As a child, we told each other horror stories, frightening with vampires, zombies, demons, ghosts … However, sometimes reality can be stranger and creepy than fiction, even in such a serious field as science. We offer you a selection of the most terrible scientific discoveries and phenomena.
Space madness
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about flights to Mars and even its colonization, claiming that it will begin in 2030. However, a recent study has led to frightening findings. Laboratory mice were exposed to charged particles similar to those from which astronauts - the conquerors of the Red Planet - would not be protected in deep space.
Exposure to these particles caused the rodents' brains to become inflamed, resulting in a loss of cognition and constant anxiety.
This "space madness" did not pass even six months after the exposure.
At present, there is no method of complete protection of astronauts from the effects of cosmic radiation, so it is possible that a terrible fate awaits the future conquerors of Mars.
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DNA theft
A virus called WO parasitizes bacteria that live in the cells of some spiders, such as the black widow spider. Scientists recently discovered that this virus can "steal" part of the DNA from the spiders themselves. It turned out that WO borrowed several genes responsible for the synthesis of venom from arthropods and changed significantly.
Now, thanks to its poisonous properties, it is able to instantly dissolve the cell membranes and freely penetrate inside to begin to multiply rapidly.
The authors of the study argue that this is a completely unique case - until now it was believed that viruses "steal" genes only from bacteria, and not from multicellular creatures. It is not known how many such viruses are there and whose properties they are capable of assigning.
Salton Sea Rift
For years, seismologists have argued that the famous San Andreas Fault in the United States has long been ripe for a terrible earthquake of magnitude eight or higher on the Richter scale.
However, a reason has recently been found as to why the disaster has not yet occurred. It turned out that parallel to San Andreas there is another fault under Lake Salton-Sea, which, possibly, keeps the tectonic plate from collapse, "pulling" the tension in the earth's crust.
The discovery sparked a complete re-evaluation of the seismic hazard for the region in which Los Angeles is located. Despite the fact that while the Salton Sea Fault serves to reduce the load on San Andreas, its presence in the event of a serious disaster doubles the risk of destruction of the west coast of the United States.
Killer machine
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of the most important technologies for the near future. However, researchers at the American Carnegie Mellon University recently showed that he can be very violent. They created an artificial neural network that can kill anyone and everyone. True, they did it in the virtual world, namely in the popular network game Doom.
Artificial intelligence learned to play, receiving "rewards" for kills from the creators, and soon began to defeat all human players. So far he is just playing computer games, but who knows what will happen tomorrow …
Karolinska Butcher
Paleontologists at North Carolina State University recently discovered an unknown species of animal that is older than dinosaurs and ancient crocodiles. Despite the fact that this creepy creature became extinct more than 200 million years ago, the realization that it once roamed the planet can cause tremors and nightmares.
Reconstruction of Carnufex carolinensis
This monster was named Carnufex carolinensis ("Caroline butcher") - a fitting name for a crocodile-like creature about three meters high, which walked on two legs, like a man.
This animal lived on land and had terrible teeth, similar to the blades of a huge blade. This creature was probably the most dangerous predator before the advent of the dinosaurs.
Buddy worm
Jonathan Allen, a biology professor from the United States, once felt in 2012 that a patch of skin on his face had become strangely rough. The most frightening thing was that this area began to move across the face. Once, when the professor was taking exams, the stain moved to his mouth, and a small worm began to be seen in it.
The same worm with the scientific name Gongylonema pulchrum (left). He's in the lip of another patient (right)
Fortunately, the professor turned out to be a specialist in invertebrates. Unlike many people who would simply faint in such a situation, he calmly removed the parasite from under his skin.
It turned out to be a rare worm that infected only 13 people in the United States, including the professor himself. The case ended with Jonathan Allen publishing an article about his intruder, whom he named Buddy.
Horrible soundtrack of Jupiter
NASA's automatic interplanetary station, Juno, was tasked with collecting data on Jupiter, a mysterious gas giant. Flying over the planet, "Juno" collected information about the planet's radio emissions.
Engineers on Earth then decoded the data received by the craft into sound files. And they were shocked by the result - from the depths of space, it was as if music written for a horror movie was heard, with screeching sounds that resemble frightened human voices. Scientists hope to figure out the nature of these sounds.
Ghost behind
Sometimes, for no reason at all, we begin to feel like we are being watched. Even if you know that there is no one around, this feeling does not disappear and is very unnerving.
Such an experiment was recently carried out. The person was asked to wave his arms randomly. At the same time, there was a robot behind him, repeating all the movements of a person.
As long as the movements matched, the subject did not feel anything special. But when the movements of the robot ceased to be synchronous with the movements performed by the participants in the experiment, people began to feel that something terrible was behind their backs. They were so terrified that they asked to stop the experiment.
Zombie spider
It has long been known that parasitic wasps somehow force spiders to build very strong cocoon nests from cobwebs. How do wasps turn unfortunate arthropods into obedient zombies?
It turns out that a female wasp lays an egg in the spider's belly. The larva that matured in the spider's body feeds on its blood, in response, releasing a substance into the host, which, acting on the nervous system of the arthropod, makes it a thoughtless builder of a strong wasp nest. After completing the work, the larva devours its zombie slave, and then settles in the cocoon it has built.
"Matthew" face
Hurricane Matthew raged this fall and caused catastrophic damage and loss of life. Its main blow was taken by the people of Haiti, already exhausted by poverty - not only were buildings destroyed on the island, but more than 1000 people were killed.
In an infrared image of the hurricane taken from the NASA meteorological satellite on October 4, we see that it looks a lot like the skull with the eye that was the center of the hurricane.
Natalya TRUBINOVSKAYA, magazine "Secrets of the XX century" №49, December 2016
