That’s Not How You Do It!

A man puts on a jockstrap the same way he puts on underwear: One leg at a time! 

So why is this Dutch cricket player named Ryan ten Doeschate doing it this way? I don’t think you EVER want a cup near your nose!

Photo from the Telegraph.

Troll Boogers!

This troll lives in Seattle. He's known as the Troll Under the Bridge, which isn't that descriptive, since ALL trolls live under bridges!

If you're in the neighborhood, you can climb and crawl on the troll.

But  I DON'T recommend picking its nose; troll boogers are almost impossible to get off your hand!

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

The tuatara is an unusual reptile that lives on New Zealand.

How unusual? Well, the tuatara can live to be over 100 years old AND it has a primitive "third eye" at the top of its skull.

Wild!

But the reason that the tuatara is on Ultra-Gross! is because of its eating habits. It loves to chow down on gigantic crickets called wetas. (That's a weta to the left.)

And according to a tuatara researcher, “Walking through the forest at night, you can hear the tuataras eating — crunch, crunch, crunch.”

Sheesh!

Top photo from here,

cricket from the New York Times.

Why, you little...!

Wait— dogs can't read! (Or if they CAN, they're doing a good job of not showing it.)

Do You Want Bugs or Pooh?

Cookbooks are fun to use, especially when they include delicious ingredients like spiders and grasshoppers.

If you're interested in this sort of thing (and who isn't!), check out David George Gordon's Eat-a-Bug Cookbook.

I heard about Gordon's book at Boing Boing, which included this picture of edible bugs laid out by a chef named Soichi Ukiyama.

Pure protein!

Hey, if you get Gordon's book, you can keep it on the same kitchen bookshelf as Cooking with Pooh!

Jet-Propelled Horse?

"You poop more than anyone!"

Many countries don't have enough toilets. Not good! So an group called International Development Enterprises (IDE) helps by installing new sewage systems in these places.

That IS good! After all, in places like Cambodia, only one person in five has access to a toilet. But I still felt bad for a man there who got a new toilet and started using it right away.

Then during a village meeting, it was announced that he'd done something special:

"Congratulations! 

You produce more poop 

than anyone in the village."

Yay!

This news story from the BBC also has this photo of an aid worker explaining that if people always poop in the woods outside of their village, they are surrounding themselves with grumpies!

Zombie Jerky: A product that's not making a lot of sense!

Ooh, look, it's Zombie Jerky!

But is this jerky made FROM zombies? Or is the jerky made FOR zombies, and from humans?

Neither. The package says this is beef jerky. It also helpfully says that the jerky is "for eating"! 

Okay, so why is the jerky green? Oh, my brain hurts from so many questions.

Hey, now THAT sounds good: BRAAIINS!

Read David Moye's article on zombie jerky here.

Swimming Bulldog!

I've been trying to track down who took this photo of a diving bulldog... the pup looks like he just got a look at this blog!

"Paging Donner, dinner party of 32..."

Yes.

Eating humans IS wrong. The meat is stringy and tough! 

Also, my brother-in-law says that if you ate a person, “you would digest human fat which usually only happens when you are starving and digesting your OWN fat. So, your body thinks you are starving, which makes you more ravenous for MORE human meat!”

I haven’t read Allan C. Hutchinson's book Is Eating People Wrong?, but I think the title refers to the Case of the Speluncean Explorers. Read all about it! (And thanks to Eavan Shaw and Andrew Simon for the assists.)

Harry Potter's Bathroom Graffiti!

A teenager named Sara took this picture of bathroom graffiti. It's about the most ambitious bathroom scrawling I've ever seen. Not only that, but it turns out to be the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!

Stinky Sock Spiders!

Some people think spiders are gross, and EVERYBODY hates stinky socks. So you’d think that a spider who is attracted to sweaty, stinky socks would be revolting. But it’s not!

Here’s the deal: Mosquitoes are attracted to human smells, so sweaty socks are like mosquito magnets. And since the East African jumping spider (Evarcha culicivora) eats mosquitoes, it’s learned that sweaty socks are good places to pounce on its prey.

In the tropics, blood-sucking mosquitoes can carry diseases like malaria. So folks there should encourage the jumping spider to hang out in their dirty laundry! As this BBC article says, the spider “may be a rather ugly, bloodthirsty little creature, but it could help in the ongoing and complex battle against malaria.”

Why does that man have blood on his apron?!

Warning: This video for The Big Book of Spy Stuff contains graphics!

So THAT'S what you wipe with!

Thanks, French sign-maker!

Get it? Get it?

Wineed to Poo is apparently a plumbing service in Seminole, Florida. (It took me a moment to figure out that their Poo bear is holding a roll of toilet paper!)

There's nothing like a romantic cake!

