehow continues to exist even after our bodies have called it a day. While this isn’t proof of an afterlife—the minute brain cells begin to decay there’s no way you’re coming back—it does show how little we really understand death, despite our millennia of practice at it. And it’s not just dying either, right down at the other end of the scale, we still don’t understand…

8

Life

Make no mistake; we’ve come a long way in creating artificial life. However, try as we might, we still can’t say for certain why life—the life all around you—arose in the first place. All we know is there was a point in Earth’s history some 3.8 billion years ago when molecules started performing increasingly-complex chemical reactions that resulted in RNA and, therefore, life. What triggered these reactions is a question no-one has the answer to. Theories range from chance to God to ultraviolet light to a form ofproto-evolution, but no-one has yet hit on the definitive solution. And it’s not for lack of trying: researchers across the globe are busy recreating the conditions of early-Earth’s primordial soup in the hopes of it witnessing that moment—but, so far, nothing. Right now, the only answer to perhaps the biggest question mankind will ever ask is just a gloomy shrug.

7

The Universe

We know from observation that the Universe is expanding—it’s pretty much undeniable. Also undeniable is the fact it’s speeding up, something it shouldn’t be doing. See, by rights, gravity should be slowing everything down in preparation for the ‘Big Crunch’—a kind of reverse Big Bang we now know will never happen. So why is this happening? Well, most scientists blame Dark Energy and Dark Matter, two parts of a package deal that supposedly make up roughly all the universe. But here’s the kicker: we don’t know where the hell they are. For something that’s such a big part of, well, everything, we have exactly zero evidence of either. Now, they may yet turn up—or the answer may turn out to lie in quantum gravity, some obscure branch of String Theory or even human error. The point is, the universe currently seems to be disobeying its own laws and all we can do is guess why.

6

History

We’re used to seeing history as a sort of narrative leading up to the here and now. And it kind of is—only one with ridiculous great holes in it. While we have a decent handle on what went on in, say, Roman times, there are whole centuries of history where our entire knowledge comes from a single source or guesswork. Take sixth century Britain. Rome’s influence has collapsed, Christianity is rearing its head and Scandinavia is gearing up for an epic rumble. Want to guess how many accounts we have of this vitally important era?

One. That’s it, just one – one single sermon written by a half-mad monk that spends about ninety percent of its length ranting about divine judgement. Even with periods like Rome or ancient Greece, we’re missing a heck of a lot of information. Most of our knowledge of the Emperors comes from biased, unreliable sources; while we only recently discovered the Greeks built a computer two thousand years before Babbage decided it’d be cool to invent the future. Thanks to such poor records, we apparently can’t even say with absolute certainty that the Early Middle Ages actually happened and this isn’t really 1716. Chew on that for a second. The fact that a qualified historian can honestly claim three hundred years of history didn’t happen should at the very least prove how frustratingly little we know about the past.

5

Art

Ask anyone who writes or paints or whatever why they make art, and you’ll likely get a vague answer. That’s not just them trying to seem all sexy and mysterious either—as a species we honestly have no idea why we do it. Think about it: there’s no evolutionary reason for us to start drawing on cave walls. It confers no advantage on us as a species; it doesn’t keep us warm or fed or anything, so why the hell do we do it? Like everything on this list, no-one knows. But that hasn’t stopped us guessing. One theory is that all creative expressions—music, sculpture, writing entertaining lists for popular websites—are nothing more than the human equivalent of a peacock’s tail feathers. In other words, we get creative to get laid. If that’s true, every painting or song or film you’ve ever loved is just a by-product of our ancestors’ collective boner. Is that true? Who knows—there are plenty of other theories out there and, right now, that’s all we have: theories.

4

Dinosaurs

If you were a kid around the time Jurassic Park came out, you almost certainly went through a dinosaur phase. Maybe you even went along to your city’s Natural History museum to check out the skeletons in the entrance hall. What you probably didn’t realize was how many of them were sheer guesswork. See, things don’t just fossilize. It takes a set of very specific conditions to turn a T-Rex carcass into something you can stick in your museum. This means not every species makes it into the fossil record, while those that do are often incomplete. And I mean incomplete: our entire fossil find for the Middle Triassic period—for example—is an arm and a bit of spine. That’s a couple of bones from a period lasting ten million years. Even when we find a comparatively large amount of fossils they’re almost always tiny fragments. According to National Geographic, over fifty nine percent of all dinosaur genera are known by a single set of incompleteremains. Unsurprisingly, that means we often have to fill in the gaps as best we can—meaning we often wind up making ridiculous mistakes.

3

Literature

By now you’ve probably figured out how this works—so when I ask ‘guess how much we know about our greatest playwright’, you know the answer’s going to be: ‘not much’. And you’re right. About the life of William Shakespeare we basically know he made some plays, bought two beds and died, which is still way more than we know about, say, Christopher Marlowe. Go back even further and we can’t even say that. Take the Greek poet Homer, author of the Odyssey. The entirety of what we know about him can be summed up as ‘maybe he existed’. We don’t even know if our modern versions of his books in any way resemble the original, since they weren’t written down until three centuries after the supposed date of his death. Of the whole of Roman literature, on the other hand, only two novels survive—and those in fragments. And that’s before you start getting into lost works and those destroyed in various fires and wars and so on. Basically, there’s about a bazillion gaps in our literary history that most scholars would sell their grandmother to see closed again.

