21Longest Tapeworm
Japan is home to the world’s only parasite museum. It houses one of the most extreme parasites ever discovered by medical science, the longest tapeworm. The 8.8-meter (28 ft) Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense was removed from the stomach of a Japanese man who complained of stomach pains after eating trout. Alongside the display, is a piece of rope with an identical length and girth so that visitors can have tactile aid to see just how terrifyingly long it is.
22Stuck On Toilet
In 2008, a man named Kory McFarren called on the authorities in Wichita, Kansas stating there was “something wrong” with his girlfriend. When the authorities arrived, they were horrified to find 35-year-old Pam Babcock who had been sitting on her boyfriend’s toilet for over two years. Her skin had grown around the seat. Paramedics were forced to remove the seat which was surgically removed at the hospital. Though her boyfriend maintained that due to her tough childhood, she felt safe in the bathroom and never left, he was sentenced to 6 months of probation for waiting so long to seek help.
23Joseph Barcroft Experiments
British physiologist Joseph Barcroft known for his studies on blood oxygenation never hesitated to use himself as a test subject. He once gassed himself to an atmosphere of poisonous hydrogen cyanide for a full 10 minutes and survived. The dog with him lasted only 95 seconds before dying. To find the minimum oxygen level needed to survive, he lived in an oxygen level found at 4,900 meters for a week, causing his whole body to turn blue. He once locked himself in a refrigerated chamber to test the effects of freezing. He chose to stay until he became unconscious and had to be rescued. He discovered that at a certain point close to lethal hypothermia, the human body begins to feel warm rather than freezing cold.
24The Ubaid Lizard Men
The Al Ubaid archeological site in Iraq has yielded numerous objects from a pre-Sumerian time called the Ubaid period (5900–4000 B.C.). Some of the objects found here depict strange, lizard-like humanoid figures in unique, unceremonious poses that seem to indicate they were not gods. These statues have been drawn into stories and theories of reptilian aliens that used to roam the earth. Although this seems unlikely, their true nature remains a mystery.
25Roundworm Puzzle
To solve a century-old puzzle of how roundworm infection transmitted from one host to another, 19th-century Italian doctor Giovanni Grassi self-ingested the roundworm eggs. He obtained the eggs from a human corpse, which was heavily infected with roundworms. After a month, he experienced stomach discomfort and found fresh eggs in his feces. He thus proved that the roundworm transmitted through the fecal matter of humans and was also the first person to demonstrate the direct life cycle of the roundworm.
