Oddity Central

Oddity Central

A Feast for the Eyes – The Beautiful Glass Gem Corn

Posted: 02 Oct 2013 11:03 AM PDT

Few cereals can be described as stunningly beautiful, but the multi-colored Glass Gem Corn is definitely one of these rare exceptions. Also known as Rainbow Corn, these unique strain of corn features kernels of many different colors that sparkle like tiny pieces of blown glass.

The story of Glass Gem corn began with Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee farmer from Oklahoma who noticed that every once in a while some of his corn cobs had strangely-colored kernels, and dedicated his life to creating the agricultural wonder you see below. Nobody knows exactly how many years Barnes spent worked on the unique cereal, how many successive seasons he carefully chose, saved, and replanted these special seeds, but one thing is for sure – his painstaking efforts had a truly mind-blowing result, a new breed of corn that most people consider a work of art rather than a cereal.

Glass-Gem-Corn

Stairway to Heaven: The Amazing Haiku Stairs of Hawaii

Posted: 02 Oct 2013 09:43 AM PDT

Wars always leave behind empty monuments that serve as reminders of hard times. Although haunted by the memories of conflict and often death, these abandoned structures sometimes blend with their natural surroundings, revealing breathtaking landscapes of poetic proportions. One such place is the Haʻikū Stairs popularly known as  the"Stairway to Heaven", in Hawaii, a 3,922-step ascent into one of the most vivid and stunning natural sceneries on Earth.

The first steps begin in the Valley of Haiku near Kaneohe, on the island of O’ahu and climb up to 2,800 feet at a 30-degree angle. The first ladder was built during World War II, out of wood, to help string antenna cables from one side of the valley to the other. Thus, the personnel at Haiku Valley Naval Radio Station, located at about 2,800 feet above sea level, was able to communicate with the US Navy submarines as far away as Tokyo Bay. In the 1950s the ladder was rebuilt out of galvanized steel and expanded in order to accommodate the activity of the Omega Navigation System station of the United States Coast Guard. A total of 3,922 18-inch wide steps were built from ship ladders, bolted together in sections of seven and secured into the rugged hills.

Haiku-stairs

Guy Has Eaten Nothing but Raw Meat for the Last Five Years

Posted: 02 Oct 2013 07:55 AM PDT

Until five years ago Derek Nance couldn't stomach any foods and was very sick. Doctors told Derek he must have an allergy of some sorts and advised him to try various diets in order to determine the cause of his illness. He tried every kind of diet out there and was even a vegan for a while until he discovered the only thing that cured him – raw meat.

While researching the mysterious affliction that no one knew how to cure, Derek Nance stumbled upon a guy with a similar condition who told him  that the only way he could stay healthy was by following a very strict diet consisting only of raw meats. This regime was created by a dentist called Weston Price who was very interested in raw food. According to him, primitive humans who lived on a diet based on raw foods were much healthier, so it’s logical to assume that eating raw was more natural and thus healthier. Although skeptical, Nance had tried so many diets and was so desperate that he thought he'd give this one a try as well. The first raw meat he ate was that of his goats, which he had become tired of milking, and soon enough, he was only eating raw muscles, tendons, organs and fat. At first he suffered from diarrhea and had a strange irony taste in the back of his throat as a result of blood consumption. He calls this his body's adaptation period to him becoming a carnivore, but he soon got used to the bizarre eating habit, and now he actually loves the irony taste and is healthier than he's ever been.

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