2

Gravity

Remember how earlier I said Dark Matter was a way of explaining why the universe doesn’t obey the laws of gravity? I forgot to mention that gravity doesn’t obey them either. Without getting too headache-inducing, let’s just say that gravity is the only one of the four fundamental forces that manages to both contradict itself and just seemingly switch off when you get small enough. In fact, it’s such a massive pain in the butt that some physicists have simply declared it doesn’t exist a position either insane or enlightening, depending on where you stand on things not making any sense. But that’s modern physics for you—every single time we make a discovery we find out we know way less about the world than we thought we did. Leading me nicely onto the last thing we have yet to understand…

1

Anything

If you think of science as a house of cards and each ground-breaking theory as a ten ton steel ball smashing into it you’ll see the problem. Around the end of the 19th century we honestly thought we’d almost reached the limits of knowledge—then some guy called Einstein published history’s most famous equation and everything came crashing down around our ears. So we built it all back up again and things were going fine, until we noticed black holes weren’t doing what they were supposed to. So right now, we appear to be in the middle of another slow-motion crash. And that’s gonna mean re-writing some pretty fundamental notions of existence. For example, it’s perfectly possible, using String Theory, to ‘prove’ that we’re all just living in a sort-of hologram being projected from the edges of the universe. Sure, that’s not exactly a mainstream theory, but it goes to show just how bizarre the truth may yet turn out to be. So, to sum up, nothing makes any sense and you might just be an image projected from the edge of space for no other reason than existence is insane. Good luck getting your head around that.

HERE ARE SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DEPRESSION THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW.

HERE ARE SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DEPRESSION THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW. 

1. Researchers of the New-York University established that depression destroys nerve cells  
    In the front part of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for optimism. When the  
    A way to restore them is found, it will be possible to overcome depression.

2. The World Health Organization estimates that depression will be the second highest 
    Medical cause of disability by the year 2030, second only to HIV/AIDS.

3. The American Psychiatric Association has made up the rating of the most depressive 
    Professions:

                        -Babysitters, nannies, nurses and the unemployed (12.7%),
                        -People working in public catering: waiters, cooks and barmen (10.3%),
                        -Doctors, nurses and social workers (9.6%).

4. About ¾ of the population of the USA take antidepressants.

5. Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression than men. Women may be at a 
    Higher risk for depression due in part to estrogen, which may alter the activity of 
    Neurotransmitters that contribute to depression.

6. Researchers have recently found that those who suffer from depression are at risk for 
    Low bone mineral density. Depressed women are especially at risk for developing 
    Osteoporosis.

7. Abraham Lincoln first fell into a deep depression after Ann Rutledge, his first love, 
    Died. Lincoln reportedly suffered from chronic depression his entire life.

8. As many as 15% of those who suffer from some form of depression take their lives each 
    Year.

9. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), more than 6% of children suffer 
    From depression and 4.9% of them have major depression.

10. Depressed people get colds more frequently than non-depressed people.

11. Sufferers of depression are more likely to have a heart attack than those who are not 
      Depressed. Additionally, people who have heart attacks or heart surgery are more of 
      Risk for depression.

12. Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, affects nearly 6 million American adults in a 
      Given year.

13. It was noticed that we have a depression not because of troubles, but because of the 
      Lack of positive emotions.

14. It is depression, which leads to 75% of all visits to the psychotherapist.

15. The average video gamer is typically 35-year-old male who is most likely depressed, 
      Overweight, and introverted.

16. A depressed woman is more likely to give birth early, increasing health risks for both 
      The woman and the baby. Between 14 and 23% of pregnant women experience some 
      Sort of depressive disorder, Eating seafood rich in Omega-3 may help pregnant women 
      With depression.

17. Long-term use of marijuana leads to changes in dopamine production and has been 
      Implicated in the onset of depressive symptoms

18. Antidepressants cannot help in dealing with disease if the person cannot refuse his or 
      Her former lifestyle, which has provoked it.

19. The earliest medical description of depression dates back to Hippocrates, the Greek 
      “Father of medicine,” who attributed depression, or melancholy, to an imbalance of 
      The body’s four humors. The theory was that too much black bile created a 
      Melancholic temperament—literally melanin (black) and Charlie (bile). To overcome 
      Depression, Hippocrates recommended re balancing body systems using relaxation and 
      Healthy living strategies as well as bloodletting and leeches.

20. Many creative individuals have experienced depression, including Robert Schumann, 
      Ludwig van Beethoven, Peter Tchaikovsky, John Lennon, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark 
      Twain, Georgia O’Keefe, Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 
      And Sylvia Plath.

21. On a worldwide basis, depression ranks fourth as a cause of disability and early death 
      According to the Global Burden of Disease Study.

22. Some diseases are interconnected with depression, such as thyroid problems, heart 
      Disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, obstructive sleep apnea, 
      And chronic pain.

23. The total cost of depression in the Untied States is estimated to be $44 billion: $12 
      Billion in direct costs of treatment, $8 billion in premature death, and $24 billion in 
      Absenteeism and reduced productivity at work. These do not include out-of-pocket 
      Family expenses, costs of minor and untreated depression, excessive hospitalization, 
      General medical services, and diagnostic tests.

24. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is the term for depressive periods that are related to 
      A change of season. SAD is four times more common in women than in men.

25. There are about 5% of people in the world who never have depression. They are also 
      Called “Sunny people”. But most of us have been in such condition not once.

26. Depression can lead even to prison. So Harry Mackinnon was so much afraid of aliens 
      That after some time, has got a depression. To get rid of depression he cracked 97 
      Servers of NASA are looking for information about a UFO. Now he is sentenced to 70 years 
      Imprisonment.

27. 80% of all people with clinical depression who have received treatment significantly 
      Improve their lives