Sometimes, science may turn stranger than fiction, and the year 2018 witnessed a handful of such incidents which may make people think whether these happenings are real or not.
International Business Times, India presents you five such science stories which are weirdest to the core, and pretty difficult for the conscience of a normal man to digest.
The bizarre story of the human head transplant
People have seen stories of human head transplant in Hollywood sci-fi flicks. However, Ren Xiaoping, a Chinese orthopedic surgeon is spending his complete productive time to materialize the world's first human head transplant. Xiaoping is allegedly working on these experiments with Italian scientist Sergio Canavero.
Even though the duo claimed to have conducted the first human head transplant in 2017, they failed to provide any evidence to substantiate their deed. In 2018, Canavero and Xiaoping conducted head transplanting experiments on rats. Interestingly, out of the 60 head transplanted rats, only 14 lived for at least 36 hours.
Even though with this high failure rate, Canavero and Xiaoping strongly believe that human head transplant will become a success in future, and this technology will be used widely by rich business tycoons to live forever.
The unending mysteries of Oumuaua
It was in 2017 that space experts initially discovered Oumuamua, the first ever interstellar visitor to reach our solar system. Initially, space scientists speculated that Oumuamua could be either a meteor or an asteroid. However, in 2018, a study report from Avi Loeb, a top Harvard researcher raised many questions about the origin of Oumuamua.
In the study report, Loeb suggested that Oumuamua could be an alien probe. As per Loeb, the space body gained an unexpected acceleration as it passed through the inner solar system, and he believes that no natural object could achieve this gain in momentum.
However, Don Lincoln, a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory argued that the sudden change in acceleration could be the result of a natural process called outgassing.
Green UFO above the surface of Jupiter
On October 25, 2018, conspiracy theorists spotted a bizarre anomaly in one of the Jupiter images released by NASA. In the first glance, the image looked normal, but upon closer analysis, a green UFO can be seen hovering just above the surface of the planet.
The image released by NASA soon went viral, and many people started arguing that this photo is an authentic proof of alien existence. They also alleged that space agencies like NASA are well aware of extraterrestrial aliens living in the dark nooks of the universe.
However, after analyzing the image, some experts suggested that that the green UFO-like object spotted in the image could be the result of an imaging sensor anomaly.
Necrophilia among crows
Necrophilia can be described as the fascination of a person towards dead bodies. In some cases, people with this psychological disorder may often try to engage in sexual acts with deceased bodies. However, in 2018, a woman named Kalie Swift photographed the image of a living crow engaging in sexual acts with a dead one.
It is still unclear how the crow got sexually fascinated with the recently deceased. Some experts believe that it might be a confused response mingling aggression with sex.
The unusual story of Mad Mike
The concept of flat earth has gained popularity in recent days, and many eminent personalities including former English cricket captain Andrew Flintoff believes that the earth is a flat disc. However, to prove this, a man named Mike, popularly known as Mad Mike, propelled himself to 1875 feet using a rocket made with scrap materials.
After the self-tuned launch, Mike had a hard landing in the Mojave desert causing him minor injuries. Now, Mike is apparently planning to build a space vehicle called Rockon, which will help him to reach an altitude of 68 miles. He believes that the real shape of the earth will be unveiled in front of him at such a high altitude.
