media — psychology

There are two kinds of people in August: those preparing for back-to-school season and those still wondering where July went. Either way, the world keeps assigning us homework. This week's lesson plan is especially unusual. A bear enrolled in advanced bakery burglary. Two pigeons chose a makeup bag as their nursery. And scientists discovered six new species of zombie fungi in Mexico, including one named after filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. No No. 2 pencil required. Welcome to edition three of The Bizarre & Beyond, Beyond Unusual Gift Shop's Saturday tour through the real stories that sound completely made up. They...

Welcome back to the second edition of The Bizarre & Beyond: your weekly sanctuary for the weird, the wonderful, and the delightfully eccentric corners of our world. Human beings are hardwired to crave routine. We drink the same morning coffee, take the identical commute, and organize our bookshelves by color. Yet, beneath our comfortable veneer of predictability lies an insatiable, roaring hunger for the extraordinary. Psychologists often point to dopamine: the brain's reward neurotransmitter: as the biological driver behind our obsession with odd news. When we stumble upon something completely unexpected, our brains light up in a rush of sheer...

Welcome, fellow seekers of the extraordinary, to the very first installment of The Bizarre & Beyond! Every Saturday, we're peeling back the ordinary layers of the world to examine the weirdest, most jaw-dropping news headlines across the globe. Why? Because reality is far stranger than fiction, and because the human appetite for the unusual is something worth celebrating. Ever wonder why quirky headlines stick in our brains long after mundane news fades away? Psychologists call this the Von Restorff Effect, the tendency for an item that stands out from its surroundings to be remembered much more clearly than standard fare....

Why are humans so fascinated by the weird, the rare, and the extraordinary? Science has some surprising answers — and they reveal a lot about what makes us human.