There ’s a farseeing list ofeveryday thingsthatscience has n’t figured out — and there are plenty of more strange mystery that have scientist scratching their heads , too , in fields run from meteorology to medicine . Here are a few of them , adapted from an sequence of The List Show on YouTube .
1. Why Some People Wake Up From a Coma Speaking a Foreign Language
In April 2010 , a teen in Croatiawoke upfrom a mysterious 24 - hour coma , much to her family ’s respite . But then a strange thing happened : The 13 - year - old little girl could n’t speak to her parents in her native Croatian . While she was still able to understand the speech , she could only respond in inexplicably silver-tongued German , a language she had only just begin study in schooltime . She postulate a translator to be able to communicate with her family , and Doctor of the Church rest … stumped .
The typesetter’s case of this mysterious Croatian - German language swap is n’t the only example of mind injuries lead to unexplainable language phenomenon . In 2013 an Australian man woke up from a elevator car crash speak perfect Mandarin . In 2016 , a adolescent from Atlanta woke up from a coma speaking liquid Spanish , and had such trouble utter his native English that he would have a gaining control every time he tried .
doc and scientists ca n’t in full explain these result . The part of oral communication maturation in the brain is a dynamic domain ; scientist in the main make bold it ’s of import that all the model above had some knowledge of their fresh speech , but it ’s still unknown why this phenomenon can affect sure people so drastically .
2. What Caused the Tunguska Event
On June 30 , 1908 , a massiveexplosiondecimated a timber in Siberia near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River . A powerhouse believed to have been up to 100 meters astray erupted in the sky , flattening some 80 million trees and killing hundreds of reindeer . It was so acute that residents in the near townspeople , which was about 35 miles away , felt the heat of the detonation . One eyewitness recounted :
All in all , the burst , which has come to be know as the Tunguska Event , is pronounce to have acquire about 185 time more energy than the atomic bomb calorimeter that was dropped on Hiroshima .
With an consequence of this size and intensity , you would anticipate the source to be pretty obvious . But over a hundred years later , scientist still have n’t figured out what caused it . The most mutual account at the prison term was some sort of meteoroid . But there was no impact crater , and little grounds of any kind of extraterrestrial target in the surrounding orbit . Some scientists by and by close it was a comet that had recruit our standard pressure ; comets are largely made of sparkler and therefore would n’t have left behind obvious rock music fragments .
A 1958 expedition to the area establish some promising globules that point toward a meteoritic blood . This might have put the Tunguska enigma to rest , but some scientists still were n’t convinced . A 1973 paper suggested that a black-market hole had collide with the Earth , which pass to the massive explosion . This was quickly disputed . Further subject seem to incriminate that the event was indeed some form of meteoric explosion , but a truly classic finis has yet to be found , and theory of UFO crashes or nuclear explosions still prevail .
3. How the Patom Crater Formed
The Tunguska Event is n’t the only secret thing that has happened in Siberia . There ’s another unexplainable thing hidden among the trees in the Irkutsk realm : Patom volcanic crater , otherwise known as Fire Eagle Nest , is a bombastic rock formation in southeastern Siberia . The crater is about 520 feet in diam and 130 feet in tiptop , with a mob - shaped crown . It was see in 1949 by a geologist key Vadim Kolpakov , but it ’s probably about 350 class honest-to-god .
The realm is home to the Yakuts , a Turkic group who have habited the arena for generation . According to Yakut caption , the crater is an vicious place . Not even cervid dare to go near it . When Kolpakov discovered it , he note , “ From a distance it looked like a mine - beam slagheap , only whitish . I even think , ' Where are the people ? ' There were no labor encampment in the sphere . Unless a very , very secret one ? ”
harmonize to the Tomsk Science Center ( with help from Google Translate ) , he added , “ But then I would not have been get off to geo - prospect this area , but , on the contrary , would have been volunteer to stick away from here . My second thought was an archaeological artifact . But the local Evenks and Yakuts , with my respect for them , are not the ancient Egyptians . They could not build Harlan F. Stone pyramids , and did n’t have any human resources nor the necessary scientific knowledge . "
Not unlike the Tunguska Event , scientists initially attempt to explain the crater as the solution of some sort of extraterrestrial impingement . Some , however , suppose it might be the final result of natural gas pedal bursting through the surface of the world . There has been so much speculation about the shaping in the geologic world that , in 2010 , there was an intact conference dedicated to it , fittingly called the Patom Crater Conference . The league participant turn over a consensus : In their estimate , the Patom Crater was not the upshot of any meteorite . They suggested that it had been make by some kind of geological outgrowth , but at this sentence , that explanation is still just an train dead reckoning .
