Oddity Central

Oddity Central


These Burgers Are Made of Flies and They Are Amazingly Nutritious

Posted: 21 Jul 2015 10:19 AM PDT

Every year, during the rainy season, trillions of midges – small flies – rise from the water of Lake Victoria, in Africa, and fly in giant swarms that are said to be so dense they can suffocate a person. However, for the people living on the shores of the great lake, they are just a welcome source of protein.

Some bird species migrate to Lake Victoria during the rainy season so they can take advantage of this free feast. The flies create a sort of constantly buzzing living smog and cover every available surface as they break off from their mating ritual. But no matter how many of them are gobbled up by birds and other natural predators, there are always more than enough for the locals. As disgusting as eating flies may seem, the reality is they make up a huge quantity of biomass equivalent with large herds of big game. People living on the shores of Lake Victoria simply can’t ignore the nutritious protein flying all around them, so they catch the flies and cook them as charcoal-black fly burgers.

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Doctors Save Man’s Severed Hand by Attaching it to His Leg

Posted: 21 Jul 2015 06:12 AM PDT

Chinese surgeons recently performed a bizarre surgery in order to save a man's severed hand. They grafted it on to his ankle for a month, before reattaching it to his arm!

The innovative surgery was carried out on factory worker Zhou, from Changsha, China's Hunan province. Zhou's left hand was accidentally severed from his arm during an accident involving a spinning blade machine. He was immediately rushed to Xiangya Hospital, where Dr. Tang Juyu and his team realised that the damaged nerves and tendons needed time to heal. If they tried to attach the hand to his arm immediately, its cells would die from lack of blood supply.

"Under normal temperatures, a severed finger needs to resume blood supply within 10 hours, but that time is even shorter for a separated limb," Tang explained. "If a limb is short of blood for too long, its tissues die and it will be unsalvageable."

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Artist Hand-Carves Sheets of Paper to Create Photo-Realistic Celebrity Portraits

Posted: 21 Jul 2015 04:55 AM PDT

Armed with an X-acto knife and a pair of tweezers, Korean artist Yoo Hyun carves intricate, highly realistic portraits of celebrities. His paper-cut portraits look like abstract designs from up-close, but at a distance, the thin slits reveal the faces of movie stars, world leaders, and musicians.

Hyun's signature style consists of zig-zag patterns, but he doesn't carve in straight lines. Instead, he varies the thickness of each strip, to create facial features and expressions. Each line specifically adds to the three-dimensional illusion. The negative spaces are see-through, so layering the portrait over a colored surface or pattern adds even more depth. He mostly chooses a black ink-splattered surface, but sometimes he uses bold colors like blue and red to illuminate the portraits.

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