Month: September 2014

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Jack the Ripper Identified with DNA! … well, maybe

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Of course it’s click bait for all demos… AMATEUR RIPPEROLOGIST SOLVES JACK THE RIPPER MYSTERY. Every tabloid, newpaper, website, has been running something on this story, and I can’t be surprised; I clicked on the first one I saw. And the second. And after reading several reports on it, I realized that maybe this case isn’t exactly as airtight as hyperbolic headlines would have us believe.

Here’s what happened: a businessman named Russell Edwards watched the movie “From Hell”, spent some ‘mad money’ on a shawl allegedly found near Catherine Eddowes body, and had the cloth tested for DNA. Blood and semen on it was submitted to mitochondrial DNA testing and it matched a descendant of suspect Aaron Kosminski. Edwards also claims other testing matched descendants of Kosminski’s sister.

So that’s it. We have a winner (?) Kosminski looked good for the Ripper anyway, since he lived in the Whitechapel district, had severe mental illness, well known misogyny and the Ripper crimes stopped after he was committed.

But hold up, Ripperologists…this ain’t over till it’s over (and it probably never really will be, unless we invent time travel).

–First, why is Edwards submitting his findings to The Daily Mail (a tabloid) instead of a scientific journal?

–Second. why has there been no attempt to present the evidence for testing to other scientists? So far, we’re going just on the word of Edwards and Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior molecular biology lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.

–Third, Mitochondrial DNA isn’t exactly a reliable indicator when we’re talking about how many people handled the scarf, and how many people share the DNA coding after such a sizable divide in time.

This is just getting started. Check out more detailed explanations of these reasons and more at Mysterious Universe.

And I always assumed it was David Warner.

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Why Not Spend That Vacation Hunting Werewolves?

Come on now. Zombie walks and the like are so 5 years ago. Why not go classic and contact the UK based company Chili Sauce who’ll kit you out in paramilitary gear, give you basic training, and set you and your team up against a crew of bloodthirsty werewolves?

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You’ll be placed in the darkened forests of Droitwitch, England and given the premise for your horrific evening:

Deep in the heart of the countryside, near Birmingham, Farmers have reported unusual losses of livestock, and missing person reports are flooding the local papers. Rumors surfaced of a Special Ops team disappearing 24 months ago – the only clues left were a garbled radio message, and a mangled corpse.

An early morning drop off at the location starts your day (if you chose the shorter few hours option) or the long, long evening (if you went for the big werewolf kahuna package). The basic military training course includes being taught how to use automatic weapons, shotguns, explosive booby traps and more: all skills you’ll need to survive the night.

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The official page says you’ve got a ‘slim chance of survival’, but hell, you knew that when you accepted the mission. But who knows, maybe you’ll get an easy one.

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HAHAHAHA! No, just kidding, you’re totally gonna be werewolf chow.

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The Drunken Shakespeare Theater Company

The Bard’s plays have always been subject to reinterpretation. Both theatrical and film productions have set his works in a variety of different time periods, adapting the material to the new settings appropriately. Even my high school did a performance of “The Taming of the Shrew” set in the 1950’s. But The Drunk Shakespeare Society in NYC have found an angle I’m not sure the bard would have approved of.

drunk-shakespeare-550x355The idea is that both the performers and the audience is kinda drunk and the alcohol weaves its way into the storyline, often even involving the audience interactively with the group, getting to change the story, demand the performers all take shots, and even play limited roles themselves. Weirdly, there’s multiple groups doing this now, going from bar to bar and performing famous scenes from Shakespeare with their audience in tow, often baffling patrons at the bars in question with their sudsy renditions.

You can check out a video at the link of one of the groups, Shotspeare, teasing their performance. The shows often feature drinking games with the audience and even karaoke with the performers. Which begs the question: what’s left to do that we haven’t found a way to infuse with drinking? Look for this to appear in other cities soon as well, as it seems to be a big hit in NYC. Can’t believe Austin, TX didn’t come up with it first.