4. How The Placebo Effect Works
When scientists want to study a new drug , they ’ll often test it in comparison to aplacebo , such as a lettuce lozenge . At minimum , a drug needs to make unspoilt solution than a dominance such as the placebo to be consider effective . queerly , though , the placebos themselves can often produce changes in trial subjects , even though there ’s no physiological mechanism to account for the change . The genuine , mensurable encroachment from what is essentially a " fake " discourse is known as theplacebo effect .
The idea of a placebo effect has been around since at least the eighteenth century , but scientist do n’t fully understand it . They know that the brain can do complex neurobiological reactions just because it ’s bear answer , like releasing endorphins or Intropin when it consider it ’s receiving an antidepressant . But that does n’t intend they knowwhyit does that . researcher at Harvard have been study the minus and convinced effects of the placebo consequence , and they debate it a holistic experience . Professor Ted Kaptchukdescribes itlike this :
But this still does n’t explicate why the placebo effect does n’t always act upon , or why it ’s more effective in sure citizenry or situation . For now , it ’s just one of the psyche ’s many unique and confusing traits .
5. How Morning Glory Clouds Form
At this item , it feel like we as a coinage have a reasonably decent apprehension of the weather . What causes it , how to omen it , when to talk about it on a failing first date . One weather phenomenon that has escaped our understanding , however , aremorning glory cloud . This hypnotise meteorological occurrence see like something out of a fantasy novel .
While there have been reports of these wild - looking bankroll clouds around the world , reliable morning glory swarm are almost solely spotted near Burketown , Australia . Under very specific circumstances , they can take manikin and stretch out up to 600 land mile in length . Tourists reportedly flock to Burketown each October to try and spy them , let in a fair issue of bent gliders who seek to vaporize through the unique cloud .
scientist still do n’t really understandmorning aura cloud . They have come to a basic understanding of the specific humidity levels , sea breeze patterns , and mesoscale circulation that broadly precede morning glory clouds , but why they ’re so distinct and nearly unique to this one Australian peninsula is still not sympathize , very possibly because no one is willing to adequately fund research into what is a visually hold back but not necessarily scientifically important cloud .
6. What Caused Mary Reeser’s Death
On July 2 , 1951 , Mary Reeser ’s landlord stopped by her apartment , where she follow upon a horrifying scene : Reeser’scharred continue . All that was left intact was part of one foot , still encased in its carpet slipper . Curiously , the room itself was almost completely unburnt .
The FBI investigated and reason that Mary had taken dormancy pills the former eventide , report that she “ could have become drowsy or fallen asleep while smoking a cigarette , thus igniting her wearing apparel . ” grant to their report , her own body fat fed the flaming .
For many skeptics , it did n’t seem realistic that a fire so live could have caused such minimal wrong to Reeser ’s apartment . Cremation often requires temperatures well above 2000 point . For some , spontaneous human combustion seemed a more plausible explanation . These doubts even led to one prof from the University of Pennsylvania theorizing that someone had murdered Mary , incinerated her remains in a crematorium , and then brought them back to her apartment for someone to line up . To this day , no one can explain what really happened to her .
7. The Source of the “Upsweep” Sound
In the world of unaccountable phenomena , there ’s a whole category of mysterious sounds . Some come from outer space , some from remote part of the wilderness , and some specially eerie ones from the depths of the ocean . One such sound is the“upsweep ” sound .
Upsweep has been around since at least 1991 , when the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory began record SOSUS , which had been an underwater Soviet surveillance organization with multiple listening stations around the creation . The sound “ consists of a long gear of narrow-minded - isthmus upsweeping sounds of several seconds ' length each , ” the laboratory reports . If that does n’t give you the proper idea of how it might sound , take a listen for yourself above .
The rootage of the auditory sensation is about halfway between Australia and South America . oddly , the upsweep phone changes with the season . It ’s tacky in leap and Autumn , but scientist do n’t know why . The leading possibility behind this mysterious strait ? Volcanic activity .
