National Geographic Tales of the Weird

by David Braun

  This sensory merger, called synesthesia, was first scientifically documented in 1812 but was widely misunderstood for much of its history, with many experts thinking the condition was a form of mild insanity.

  “The taste of beef, such as a steak, produces a rich blue … Mango sherbet appears as a wall of lime green with thin wavy strips of cherry red. Steamed gingered squid produces a large glob of bright orange foam, about four feet away, directly in front of me.”

  Sean Day

  linguistics professor, National Central University, Taiwan

  The Color of Two

  “It’s not just that the number two is blue, but two is also a male number that wears a hat and is in love with the number seven,” said study co-author David Brang, of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). “We’re not sure if these personifications are [also a symptom of] synesthesia, but we think this is what derailed a lot of scientists from being interested in it … They thought these people were making it all up.”

  Early misunderstandings of synesthesia were due in part because the associations that synesthetes described were very precise and detailed, prompting some experts at the time to link the condition with mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Another early “view held that synesthesia was a ‘throwback’ to a more evolutionarily primitive state,” said study co-author Vilayanur Ramachandran, also a neuroscientist at UCSD.

  During the past 30 years, though, a growing body of evidence has shown that synesthesia has a physical basis—for example, the brains of synesthetes are wired differently, and the condition is highly heritable, which indicates there is a genetic component.

  In fact, the study authors think it’s possible such a strange phenomenon has survived in an evolutionary sense because it offers people certain benefits to creative thinking. “Ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of synesthetes love their synesthesia and say it enhances their lives,” Brang said.

  TRUTH:

  IN THE UNITED STATES, STUDIES SHOW THAT THREE TIMES AS MANY WOMEN AS MEN HAVE SYNESTHESIA; IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, EIGHT TIMES AS MANY WOMEN ARE REPORTED TO HAVE IT.

  A Better Understanding

  Today scientists have tools that allow them to probe the brain in ways that were impossible 200—or even 10—years ago. One such tool is a type of brain scan called DTI, short for diffusion tensor imaging, which lets scientists see the connections between different brain regions. “We can see that there’s increased connections in synesthetes between the associated [senses],” Brang said.

  Visualizing these connections between sensory brain regions could help explain why certain forms of synesthesia exist and why the condition tends to be unidirectional—for example, numbers can evoke colors but colors don’t typically evoke numbers. Such studies could also help test an idea proposed by some scientists that all humans have the neural mechanism for synesthesia but it’s suppressed for some reason.

  Another positive development in synesthesia research is that scientists are relearning how to listen to their subjects, the study authors say.

  “Listening to the subjective reports of people fell out of practice in the mid-20th century, but you can learn an amazing amount of information from just sitting down for 20 minutes and talking to a patient,” Brang said. “You can begin to trust what they’re experiencing.”

  A Boon to Creativity?

  Studies today indicate that synesthesia is about seven times more common in artists, poets, and novelists than in the rest of the population, and some scientists have hypothesized that synesthetes are better at linking unrelated ideas.

  “We worked with a novelist years ago who swore that her synesthesia helped her pick metaphors,” Brang said. “She said she would know what color a word should be even before she knew what the word was.”

  Some savants with synesthesia have been known to perform amazing feats of memorization, such as remembering the value of pi to 22,514 digits. Other synesthetes are able to distinguish between very similar colors or have a heightened sense of touch.

  Despite recent advances, many questions about synesthesia remain, such as whether other animals experience synesthesia, how different brain chemicals affect the condition, and the exact role of genetics in determining a synesthetes cognitive and creative abilities. Also, Brang said, “if it’s so cool and such a great trait, why don’t we all have it?”

  Famous Synesthetes

  1. Vasily Kandinsky

  (painter, 1866–1944)

  2. Olivier Messiaen

  (composer, 1908–1992)

  3. Charles Baudelaire

  (poet, 1821–1867)

  4. Franz Liszt

  (composer, 1811–1886)

  5. Arthur Rimbaud

  (poet, 1854–1891)

  6. Richard Phillips Feynman

  (physicist, 1918–1988)

  NOISE BLOCKERS

  Secrets of Sleeping Soundly

  Sleep like a log? You can thank your “lucky spindles,” your brain’s blockades against slumber-disrupting noises.

  While some toss and turn, others can sleep like the dead. The difference may lie in their brains—specifically in their spindles, rapid-fire brain waves that act as blockades against noise during sleep, a new study says.

  Sleep Science

  For the research, study co-author Jeffrey Ellenbogen of Harvard Medical School recruited 12 self-described sound sleepers to spend three nights in his “comfy” lab.

  On the first night, the sleepers were treated to quiet, idyllic conditions.

  But during the next two nights, scientists bombarded the subjects with several types of loud sounds—including jet engine roars and toilet flushes—after the people had fallen asleep. Brain wave readings revealed that the more spindles a person had, the more likely he or she could stay asleep through the barrage of noises, Ellenbogen said.

