Imposter queen
One of the more ridiculous historical conspiracy theories was that Queen Elizabeth I was a man. Here's how the theory came about ... Although she ruled England for 44 years between 1558 and 1603 she never married. The Queen refused all offers of matrimony, hence her nickname of the Virgin Queen.
Mental Floss explains: "Her stance led some observers — including Dracula author Bram Stoker — to suspect she may have been a man. Stoker once visited the town of Bisley in the Cotswolds, where a May Day celebration involved a boy dressing as the May Queen in Elizabethan clothes.
"Intrigued by the ceremony, Stoker discovered a fantastic tale — that the queen-to-be had visited Bisley in her youth to escape the plague, got sick, and died. Knowing her father, King Henry VIII, had a famous temper, the governess found a boy who resembled her charge and disguised him as Elizabeth when the king, who apparently could not readily identify his own daughter, came to visit.
"The deception was never discovered, and the unknown boy grew to rule England, disguising his masculine features with wigs, heavy make-up, and neck coverings. While Stoker popularised the story in the early 1900s, it had appeared during Elizabeth's reign, possibly as a way for male subjects to cope with the idea of having a female ruler."
Bionic eyes
Night vision goggles are amazing, but they're also bulky, limit your field of vision, and require electricity. What if you could just inject the ability directly into your eyeballs?
Would you do it?
Research from the University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests that may be a possibility. Popular Mechanics reports: "In a study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, researchers injected nanoparticles that converted infrared light into visible light into the eyes of mice. Those mice were then placed in a maze along with mice who didn't receive the injections, and were able to find their way out of the maze. The nanoparticles bound to the photoreceptors of the mice's eyes and provided night vision for up to 10 weeks without any ill effects."
Never a truer word ...
Tim from Grey Lynn writes: "A few years ago I worked for a institution that was undergoing yet another unsettling restructure that seemed to have little point beyond a new CEO establishing his authority. Overnight a large number of graphically illustrated cartoons appeared on the walls, with the caption 'The floggings will continue until morale improves'."