Over at Lily Vanilli, you can order an anatomically correct "heart" cake. Impressive!

And don't worry, that's not real blood!

This amazing dessert is made with red velvet sponge cake with blackcurrant and cherry “blood”.

See, it's all perfectly innocent!

Oh, good grief.

"I love you. Here's a giant, hissing cockroach."

The Madagascar hissing cockroach is huge. And it hisses. How romantic! You could even write a love poem about it:

The way your cockroach hisses

Is by forcing air through the breathing holes in its thorax

This is sort of like the way

That I love you.

Not bad! And if you want to get REALLY lovey-dovey on Valentine's Day, go by the Bronx Zoo's website. You can name a hissing cockroach for the one you love! (The Bronx Zoo motto: "Flowers wilt. Chocolates melt. Roaches are forever.")

"Time for some shut-eye. Hey, where's everyone going?"

Next time you go camping, impress your friends with this anatomically-correct sleeping bag! Nothing is more restful after a hard day's hiking than curling up in a warm bag of guts. Erk!

Also available: An Egyptian sarcophagus sleeping bag!

Gross Valentine's Day Cards!

Over at QuinkyArt, artist Elliott Quince has some zombie Valentine's Day cards that will make your loved one's heart go pitter-pat. (And that might be the LAST sound it makes!)

Uh... why is that fungus bleeding?

Did you know there's a really gross mushroom-creature known as the Bleeding Tooth Fungus (Hydnellum peckii)? It has other fun names too, like the Devil’s tooth and … strawberries and cream? Oh-kay.

The fungus's "blood" comes from a red juice that bleeds out on younger mushroom's. Hey, maybe that part tastes like strawberries! Oh, rats. According to Wikipedia, this fungus is inedible! But what would happen if someone ate the Bleeding Tooth Fungus anyway? Would their teeth start bleeding? Only one way to find out—

Nope, my teeth are fine. (But I sure hope that’s strawberry jam coming out of my ears!)

Sea cucumbers are edible! (And so is phlegm.)

Who WOULDN’T want to eat a sea cucumber? I mean, any animal that can breathe through its anus must be delicious!

That’s why folks in Great Britain are thinking about eating more sea cucumbers. (These are animals, not vegetables, by the way.) People in Asia eat sea cucumbers all the time, but less so in the West. 

This may be because of the sea cucumber’s taste. One person describes it as tasting worse “than phlegm, the texture of which it closely resembles.”

Photo from the Independent.

Okay, what wise guy locked my bowels?

And that my bowels ARE locked, how will I ever get them open again?

If only there were a book I could read to help me with this problem—

Hey, look! Thank you, Salem Kirban!

"I CAN HAZ POOP IN A BRIEFCASE"

The My Carry Potty is a little briefcase for poop. After using it, kids can carry it with them and then impress elders.

“I can poop on a potty!”

“Good for you!”

“Here’s the proof!” *opens case*

“Oh dear Lord!”

"You want me to WHAT?"

I find My Carry Potty silly for a number of reasons. First, its makers dressed this poor girl in the most impractical outfit for peeing and pooping ever. I don't know about you, but the LESS gauzy lace I'm wearing in the bathroom, the better!

And second, look at its product description:

—“My Carry Potty was invented and designed by a mum for mums...”

Weird. It looks a little small for adults!

—“[My Carry Potty is] completely leak and odour-proof...”

So after Junior poops in the potty, you can forget about it for days!

—“Many parents tend to put [potty training] off because it can be inconvenient, especially when you're always on the move.”

Totally! My parents were so busy, they didn’t even teach me how to talk until I was 16.

What's a "Transpoosion"?

By misocrazy.

A transpoosion is a poop transfusion. In other words, a doctor replaces YOUR poop with someone else’s. And then you bust someone else’s grumpy!

How does this foreign poop get inside of you? One of two ways:

1.) Through a tube inserted in your nose.

2.) With an enema.

Arg!

But why would a person NEED a poop transfusion? I don’t have the heart to explain, so you’ll have to check David Moye’s AOL article on it. And while you’re at it, look at this Reuters piece also! (Me, I’m going to try and forget that I could theoretically take a dump that was taken from another person’s poop chute!)

Guess Which Odd Animal is Imaginary!

We have two candidates for you today. First up is the rare Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

Below is an artist's vision of this arboreal cephalopod. (More information on this unique animal here.)

And the second candidate is this Ecuadorian grasshopper known as a jumping stick insect.

So which is fake? (Click "Read more" to read more.)

Finger-Nailed It!

Jazz Inkson Sinkfield has grown her fingernails out long. REALLY long. Why, why, WHY?

“They're a gift, and I can say, a talent too,” she says, “because it's something that everyone cannot do.” Occasionally, she says, people see her nails and make ugly remarks. “The women will turn their nose up to me,” she says. “Some people are jealous,” she adds with utter seriousness.

