Iceland required a factory to check for ELVES before they could build!

54% of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves, and 8% of believe that they exist, no questions asked. So when the aluminum company Alcoa wanted to build a smelting factory, the government required that an expert scoured the plant site to ensure there were no elves living there. 

The process can take up to 6 months, but usually takes an hour. There is no way to train for it, one is just born with the ability to sense an elf about. It's thought that many that are born with the ability to see elves lose it at around age 8. It's said that elves go crazy if you try to build over their land, causing equipment failures, so keeping them happy is a priority.

(Source)

A Batman villain is an Alice in Wonderland obsessed pedophile!

People who only follow the Batman movies might be familiar with the chilling antics of the Joker, the Riddler, Catwoman, and the Penguin. But their heinous acts might just be overshadowed by those of The Mad Hatter.

In the Batman comics Jervis Tetch is a genius scientist who styles himself after the Lewis Carroll character. He wears an oversized hat and speaks in rhyme. But his tea parties are far from innocent.

Tetch often kidnaps children and makes them roleplay as Alice and the other characters from the well-known children's stories. He's a villain who might even give The Joker the creeps.

(Source)

You can't hug a genius wearing red dots!

Mensa members have a lot on their minds, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for dealing with social niceties like whether a hug is appropriate. So when members gather, they place color coded stickers on their name tags, indicating their willingness to give and receive hugs.

Green, of course, means go ahead and hug. Yellow indicates that a hug is acceptable with permission. But anyone wearing a red dot would really rather you kept your hands to yourself.

(Source)

As recently as 1985, babies were operated on without anesthesia because doctors believed they feel no pain!

The author of this paper shows how babies and infants have been treated as lesser beings in the past because of the fact that they haven't developed their full cognitive capacities. People have judged babies' cries as 'random sounds' and their smiles as 'muscle spasms.' 

This seemed to be confirmed through science because babies would be pinched and prodded with needles when they were newborn. Doctors observed that babies reacted more violently as time went on. They thought this meant that the ability to feel pain would develop over time. However, the reason for this was actually because of the anesthesia that the mother had received, and that had been passed on to the baby. 

It wasn't until 1985 where studies on babies showed that not only did they feel pain, some babies were dying because they were being operated on without any anesthesia or anything to prevent the pain!

You should read the whole paper for more info.

An Australian island has built bridges for crabs!

Christmas Island has a particular species of crabs that is at odds with modern society. Every year, when the wet season begins in the Australian Island, as many as 50 million crabs migrate from the rainforest to the sea in order to breed.

As a result, the crabs have to cross over human-built roads and other structures. The death toll for these crabs at the end of the mating season can be as high as 500,000, just from their deadly encounters with humans. 

To solve this problem without having to close roads and interrupt the island's activities, preservationists have devised different methods, like this train bridge that allows them to bypass over the roads safely.

(Source)