◙ 10 Bizarre Tattoos ◙

Tattoos have always been a tradition method of self-expression. But sometimes that self-expression expresses just a little too much and many times you just have to wonder what people were thinking when they decided to get these tattoos.

10.

To Do List Tattoo

Now this is an interesting tattoo but I think that eventually it may become a tattoo that they will regret. As someone who has a wrist tattoo having something that you are going to see almost constantly every day it really has to be something important and personal. But just maybe this tattoo will keep it’s novelty and be cool to the person who has it. At least I really hope so.

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9.

Six Pack Tattoo

I suppose if you know that you’re never going to get in shape then this might be a good idea seeing as it will be the closest thing you will ever get to a six pack. Though I think it also gives new meaning to the phrase “beer gut.” Sometimes you got to think about the reason people get tattoos because like other tattoos this is only funny the first time you see it.

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8.

I See You Tattoo

This is another unique tattoo that really I cannot understand why someone would get it. Sure I mean you do it once and it is kinda funny and it will definitely catch you off guard. But after that it gets old rather quick, so I think that the goal of this tattoo is to constantly keep meeting new people. Once again I think I can respect it but I think in the long run this could be a rather silly tattoo.

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7.

Cow Tattoo

Now there are a number of tattoos that utilize holes in the body in order to add another dimension to their tattoo. Many of the more disturbing and unique ones, use holes that well I was not comfortable sharing pictures of. Turning the belly button into an anus has become a… shall I say “popular” bizarre tattoo as I have seen it done with a few different animals. This is possibly the best of the worst but many of them I have seen with cats.

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6.

Alien Tattoo

This is a truly impressive tattoo and this would really make anyone double take when you walked by. This is a bizarre but really cool tattoo and unlike some of the others on this list I really don’t think there is too much to complain about. I would really like to hear the story behind this tattoo though and I would also like to see people’s first reactions when they see him walking by.

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5.

Baby on Board Tattoo

This tattoo is really bizarre on so many levels. First I don’t think getting a tattoo while pregnant is the best idea. Second, do they realize that eventually the baby will come out and that the tattoo won’t make sense anymore. Though I truly believe that having a child and being pregnant is something that is perfectly inspiration for a child, I would hope that it would have a bit more meaning and something more personal that this one.

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4.

Zombie Boy Tattoo

This is a tattoo that I can respect because it takes a great deal of dedication (and apparently more than 24 hours and thousands of dollars) to turn yourself into a zombie. Now I personally do have a passion for something great enough to tattoo my entire body with it, so I think it is impressive that this guy does. But then again he might be a poster child for being overly obsessive about something…either way this is one really bizarre tattoo.

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3.

Breakfast Anyone? Tattoo

Now you have to really love your eggs over easy with bacon and hashbrowns in order to get this tattoo. Bald heads are great places to get unique tattoos and I have seen plenty cool and unique ones. I will grant that this one is unique, but I really think that it is unique for a reason… Honestly I can’t understand the justification for a tattoo like this and I would really like to hear it.

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2.

Legs Tattoo

Here is a tattoo that gets props for being creative but I’m not sure this is the type of creativity that is going to make him very popular with the ladies. After all who wants to date a man that has turned his armpit into a… well a… you know. I wonder if all of his guy friends thought this was brilliant or stupid because I could see a guy going either way on this one, a girl on the other hand…not so much.

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1.

Digit Tattoo

This tattoo is perhaps the most disturbing that I have ever seen and I’m not even sure why. I mean to make your arm look like a giant finger is undoubtedly creative, and if we’re being honest people are probably going to stare anyway, so why not give them something to really look at. But still I find this tattoo as creepy as it is creative.

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If you decide to get your own tattoo make sure it is something that you can truly see yourself appreciating for the rest of your life. If you don’t like tattoos remember that not all tattoos are just to look silly or strange, some of them are very important and personal to the people who get them and that is something that should be respected. In the meantime enjoy the art!