  Everybody has spindles, which are controlled by the thalamus, a “way station” that conveys sensory information to other parts of the brain, Ellenbogen said. But there’s still much that’s unknown about these “sleeping” brain waves. For instance, it’s a mystery why some people have more spindles than others, Ellenbogen said.

  TRUTH:

  THE LONGEST A PERSON HAS GONE WITHOUT SLEEP IS TEN DAYS.

  Certain parts of the brain control how soundly you sleep. (Photo Credit 2.14)

  Seeking a “Sleep Utopia”

  This new research may bring Ellenbogen and colleagues closer to creating a “sleep utopia” for troubled slumberers, he noted. Fractured sleep—when a person wakes up many times a night—is “disturbingly prevalent in our society partly due to insults from a variety of noises,” according to the study.

  In addition to early-morning garbage trucks and creaking pipes, people are increasingly surrounded by technology that may produce irritating “beep and boops,” Ellenbogen said. “Now we can leverage this naturally occurring process [of spindle generation] and use that as a tool to prevent the sleeper from disruption,” he said. For instance, it may be possible to design a drug that would enhance spindles in light sleepers.

  In the meantime, testing a person’s spindle activity may help predict an individual’s tolerance to noise, Ellenbogen added. This could help with life decisions, he said, such as, “Should I take the job that puts me in the city, where I’m [in] urban chaos?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Creature Features

  (Photo Credit 3.1)

  Whether cuddly or creepy, furry or fanged, animals are odd. Some creatures just look weird—like the recently discovered tube-nosed fruit bat (nicknamed “Yoda”) from Papua New Guinea. Others have spooky superpowers—like vampire bats with heat-seeking vein sensors. Others engage in strange activities, like the Italian goats at like to climb up the sheer vertical faces of dams. Every day, animals are revealing to us new ways to be weird, each one more surprising than the next.

  STRANGE CREATURES DISCOVERED

  Five Weirdest New Animals

  There are new things under the sun, inclu
ding some of the strangest animals we’ve ever seen.

  Whether deep in the world’s jungle or in the restaurants of Vietnam, scientists and explorers are still discovering the most unusual creatures in the world in the most unexpected places.

  ANIMAL 1

  “Yoda Bat”

  This tube-nosed fruit bat—which became a web sensation as “Yoda bat”—is just one of the roughly 200 species encountered during two scientific expeditions to Papua New Guinea in 2009, scientists announced.

  Though seen on previous expeditions, the bat has yet to be formally documented as a new species, or even named. Like other fruit bats, though, it disperses seeds from the fruit in its diet, perhaps making the flying mammal crucial to its tropical rain forest ecosystem.

  Yet to be formally documented as a new species, this fruit bat is. (Photo Credit 3.2)

  ANIMAL 2

  The Simpsons Toad

  Nosing around for “lost” amphibian species in western Colombia in 2010, scientists stumbled across three entirely new species—including this beaked toad. “Its long, pointy, snoutlike nose reminds me of the nefarious villain Mr. Burns from The Simpsons television series,” said expedition leader Robin Moore.

  The unnamed, 0.7-inch-long (2-centimeter-long) toad is “easily one of the strangest amphibians I have ever seen,” added Moore, an amphibian-conservation specialist for Conservation International. The toad also has an odd reproductive habit: skipping the tadpole stage. Females lay eggs on the rain forest floor, which hatch into fully formed toadlets.

  This “excellent” little toad is said to resemble Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. (Photo Credit 3.3)

  ANIMAL 3

  Self-Cloning Lizard

  You could call it the surprise du jour: A popular food on Vietnamese menus has turned out to be a lizard previously unknown to science, scientists said in 2010.

  What’s more, the newfound Leiolepis ngovantrii is no run-of-the-mill reptile—the all-female species reproduces via cloning, without the need for male lizards.

  About 1 percent of lizards can reproduce by parthenogenesis, meaning the females spontaneously ovulate and clone themselves to produce offspring with the same genetic blueprint.

  The newfound lizard is a common food in southeastern Vietnam. (Photo Credit 3.4)

  “The Vietnamese have been eating these for time on end,” said herpetologist L. Lee Grismer of La Sierra University in Riverside, California, who helped identify the animal. “In this part of the Mekong Delta [in southeastern Vietnam], restaurants have been serving this undescribed species, and we just stumbled across it.”

  ANIMAL 4

  “Demon” Bat

  Meet a new prince of the underworld—the Beelzebub bat. Named for its diabolic coloration, the recently discovered bat has a black head and dark back fur, both of which contrast sharply with the flyer’s whitish belly scientists reported in a 2011 study.

  Beelzebub bats are shy and avoid contact with humans. (Photo Credit 3.5)

  Despite the fiendish name, Beelzebub bats are typically shy creatures, doing their best to avoid humans in their remote rain forest habitat in Vietnam, scientists say. If captured, however, the bats can turn fierce, said study co-author Neil Furey, a biologist with the conservation group Fauna & Flora International.

  ANIMAL 5

  Hispaniolan and Cuban Solenodons

  This may look like a rodent of unusual size, but the rare Hispaniolan solenodon isn’t a rodent at all. More closely related to shrews and moles, the solenodons are the only mammals that inject prey with venom, through special grooves in their teeth. There are only two species: the Hispaniolan solenodon—native to the island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic—and the Cuban solenodon, which was rediscovered in 2003.