 

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Welcome to Hell, Pennsylvania

The town of Centralia located in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, was once a busy town filled with people, banks, a theater, their own school district, you know…town stuff. That is, until hell rose from the depths and took over.

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Ok, yes, I’m being rather hyperbolic here, but the town was hellish enough to serve as inspiration for the film adaptation of the “Silent Hill” video game, as well as feature prominently in a number of horror novels. What turned this prosperous little community into a smoking ruin?

In 1962, and nobody knows exactly how it started, the extensive abandoned coal mines under the town caught fire. And NOTHING could be done about it. The streets cracked open, fire and burning steam poured out, eventually making the town all but unlivable. By 1981, things had gotten out of control. Sinkholes were opening up, toxic carbon monoxide gas was billowing out of the cracks in the road…something had to be done. In 1984, Congress allocated money to relocate the residents and most of them gladly accepted the offer. By today the town has ten (stubborn) residents and all but a few of the original buildings are gone.

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You can still visit the town, more hellish in the winter as the heated steam is that much more visible in the cold weather. The roads are undrivable, cracked so wide open and covered with graffiti. Strangely the graveyards remain immaculate; former residents pay to keep their loved one’s final resting places in good shape. It does one speculate as to why more horror movies don’t get filmed there. Looking for a Hellmouth? We got your Hellmouth.

 

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The Museum of the Weird Recommends: “Dr Mütter’s Marvels”

DrMuttersMarvels Jacket Art

Many of our website’s/museum’s fans are no doubt familiar with Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Started from the collection of oddities donated by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter in 1858, the museum has since grown significantly and attracted a wide range of visitors, from medical students, for whom the museum was originally intended for, to seekers of the strange and unusual.

The museum’s collection houses such strangeness as a nine foot human colon that belonged to a sideshow act named “The Human Balloon”, the Hyrtl skull collection (gathered to disprove the claims of Phrenologists that skull shapes dictated personality), the conjoined liver from famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng, a two-headed baby, and many more genuine examples of the medically weird. But who was Dr Mütter and how did he figure into the history of medicine?

Such is the subject of the new book “Dr Mütter’s Marvels” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, who also wrote an award winning (but still unproduced screenplay about the good doctor. And I mean, good doctor, as opposed to most of the rest of his peers performing medicine in the early to mid-19th century.

Dr Mütter was a compassionate man who went abroad to Paris to study and found a medical community that was both appalling and inspiring. Some of the most advanced surgery in the world was practiced there but there was no consideration for patient care outside of the surgery itself; patients were routinely shipped home immediately after their surgeries, considerably endangering the delicate subjects. There were many contradictions, for example: while Paris had two hospitals for treating those sick with Syphilis, but one of them required all patients to be publicly whipped before and after their entrance to the hospital.

When Mütter returned to America with what he had learned, already formulating ideas on advancing medicine and patient care, he was met with much hostility from a medical community that resisted change with arrogance and ego. Nevertheless, Mütter became one of the first plastic surgeons in America, revolutionizing treatment of those with deformities, burns and scarring with his new treatments, many of which are still in use today.

He butted heads with many contemporaries over his insistence on proper pre and post surgical care of patients, his early adoption of modern anesthesia, as well his insistence that doctors thoroughly wash up before treating patients. It’s hard to believe today, but doctors of the time, thinking even more of themselves than they do today, considered that a ‘gentleman’s hands are clean’ by default. Ever heard that old joke about God thinking he was a doctor? Ugh.

Mütter’s story is a fascinating, and long overdue to be told, one that Aptowicz infuses with charm and can’t-put-it-down readability. The man who is best known for his sizable collection of bizarre medical oddities should really have been known for bringing humane practices to modern medicine.

01.winters_cristin_aptowicz_Skull copyCristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Buy “Dr Mütter’s Marvels” right here!