私 6 Bizarre Mysteries (That Are Still Totally Unanswered) 私

There are thousands of UFO, Big Foot or other cryptozoological sightings recorded around the world every year, and most of them can easily be proven as fakes or the ramblings of some mad-man. Yet, among these absurdities there are some rare events which simply have no explanation, and leave even skeptics puzzled. Here are six of the most peculiar mysteries that no one can find a good explanation for.

1.

Valentich disappearance

I want to believe… that this isn’t just a pie tin on a string.

Frederick Valentich was an experienced pilot, with over 150 hours of air time. He was flying a Cessna 182L light aircraft on a perfectly clear day with no wind, perfect visibility and no technical problems, when suddenly he disappeared without a trace.

The case sounds like an urban legend about the Bermuda Triangle; however this is a well documented disappearance that left authorities puzzled. A search and rescue mission was sent out only minutes after the plane disappeared from radar, however there was no trace of the plane. All Cessena aircrafts are meant to stay afloat for up to an hour after crashing in water, but in this case the plane was simply nowhere to be found. Valentich did have a life vest inside the cockpit, so why he didn’t attempt the highly complex technique known as “getting out of the plane” is unknown. Further, why the radio beacon that he had on board didn’t activate is another mystery.

Perhaps the strangest detail of the disappearance is that only minutes before he crashed, Valentich reported that he was staring down an UFO. His last, vaguely unsettling message was: “It’s not an aircraft.” This strange detail has lead to two conclusions. Some figure Valentich suffered some sort of non-hilarious stroke and started seeing things, in which case we still don’t know why his plane couldn’t be found. Other’s lean towards the possibility that Valentich was indeed kidnapped by little green men.

2.

Bimini Road

Not an extreme closeup of an old waffle.

This road, sometimes also called the Bimini Wall, is an underwater structure that stretches for half a mile near Bimini Island in the Bahamas. The whole structure is formed of rectangular limestone blocks which look very much like an ancient road or a wall. The official explanation for the strange structure is that it was caused over the years by concentrations of shells and sand. In other words, the whole thing could potentially be created over millions of years by a natural occurring phenomenon of hard shells gathering in straight angles. However, this doesn’t explain why the formation is completely unique to one specific spot in the entire whole world. It also doesn’t explain why it seems like it has multiple layers.

Atlantis was known for it’s mediocre craftsmanship.

Furthermore, several anthropologists and oceanographers believe that the road might have been created by an ancient civilization, some going as far as suggesting this might be the fabled Atlantis. Probably a stretch, but we still have to wonder how these underwater roads were created.

3.

Mary Celeste

Thankfully, there is no Gordon Lightfoot song about this.

The Mary Celeste was launched in 1860 out of Nova Scotia and was approximately 103 feet from bow to stern (sailor talk!). What is interesting about the ship is that it seems to have been cursed right out of the shipyard. It had several accidents during construction and on board, and was sold dozens of times within the first ten years.

Eventually, the ship, which was originally named “Amazon” ended up under an American captain who renamed it as “Mary Celeste.” The ship departed New York on November 7th, 1872 with a crew of seven as well as the captain’s family. None of the people on board were ever seen again.

A shipwreck was hardly a strange turn of events. But when we say “nobody was seen again”, that doesn’t include the ship. It’s considered one of the most mysterious maritime disappearances of all time because all the crew and the family members simply vanished. Nothing on board was missing, all the cargo and valuables were accounted for, and there was no sign of a struggle. The ship had month’s worth of food and water, and nothing seemed out of place, except for the fact that there were no people on board.

Explanations range from underwater earthquakes to alcohol induced hallucinations (the ship was carrying a load of whiskey). Presumably something scared all the sailors into the ships lifeboat; however why they didn’t take any food with them or what they could have seen that terrified seasoned sailors into abandoning their ship is a mystery.

4.

Marfa lights

Spookiness.

These unexplainable lights, also known as ghost lights, are usually seen near U.S. Route 67 on Mitchell Flat east of Marfa, Texas. The lights usually appear at night with no particular pattern behind them; sightings can occur days apart at times, years apart at others. Since the 1800’s, eyewitnesses report seeing mysterious orbs of light hovering in the air approximately about ten times a year. The lights almost always appear in groups or pairs, merge, separate and dance around each other, before they disappear as mysteriously as they appear like a Baldwin brother fresh out of rehab.