  Until the introduction of predators such as dogs, cats, and mongooses to their island habitats, the “slow and clumsy” solenodons had no natural enemies, according to EDGE of Existence, a global conservation initiative. “Once in the hand, they will do their best to escape,” he said. “In essence, they exhibit a ‘flight’ first and ‘fight’ second response—the latter only when they have no other option.”

  Venomous mammals, like the solenodon, are a rarity. (Photo Credit 3.6)

  SNEAK ATTACK!

  Crocodile Attacks Unsuspecting Elephant

  It was an African ambush that became an Internet sensation. A mother and child elephant at a water hole had a deadly encounter with a crocodile. Who came out on top?

  TRUTH:

  CROCODILES CAN’T CHEW.

  A routine trip to the water hole resulted in a life-or-death struggle for a pair of African elephants when they were ambushed by a hungry Nile crocodile. As the two approached the water, the croc launched out of the water and seized the adult’s trunk. Tourist Martin Nyfeler of Kloten, Switzerland, captured pictures of the wild encounter during a visit to Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park.

  “We saw a mother elephant and baby at the water hole and said [to the guides], ‘You know, what a cute picture, let’s stop here,” ’ Nyfeler told National Geographic News. “And suddenly the croc jumped out. The whole event took maybe 15 seconds.”

  Size Matters?

  Although elephants are very unusual prey for Nile crocodiles, the 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) reptiles will occasionally ambush and take down large animals—including dozens of people annually, experts say.

  “Even as [crocodiles] get bigger, most of their diet will be fish or smaller animals,” said Jason Bell, assistant curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Philadelphia Zoo.

  “But they are also an opportunistic predator that will wait for something to come to the water’s edge and drink,” he said. “They’ve been known to take down young hippos or Cape buffalo—that’s a huge animal that they can pull into the water.”

  “I think there is a misconception about elephants. And the incidents of elephant rage come from elephants in a disturbed population or in conflict with people. I’ve found that if you give them the benefit of the doubt, they are not generally an aggressive species. They are naturally gentle and trusting. When you betray that trust, they get aggressive.”

  Martyn Colbeck

  filmmaker, on shooting with elephants

  Drag Out Fight

  During the attack, the elephants were able to move quickly away from the water with the crocodile still hanging on to the adult. According to photographer Nyfeler, guides in the Zambian park had never before seen such an encounter.

  Even for the formidable Nile crocodile, bringing down an elephant is no easy task—suggesting the ambush may have been either an act of desperation or perhaps a simple miscalculation, according to Don Boyer, San Diego Zoo’s curator of herpetology

  “Predators can make mistakes,” Boyer said. “They can take on something and then say, Wow, hindsight is 20/20, and this was a big mistake.”

  Elephant Escape

  This particular clash of the titans had a happy ending—except perhaps for the hungry crocodile. “The elephant managed to turn, but the croc was still hanging on,” photographer Nyfeler said. “Then the little baby somehow stumbled over the croc, and the croc released the elephant. “The croc went back into the water, and both elephants just ran away.”

  DEADLY HAIR

  Spiky Rat Plant Poison

  Turns Hair Deadly

  An East African murder mystery has a solution: It was the crested rat, in East Africa, with the poison bark.

  You’ve heard of rat poison, but poisoned rats? In East Africa, a porcupine-like rat turns its quills into lethal weapons by coating them with a plant toxin, a new study says. Neighboring African hunters use the same substance to make elephant-grade poison arrows. No other animals are known to use a truly deadly external poison, researchers say.

  TRUTH:

  A CHEMICAL RELATED TO OUABAIN, CALLED DIGITOXIN, HAS BEEN USED FOR DECADES AS A TREATMENT FOR HEART FAILURE.

  A Rat’s Arsenal

  Scientists have long suspecte
d that the crested rat might be using poison because of stories of dogs becoming ill or dying after encounters with the rodent, and because it has a distinct black-and-white warning coloration seen in other species.

  It was unclear until now, however, where the nocturnal rat got its poison. The researchers made their discovery after presenting a wild-caught crested rat with branches and roots of the Acokanthera tree, whose bark includes the toxin ouabain.

  The animal gnawed and chewed the tree’s bark but avoided the non-toxic leaves and fruit. The rat then applied the pasty, deadly drool to spiky flank hairs. Microscopes later revealed that the hairs are actually hollow quills that rapidly absorb the ouabain-saliva mixture, offering an unpleasant surprise to predators attempting to taste the rat.

  Poison isn’t the only item in the armory of the roughly foot-and-a-half-long (45-centimeter-long) rat, which lives in burrows in East Africa, the team says. Very tough skin and a reinforced skull that looks like “it could take a couple of head shots” also suggest the rodent doesn’t shrink from a fight, said study co-author Tim O’Brien, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. And with leopards, honey badgers, jackals, and wild dogs among its assumed predators, the rat may need all the advantages it can muster.