Oh. Story here, video below.

If You Outlaw Farting, Will Only Outlaws Fart?

Malawi is a country in southeast Africa. And a new bill is being proposed in Malawi to outlaw farting in public. So if they pass the law, you can’t pass gas!

This is going to be tricky. As we all know, pinning blame on a guilty farter is difficult. And if farting becomes a crime, won’t the criminal just try to blame someone else for his gas? 

I get blamed for someone else’s methane all the time, and it’s not even a crime in the U.S.! (Hey, maybe they could use police dogs to smell out the criminal.)

By Scott Wilcoxson

A Malawian woman said, “Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing.” Hmm, maybe Malawi is more like the U.S. than I realized!

Anyway, the idea is that passing this law would promote public decency. And one lawyer said it would the same as enforcing the laws that ban peeing in public.

Wait— you’re not supposed to pee in public? Man, nobody told me! (And I’m keeping away from Malawi. I could get a life sentence there!)

Stories from the Daily Mail and the BBC. If you want to read the exact proposed law, click “Read more”:

"Don't eat the baby!"

"For the love of all that's holy, 
let me OUT of this thing!"

I've got a lard worm in my eye!

From PSmicrographs.

Actually, almost EVERYONE has lard worms in their eyes. That's the common name for the eyelash mites also known as Demodex folliculorum.

The lard worms are only a hundredth-of-an-inch long, so you can't see them. And not seeing them is good because lard worms are gross! (In that photo, the lard worms are climbing out of a hair follicle.)

This website that takes a more alarmist view of the lard worm. I love the banner graphic:

"Not my SEBACEOUS gland!"

Ever wonder what bird poop tastes like? Me either!

I just heard a story from someone code-named biscuitbiscuit. It involves bird poop. And it made me laugh:

Got back to my car after a long
 day at work, only to discover an enormous bird
 poop right in the middle of my windshield. I had 
nothing to clean it off with— no 
water, no tissues, no scraper, nothing. But I
 couldn't have driven as I wouldn't have been
 able to see anything.

So I cleaned the bird poop off with 
my hand.

Then, as I pulled out my keys, I had a 
bizarre moment of brain-fade and thought “What's
 that all over my hand?” and cheerfully licked it 
to find out. 

This was followed by hacking, gagging and
 spitting to try and get the bird poop out of my 
mouth! I am an idiot. An idiot who was lucky not
 to be ill. An idiot who was also very lucky not 
to be seen by anyone!

Why does everything drink from the toilet?

This cool shot of a Star Wars Imperial Walker drinking out of the toilet is by Rodrigo Leonardo Batista Ferreira. It's available as a T-shirt over at Threadless T’s. Get a couple for the Number 1 and Number 2 people in your life!

The Parsnip Monster Escapes!

"I am coming ... for YOU!"

Of all the vegetables, none is more frightening than the parsnip. This one snuck into the house, and hid in the back reaches of the refrigerator until it was slimy and inedible.

I gloves on and stuck the tentacled vegie in our compost container. But the hideous creature popped the lid off and escaped! Now everyone in the house is worried about where it might turn up next.

So if you see a parsnip scuttling across your backyard, don't be alarmed. Just calmly move out and NEVER, ever return.

Even DEAD Italians are fashionable!

At the south end of Italy is the island of Sicily. And that’s where you’ll find the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo!

A catacomb is an underground cemetery. And inside the Capuchin Catacombs (which are 500 years old) are the bodies of about 8,000 people. 

And not just ANY people. These are really well-dressed Italian mummies! The idea was that after people died, they were brought to the catacombs wearing their best clothes.  Relatives and friends would then come visit them, and hang out. 

And sometimes they'd even bring new outfits for the mummies to wear!

No, I’m not kidding. And best of all: These catacombs are open to the public! 

Slide-show of the catacombs

from the Telegraph here.

Kurt Vonnegut explains why we are here!

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the finest writers of the 20th century.

One thing that Vonnegut enjoyed was doodling and drawing in notebooks. And hey, here's an example of what I mean!

Are You a Gut Reader?

Did you know there's a magazine called Gut? Me either!

It's intended for doctors who specialize in ... guts. 

And look at that cover! It shows a patient with diverticulosis. It's what when your intestine grows little pouches because you’re not eating enough fiber. 

In the photo, the green parts are diverticulosis pouches. The intestine is pink. And this is actually the last part of the intestine (called the colon), just before it hits the rectum.

You’re welcome.

You may be thinking, “Sure I could subscribe to GUT, but where would I read it?” Well, besides a stool, you could read Gut on the toilet.

Where better to remember to eat more fiber?

Photo from Du Cane Medical Imaging Ltd.