Since the lights usually appear over the desert, it’s hard to reach them before they disappear and there are only a few accounts of people who have reached the lights. According to these eyewitnesses the lights are created by something similar to fireworks, but lacking smoke and sound. So, not at all like fireworks.

Explanations range from alien visitors to a jerk stunt pulled by the city in order to increase tourism. Either way, no one really has a good explanation as to why the lights appear when they do or what could cause them. To add to the mystery, similar ghost lights have been seen all over the world, usually in swamps and deserts and other places people usually avoid.

5.

D. B. Cooper

A sketch of Cooper during his “Blues Brothers” phase.

One of the most famous disappearance acts in all of history doesn’t belong to Houdini, but to a man known as D.B. Cooper. Cooper and his massive stones hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in November of 1971 and demanded $200,000 in ransom. After receiving the money, Cooper ordered the plane to take off and midway through the flight, parachuted himself and his ill gotten gains into the night, disappearing forever.

This is the only unsolved case of aircraft hijacking to date and even the money has not been traced back. Even more puzzling, no one has ever found the parachute or the body of the hijacker, despite very careful investigations of the area where he would have landed. The authorities did find about $5000 of what they believe was the random money down the river from where Cooper could have landed, but only after years of fruitless searching.

The case was re-opened in 2007 when the FBI released new sketches of the hijacker, based on DNA samples and new eyewitness testimonials. Previous eyewitnesses were classified as “time-wasting jerks”. So far, not even the latest technology could reveal who D.B. Cooper really was.

6.

Shag Harbour UFO Incident

Artists rendition of something awesome.

Even most people who don’t believe in UFO’s, are confused by the case of the mysterious Shag Harbor incident. In October of 1967, an unidentified object crashed into the Nova Scotia harbor, which is officially the most mysterious harbor in the world. The object destroyed several boats and upset the local tide patterns. Despite a several month long investigation by various government agencies, no one has any idea as to what the object might have been.

This case is remarkable because it’s one of the few times that government officials formally admitted that an unidentified flying object was involved. The Canadian government stated this after all other possibilities were exhausted: the object that crashed was not a plane or a meteorite of any sort and since no wreck was ever discovered we can’t know more details about it. Canadians are, of course, known for “telling it like it is”, albeit as politely as possible.

Several of the witnesses to the crash included military personnel who declared that the object was an alien spacecraft like nothing they have seen before. A driver involved in an attempted recovery went as far as identifying the U.S. military as being responsible for the whole rescue mission, because they were interested in learning about alien life. Officially the case was only investigated by the Canadian government with the help of the U.S. Condon Committee UFO study, who didn’t offer any explanation aside from the official statement. Americans are, of course, known for “telling you to mind your own f***ing business”.

☺ Personalized Drugs Made From Your Own DNA ☺

Photo: argonne

Who else laughed, inwardly, when they read about the man who had a computer chip implanted in his arm, to turn on office equipment when he arrived at work? It sounded a bit gruesome, somehow, the idea of computers inter-acting with the human body - yet in medical terms, it could be the way of the future.

The book 'Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World', suggests that early successes in medicine could involve rebuilding parts of the human body.

For example, the printing of artificial skin on three-dimensional printers. Printers are now injected with self-assembling materials for growing human tissue. Skin is sprayed by ink jet printers onto sterile surfaces, where it then grows for later grafting.

Photo: argonne

Growing skin may not be what is imagined as the future of medicine, but medical technology is advancing more quickly than most dreamed. Computing is now a thousand times faster than only ten years ago. Optical processing is used to manufacture devices that can perform up to eight trillion operations per second.

Genetic information has always been a problem area for the medical world, when it comes to diagnosing, or even forecasting illness, but that could very soon be changed completely. Now that 90% of the human genome has been mapped, medical science is beginning to have a much clearer idea of how genetics can influence a person’s health.

An example of this is the drug Herceptin, developed for the treatment of breast cancer. This is a tailored drug, because about one third of women with breast cancer have a genetic flaw which leads to their having overly high levels of HER2 – a receptor which encourages cancerous cell growth. Herceptin works specifically for these women, jamming the HER2, and allowing 65% of them to remain cancer free for longer than they otherwise would.

