Real-Life Weirdness

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Irish Wolf

And allegations of two nuclear weapons as well. Imagine the possibilities inherent in an irradiated piece of the True Cross, aboard a ship at the bottom of the Black Sea...

Tangentially related, but IIRC some of the symptoms of the Phillistines in the cities they kept the Ark after capturing it resembled those of radiation exposure.

Of course, the real roleplaying fuel here, IMO, is that you can have an organization doing diving expeditions to find the sunken ship without it being immediately obvious if they're trying to get the relic or the nukes... or both.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Tangentially related, but IIRC some of the symptoms of the Phillistines in the cities they kept the Ark after capturing it resembled those of radiation exposure.

Of course, the real roleplaying fuel here, IMO, is that you can have an organization doing diving expeditions to find the sunken ship without it being immediately obvious if they're trying to get the relic or the nukes... or both.

Or maybe just for kicks.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Or maybe just for kicks.

<Slavic accent> "Just a tourist," Mr. Bond? Why do I have trouble believing this? </Slavic accent>

[Anders]

Apparently Neptune is fluctuating in temperature

Aliens? Elder things? Cats? Who knows?

[Racer]

Funny rather than strange due to misunderstanding :

'Reports of raptor killings soared during the U.K.'s lockdown'

Posted on BBC News website & other places .
A friend of my ex - who isn't the sharpest (her nickname is Dizzy) - had a mini panic attack , as she thought Velociraptor dinosaurs were killing people in the British countryside !!!

They later changed it too 'Birds of Prey' due to others getting confused (I reckon) . Shows that ambiguous headlines can cause hilarious confusion .

We did wind her up afterwards , by stating not all dinosaurs died out & pointed to birds in back garden when she started to hyperventilate again ...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Racer

'Reports of raptor killings soared during the U.K.'s lockdown'

Anybody who tries to tell you that headline was an innocent mistake is a gorram liar.

[Lovewyrm]

Don't know if it's already been mentioned, but it's theorized (and somewhat 'proven', by reading brain neuron activity upon light stimulation) that lizards can change their perceived time rate, or 'life Frames per Second' as a side effect to regulating their body temperature by sunbathing or cooling down.

It's connected with the 'critical flicker fusion frequency' that animals, including insects, have.

On its own its how many light strobes they can perceive per second.
So 60 flickers per second look rather solid to humans (constant light)
But to something like a fly or even a dog, they see pauses between the blinks.

But the side effect of that is said to be linked with the rate time is perceived too.
A fly, for example, has a really high rate of perceivable frames per second, I think I heard, like, two or three times of a human, so they basically live in matrix bullet time compared to us.

With the upside that really fast movement is perceptible to them, but if you go really slow around a fly then it's basically motionless to them. (You can catch a fly by sloooooooowly cupping your hand over it. )

And well, lizards (crocodiles and turtles/tortoises, too, btw) and the like are said to be able to adjust it.
Which is pretty wicked, and weird.

It's theorized that it helps lizards hunt, when they are in low fps mode, and everything around them speeds up, then they can see pattern in things that move slowly, and then they can speed themselves up to camp those patterns and in bullet time then pick off the insects that are part of those patterns.

Elephants are also said to live in 'blur' mode, everything around them seems faster in relation to them, and it's beneficial to them because they don't have (m)any real predators, and allegedly living in a sped up world allows them to see patterns in weather better (like cloud movement) which allows them to strategically move to a better position to graze and whatnot.

Edit:
Found the video I heard it from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvg242U2YfQ

[sjard]

<Moderator>
A reminder that this thread is for weird bits of reality that have RPG gaming applications, not any old weird news that comes along.

This has been your roughly bi-annual-ish reminder.

Thank you.
</Moderator>

[L.J.Steele]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Anybody who tries to tell you that headline was an innocent mistake is a gorram liar.

Perhaps a cover-up for the Royal Family are lizard-people conspiracy?

[SolemnGolem]

Originally Posted by Anders

Lake of the dead.

Small lake in the middle of nowhere, India, is full of skeletons. How did they get there? We don't know. There are several theories, but none that explains them all.

Unless the lake calls people and eats them alive...

In recent days, the reservoirs around Las Vegas are running much drier than usual, and the water level is receding. This has resulted in the discovery of (at least) one oil drum with concrete-encased skeleton human remains inside.

I'll spare you the news article links but you can probably imagine for yourself what they look like.