Today I’m feeling a little odd which means I’m going to take a trip down the weird road. Here are few strange and weird facts which you may have heard before, but I doubt it.

• Diabetes can lead to high levels of sugar in the urine. Before simple tests for sugar levels were available, doctors would taste their patient’s urine to see if it was sweet!

• The belief that a person can cause bad luck for someone else simply by looking at them is known as the “evil eye.”

• One evil theory to explain why a dunked witch would not float was that witches deliberately ate foods that made them fart. The gas would build up in their guts, making them lighter than air, so they could fly.

• In Europe in the Middle Ages, it was believed that there were over 7 million demons in the air, which could be inhaled or swallowed and would cause disease or make a corpse turned into a vampire.

• The human eye can see only about 3000 stars on the clearest night, even though there are more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone.

• The first rock music taken into space is thought to be a Pink Floyd tape taken to the space station Mir in 1988 by French astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien. Perhaps it was The Dark Side of the Moon.

• According to a 1991 survey of Americans, 2% reported experiences that indicated they might have been abducted by aliens. This would mean that one in 50 Americans have been abducted – that’s over 5 million, at the rate of 2740 per day! Skeptics point out that this would mean the skies over America must be full of hundreds of alien spaceships every night.

• Elephants are also among the world’s most potentially dangerous animals, capable of crushing and killing any other land animal, from rhinoceros and lions to humans. It is thought they may kill up to 500 people every year.

• The mantis shrimp is a delicacy in China, where it is used in a dish known as “pissing shrimp” because the mantis shrimp urinates itself when put in a cooking pot.

• Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting or of being around others who are vomiting. It is the fifth most common phobia according to the International Emetophobia Society.

Well, that fills my quota for today of the weird and odd. As always more to come.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE WEIRD?