Photo: jurvetson

Scientists have decoded the DNA of the malaria parasite and the mosquito that spreads it, opening the door to a vaccine against the disease that kills more than two million annually and sickens tens of millions more. Nanotechnology is in its infancy, but already IBM have successfully developed nano-size drug carriers for treating cancer.

Photo:

Each of these microscopically tiny 'pills' contain drugs that are only released when the diseased area has been reached. These nano-carriers are stable in normal physiological environments, but in slightly acidic environments like tumor tissues, they deform, releasing the enclosed drug molecules.

Such treatments could be standard for all diseases in the future, which is comforting given that the reality of modern drugs is far from reassuring. 80% of drugs in development will fail at some stage, and when you consider that the average development time can be anything from 7 to 15 years, costing $500 – 900 million a time, you start to worry a little. Add to this the awful statistic that 20 – 40% of people don’t respond to their prescribed drugs, and the alarm bells ring even louder.

Even the top twenty drugs cannot cure cancer, aids or heart disease, and with two million people being hospitalized each year, and 100,000 dying from complications which arise through the taking of drugs, it seems vital that the medical world explore any available option for more effective treatments.

Photo: Arenamontanus

It has been estimated that the knowledge contained within the map of the human genome could accelerate drug development times dramatically, possibly by as much as 50%, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this makes life easier for the researchers. A major stumbling block will be the diversity of gene combinations, which can give rise to different illnesses.

In the beginning, it was thought that humans had about 100,000 genes, but it is now known that the number is considerably less, at between 30 and 40,000. This is likely to mean that no single gene will be coded for one protein, but several, and since the proteins are the pivotal essentials for the working of our bodies, their malfunction causes disease.

Drug companies aim to ‘target’ proteins, by blocking or encouraging the way they work, but since they currently target only 483 of a possible 35,000, it’s easy to see that a lot of work still needs to be done. What is really needed is a clear understanding of the way that proteins interact with the body, and indeed exactly how human cells work..

Photo: argonne

Dr. George Milne, of Pfizer pharmaceuticals in New York, says: “I liken it to thinking about a crossword puzzle. If you just assign 32 across with no other information, you can slog away and give up, but if you look at 31 down and fill in some letters, you begin to advance. I think that’s where we’re at now.”

Photo: jurvetson

It will take many years yet before the possibility of personalized drugs becomes reality, but we may indeed reach a point where the whole of your individual genome information could be stored on a chip, and implanted into your body. On visiting the surgery, the doctor could scan it, using the technology to prescribe drugs tailor-made to your particular needs.

It sounds like science fiction, but there seems little doubt that it will become fact in due course. The down side to it may be the cost. With drug development costing so much, are the pharmaceutical giants going to be willing to spend vast sums on cures that may only work for a very small percentage of people?

In the end, there will always be those patients with the financial clout to afford this treatment, and they will most likely reap the benefits first, for a time, while the rest of us make do with ‘off the shelf’ preparations. Society as a whole will need to re-think its attitude to the whole question before these treatments become generally available.

In spite of the mountain of research still needed, and the obvious pitfalls ahead, medical science is keen to pursue the use of the genome for personalized drug treatment, and it seems clear that this would be an enormous leap forward for medicine. No doubt the treatment will never be 100% personalized – that’s too much to expect – but it will make diagnosis easier, and improve the quality of life for many.

Photo: jurvetson

Professor Eric Lander, of the Whitehead Institute in Massachusetts, and a major participant in the Human Genome project says: “It was nuts 15 years ago to say we’d do the Human Genome project. We have to turn drug discovery from a high-risk art to high-level engineering. Mapping 35,000 proteins was not trivial, but it was just work. A century from now we will look back and say ‘Boy, it was hard the way they did things then’

One day, in the not too distant future, your medicines could be made to measure exactly as your clothes are now, all because that medicinal computer chip, lying unnoticed under your skin somewhere, can tell the doctor almost everything he needs to know. If the reality is as good as the theory, we all have something to look forward to.

© tonyleather