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5 Mental Disorders That Only Occur in One Place on Earth
What's awesome about crazy people is they always find ways to surprise us. And there might not be anything stranger in the world of mental illness than culture-bound syndromes . These are specific, and incredibly bizarre, forms of insanity that only happen in certain countries or cultures , for reasons that often leave experts baffled. Such as... Wendigo Psychosis: Normal Folks in a Man-Eating Frenzy The Wendigo is a mythical monster that is featured in the folklore of some northern Native American and Canadian tribes.In Cracked's continuous effort to make your local haunted house look like a boring pile of dog turds, we once again present the creepiest real places on Earth. Whether it's due to their bizarre histories, suspicious coincidences or good ol' human insanity, these are the locations even the die-hardest of atheists wouldn't venture into without a crucifix and a Super Soaker full of Pope-blessed water. Located smack in the middle of a swamp in the heart of Aztec country is the popular tourist destination La Isla de las Munecas , or Island of the Dolls, a name missing at least two adjectives and the word "fucking." To get there, visitors have to hire a guide to take them by boat through the canals of Xochimilco, then to the island itself, all the while making the guide promise on a stack of Bibles that he's not going to abandon them once they reach their destination.
The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth (Part 2)
6 Glitches That Accidentally Invented Modern Gaming
Half of the art you enjoy every day is probably due to some happy accident. For instance, most of the tension in Jaws can be credited to the fact that the fake shark they were using was a mechanical nightmare and too ridiculous to show on screen. You wouldn't think video games would be subject to this, however -- a mistake in the code of a game would most likely just melt your Xbox (again) rather than invent some fun new game mechanic. Yet, some of the most iconic features of games can be credited to serendipity: A Bad Mouse Click Leads to Lara Croft's Rack
6 Intimate Details You Can Tell Just By Looking At Someone
How much would you pay to be able to read another person's mind?Everyone gets pissed off sometimes. Occasionally, even the most even-headed among us will overreact in childish ways, such as locking your boyfriend out of the car or calling your girlfriend "the Devil." But there are some people who take petty revenge to dizzying levels of perfection. Getting a Bunch of Scientists to Sign a Paper Saying You're Stupid Being a scientist has to be tough. They spend their days staring down microscopes, knowing full well that when someone asks, "What do you do for a living?"
7 Legendary Acts of Petty Revenge
5 Guilty Pleasures The Web Killed While You Weren't Looking
We're guessing not a single person reading this would be willing to take a time machine and go back and live in the pre-Internet era.
It's so hard to think logically about safety. We figure that any time our health or the safety of our children is at stake, it's better safe than sorry.
5 Popular Safety Measures That Don't Make You Any Safer
6 Non-Medical Excuses That Should Qualify You for a Sick Day
There are a handful of good excuses for not going to work: illness, death in the family, and actually that's just about it. But considering just how soul-crushing so many jobs are, I think that list needs to be expanded. I know for me getting to work on time and in a productive state is dependent on so many rituals, all of which must go exactly as planned or I'm just no good to anyone. Am I being a big baby? I sure I am, but when I'm King these will all be valid excuses.
10 Words and Phrases You Won't Believe Shakespeare Invented
Shakespeare invented more words than most people even know. Seriously, there's at least 1,500 different words and phrases that don't appear anywhere prior to the Bard of Avon putting them on paper. When he got stuck trying to think up a word, the man just made his own.We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he'll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself.
5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen
5 Personality Flaws That Science Will Cure in Our Lifetime
At least half of the bad people in the world avoid trying to change because they insist nothing is their fault. It's all due to their childhood, or their genes -- their temper, their weight, their bad habits -- all of it is outside of their control. It's bullshit, right?Have you ever blurted out, "Wow, that guy is just so...so..." and then were left floundering with nothing to say? Well, it's not always your fault. English doesn't have words for every situation, or even the ones that happen every damned day. Fortunately, other languages usually do. And since we already borrow words from them (just recently we've taken "schadenfreude," the German word for pleasure in someone else's misfortune) here's a few that we need to pick up right away: Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The 10 Coolest Foreign Words The English Language Needs
It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some places in which none of us would want to spend a night. These places have well earned their reputations as being so creepy, tragic or mysterious (or all three) that they definitely qualify as "haunted." Places like...
The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth
6 Adorable Cat Behaviors With Shockingly Evil Explanations
There seem to be two kinds of people in the world: those who don't understand cats, and those who think cats are kind of douchebags. Unfortunately for cat lovers, science has kind of come down on the side of that second group. Research has revealed that a lot of the quirky and even cute things your kitty does are actually signs that your cat is kind of a dick.The Internet was originally invented to be a communication network that could survive a nuclear war. Ironically, the monster that grew from that idea known as the World Wide Web is actually very, very fragile. They didn't anticipate what the Internet would become--because they weren't fucking insane--and as a result, the whole operation now sits on a rather shaky foundation.