Welcome, Wyrdo's, to a round-up of the most peculiar stories from the latest episode of our bonus show, AfterWyrd. From mind-bending medicine to a millennium-old mystery, we're diving headfirst into the weirdness.
LSD: From Psychedelic Trips to Brain Repair
When we think of LSD, we don't typically imagine it as a cure for schizophrenia, but that's exactly where a new scientific discovery is heading. Researchers at UC Davis have been "mucking about" with the atoms of LSD, performing what they cheekily call a "tyre rotation" to create a new compound called JRT. This isn't about tripping balls; it’s about a potential game-changer. The new compound has shown promise in regrowing brain cells and mending neural pathways in mice, all without the hallucinogenic side effects. It’s a fascinating twist that connects to the growing interest in using psychedelics for mental health treatments, a field once relegated to the fringes but now firmly in the mainstream.
A Ghost's Doomsday Prophecy
In a tale that would give John Keel a run for his money, a woman known as “Cassie” claims to have been communicating with a ghost named “Seven” via a Ouija board for over a decade. This isn't just a friendly chat, though—the spirit has a sinister prediction: the world will end in a nuclear blast. What makes this story particularly spooky is that the ghost has supposedly made contact with humanity twice before to warn of impending doom, including at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fact that the end-of-the-world date came and went a few weeks ago without incident is, as we discovered, a common problem for doomsday cults. Still, we can’t deny that the story, with its talk of ancient languages and binary code, is a truly wyrd slice of modern folklore.
Bayeux Tapestry: Dagger or Penis?
And finally, we took on a historical debate of the utmost importance: the true nature of a certain shape on the Bayeux Tapestry. Two historians are at loggerheads over whether a black, dangling object beneath a running man’s tunic is the scabbard of a dagger or the 94th penis to be found on the famous embroidery. While one scholar insists it's a weapon sheath, the other is convinced it is an "anatomically fulsome" male member. After a heated discussion and some questionable Google searches, we’re still not 100% on a conclusion. What we do know is that a heated debate about a millennium-old embroidery proves that history is anything but boring.