Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Thriving Bottle Garden Hasn’t Been Watered in Over 40 Years

Posted: 11 Apr 2014 04:22 AM PDT

David Latimer is one of the world’s few proud owners of an entirely self-sustaining bottled garden. Looking at pictures of the lush green bottle, you'd think that growing it involved a lot of hard work. But the truth is that David hasn't even watered it in over 40 years. It's just been sitting under the hallway stairs in his home and it's doing extremely well on its own.

The story of his this amazing experiment began in 1960, on Easter Sunday, when David decided that it would be fun to start a bottle garden. Since they were a bit of a craze back then, he wanted to see for himself what the fuss was all about. So out of idle curiosity, he got himself a 10-gallon globular bottle, poured some compost at the bottom and used a piece of wire to carefully lower a seedling in. Then he put in just about a quarter of a pint of water, and believe it or not, he only watered the plant once more in 1972. Never again after that. It has been alive and kicking for the past 54 years.

The plant that David placed in the bottle is an indoor variety of perennial spiderworts that also go by the Latin name of Tradescantia. The bottle itself is tightly sealed; David only needs to rotate it around often so it grows evenly towards the light. "Otherwise, it's the definition of low-maintenance," he said. "I've never pruned it, it just seems to have grown to the limits of the bottle."

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Artist with Background in Criminology Turns Bones into High-End Jewelry

Posted: 11 Apr 2014 03:05 AM PDT

Artist Kirstin Bunyard has managed to blend her two great passions – fashion and dissection – into a morbid yet intriguing art form. Kirstin makes high-end, elegant jewelry (rings, bracelets and necklaces) using natural bones. In 2009, she started her own label called Ossuaria Jewelry, through which she sells her handmade accessories. She personally selects the bones for each piece and fashions them by hand to create 'bold and dramatic adornments' that are meant for 'people with a bit of an eccentric side'.

Kirstin has a background in criminology, but she was always interested in fashion as well. "From the time I was 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer," she said. Her dream was to 'take on the world of punk culture and high fashion'. She sketched all the time, waiting for the day when her creations would be displayed on the runway. But by the time she got to college, her life had taken a different course.

After college, Kirstin worked for a short while as an autopsy assistant and attended several autopsies and embalmings. During this time she developed a great admiration for bones – the structures that support the body. She found them so elegant and alluring that she began to believe that they deserved a more prominent place outside the body. That's when she seriously began to consider shifting her line of work.

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Rare Condition Causes Woman to Smell Like Rotten Fish

Posted: 11 Apr 2014 01:45 AM PDT

For 14 years, company director Ellie James has been receiving the same Secret Santa presents at Christmas – bottles of perfume and bars of soap. And when she opens them, she is met with roaring laughter from her colleagues. The presents are mortifying, they break her heart every time because they are a subtle reminder of the horrible genetic disorder that she has to live with. Ellie suffers from a rare condition that leaves her reeking of fish and rotten eggs.

Ellie's condition might seem amusing or even downright funny, but it's quite sad when you look at it from her point of view. You might think that she isn't very good at personal hygiene, but you would be wrong. At one point, she even showered five times a day and scrubbed her skin with dishwashing detergent until it became red and raw. But nothing worked; no matter how much Ellie cleaned herself, the smell kept coming back stronger.

It all began when Ellie turned 30. "At first I didn't understand what was wrong," said the 44-year-old from Abingdon, Oxfordshire. "I'd always had impeccable hygiene. The smell was a complete mystery – I wondered if my cat had brought in a mouse and left it to rot. But I slowly realized it was me when strangers began to stare at me while holding their noses. I heard people whispering about me in the office."

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