Allergies. A sinus infection. Neglecting to swallow often enough as the plane your riding in depends towards your final destination. A head cold. There's hundreds of reasons why your ears might be too plugged up to hear anything but the sounds of your throat taking a swallow or the beating of your heart.

Here's another fabulous cause.

From Fox 4 Kansas City:

A not so itsy, bitsy spider not found on a waterspout. Instead, doctors removed a brown recluse spider from the ear of Susie Torres.

"Gross. Why, where, what and how," she asked.

Torres, who despises the creepy, crawly arachnids, said she first noticed some discomfort in her ear Tuesday morning.

"I woke up Tuesday hearing a bunch of swooshing and water in my left ear. It was like when you went swimming and you have all of that water in your ear," Torres said.

At first, she just thought it was the effects of an allergy shot. But when she went to get her ears checked out, it turned out to be much more.

"The medical assistant came to check me out, and she`s the one who noticed it," she said.

With the help of a few tools and a bit of magic, doctors removed a dime-sized brown recluse spider from her ear.

Holy shit.

Somehow, the medical staff on duty, managed to extract the dangerous spider from Torres' head without the thing injecting her full of venom. That's fabulous news, considering the fact that the bite of a brown recluse spider can turn flesh necrotic leading to large areas around the bite needing to be amputated or, you know, death. Read the rest

When you say you're super into the great outdoors and nature and -- something weird shows up. Read the rest

Gucci’s new $800 ‘Indy Full Turban’ was not a good idea. Read the rest

Jimmy Kimmel and his team played a new prank on kids this year. He set up a free Halloween photo stand.

He explains:

“We asked some parents who were walking by our theater if they wanted their kids to take a Halloween picture -- the same way you take a picture with Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny -- but we told them this picture would be with Michael Myers. And believe it or not, lots of parents sent their children right in.”

I'm with that last girl. Nope. Read the rest

People. Pot. Pies. Read the rest

Six Flags Great Adventure debuted their newest thrill ride Wednesday, the 7-story-high CYBORG Cyber Spin. The Jackson, New Jersey theme park claims their gyroscopic anti-gravity attraction is a first of its kind in the United States (Europe's had one since 2015.)

...you'll board a 24-seat gondola and prepare to take to the skies. As the ride raises off the ground, the ride begins to spin on all three axis independently as the movements grow larger and faster and you fly head-over-heels for an out-of-this-world ride like nothing you've ever experienced before. As the spinning slows, CYBORG brings the axis back together and lowers you back to earth.

Nope.

(NJ.com) Read the rest

Back in 2013, Kendra Jackson was in a pretty nasty car accident. The vehicle she was in was hit, hard, from behind. The force of the impact propelled Jackson's head into the dash in front of her. She recovered from her injuries and got on with her life. A few weeks after the crash, however, she came down with a serious case of the sniffles. She'd sneeze, cough and blow her nose throughout the day. In bed, the fluid running down the back of her nose from her sinuses would make her cough and keep her up at night. It had all the hallmarks of a bad cold. But bad colds don't typically last for years at a time. She saw doctors for the problem. They told her that all the stuff running out of her head was likely due to allergies.

Nope.

Seeking out a second opinion, Jackson discovered that what she thought to be snot was actually due to a cerebrospinal fluid leak (CSF): her head was leaking brain fluid.

From Newsweek:

“This fluid serves the function of providing mechanical protection of the brain through cushioning or buffering, as well as playing a role in its immunologic protection,” Dr. Brad Marple, chair of otolaryngology at the University of Texas Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, told Newsweek.

“Normally, it is contained within the water-tight confines of the skull, but occasionally an area of disruption can develop between the intracranial cavity and air-filled spaces within the skull. The sinuses are examples of air-filled spaces within the skull that share a thin common wall with the intracranial cavity and serve as a common route for a CSF leak.

Do Large (Magnitude ≥8) Global Earthquakes Occur on Preferred Days of the Calender Year of Lunar Cycle? Read the rest

Pedra Que Engole means "swallowing rock," an accurate name for a small Brazilian cave accessible only via waterfall. Read the rest

Last night the GOP had another failure – this time to pass the "skinny repeal bill," which lost to a 51-49 vote. John McCain's "no" was the night's big surprise vote, with audible gasps – as well as some clapping from the Democratic side – which you can watch and listen to here. Read the rest

Namibian desert Hotrod ants have evolved to tiptoe around to avoid baking to death in the unrelenting sun. But other dangers lurk, like these terrifying real-life sarlacc pits created by antlions. Read the rest

Pro pilot steveo1kinevo makes great cockpit videos of some pretty crazy flights, like this Bahamas trip with a crosswind so wicked he had to "crab angle" the plane at about 45 degrees for the whole approach.

What's amazing is how smooth the landing is. And if you're wondering about the weird effect on the propeller from the outside mounted cam, it's an artifact of the camera's rolling shutter.

• Stressful max crosswind landing in The Bahamas (YouTube / steveo1kinevo) Read the rest

In this video, a man partially immerses a praying mantis in water, thereby forcing the hairworms possessing it to leave. That the mantis also dies, according to one commenter, is not because the videomaker left it in the water to drown alongside the infestors. [via]

The worm digested the insides of the Praying Mantis. While inside, it keeps the nervous system from collapsing, but upon existing the Mantis immediately dies. So the Mantis isn't dead yet at the start of this video, its close to being a zombie, so not really alive either.

Johanna Nordblad holds the world record for free diving under ice. This gorgeous film captures the beauty and danger. She can stay under for more than 6.5 minutes with no gear of any kind. Read the rest

This video featuring Viktoria Odintsova is probably not adhering to local occupational safety regs. If the photo below gets your palms sweating, you may want to skip the video above. Read the rest

Tree wells are a natural phenomenon in deep mountain snow. Evergreens basically act as flour sifters, causing snow around the trees to have less density than surrounding snowpack. Backcountry snowsport enthusiasts on ungroomed courses who get too close to these trees drop in (usually head-first) and can't extricate themselves. Read the rest