Animals
Turtle Racing Track
With many kooky patents, the drawing provides a lot of visual humor. In this case, not so much. That task falls to the text.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 18, 2025 -
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Category: Animals, Inventions, Chindogu, Patents, 1950s
Bird Meets Train
I once had a flying bug arrow directly into my ear, as if fired from a gun, so I can sympathize. It took a doctor to remove the thing.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 04, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Accidents, Animals, 1900s, Trains
Equine Hitchhiker
Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 20, 2024 -
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Category: Accidents, Animals, Death, 1930s, Cars
Santa Claus Rides A Strawberry Roan
Posted By: Paul - Mon Dec 09, 2024 -
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Category: Animals, Holidays, Music, Regionalism, 1950s
Rat-Operated Vehicles
We've previously posted about researchers who created fish-operated vehicles.Along similar lines, neuroscientist Kelly Lambert of the University of Richmond has trained rats to drive small vehicles. She found that they were eager drivers: "the rats had an intense motivation for their driving training, often jumping into the car and revving the 'lever engine' before their vehicle hit the road."
More info: theconversation.com
"Some rats training to drive press a lever before their car is placed on the track, as if they’re eagerly anticipating the ride ahead."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 06, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments
The Great Grand Canyon Deer Drive of 1924
In the early 1920s, the deer population was growing out of control on the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon. The area had been designated a National Game Preserve in 1906, and since then the deer population had swelled from around 4000 to as many as 100,000 (by some estimates).Farmer George McCormick came up with a solution. He proposed herding thousands of the deer down into the canyon, over the Colorado river, and then up onto the South Rim where there was plenty of room for them.
Critics pointed out that you can't herd deer, but this didn't deter McCormick. He put together a team of about 50 men on horseback (including the writer Zane Grey) and 100 local Native Americans on foot. Then they set out to herd the deer. Details of how they fared from Arizona Highways magazine (July 2004):
"But as they drew near the deer, instead of retreating, the animals almost invariably dashed through the cordon of men," reported the Sun. "Not only did they refuse to run away forward, but in charging the line, the animals seemed not to care a particle how close they came to the men. In many instances the latter had to give ground.
"One immense buck charged four mounted men, of whom Mr. Grey was one, and the latter reached for his gun, expecting to be run down. The deer just missed the quartet...
The effort continued through that day and the next. But it never approached anything but total chaos, with deer stampeding in every direction.
For more info, there's a detailed article about the deer drive in the Summer 2004 issue of Boatman's Quarterly Review (available as free pdf). Some images from that article:
Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 24, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Farming, Really Bad Ideas, 1920s, Arizona
Secrets of Successful Varmint Calling
Secrets of Successful Varmint Calling, by Johnny Stewart, was released in 1967. I could only find a brief clip from it, but I pasted an article below with some more tips on varmint calling.Here in Phoenix you don't need any special trick to find varmints (aka coyotes). Just go for a walk in the early morning and you're bound to see one.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Aug 5, 1984
Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 29, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Hunting, Trapping and Other Wilderness Activities, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings, 1960s
Dis-Gorilla
Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 26, 2024 -
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Category: Animals, Fads, Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Music, 1970s
PETA’s Complete List of Animal-Friendly Idioms
See all of them here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 22, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Languages, Euphemisms, Cant, Weasel Words, Prissy Phrases and Orwellian Language
Rats as music critics
According to German researcher Otto Nieschulz, when rats listen to music they prefer to listen to French chansons.But when Nieschulz says 'chansons' does he mean "secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music" or the "style of French pop music which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s"? According to wikipedia, both are known as chansons.
I haven't been able to track down Nieschulz's original paper, so there's no way to know. I'm guessing the rats might enjoy both.
Indianapolis Star - May 16, 1966
Victoria Times Colonist - Apr 29, 1966
Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 31, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Music, Experiments
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |