God's weird county: a pelican skeleton, a 6ft 8ins barman and a 37-mile 'wheelie'-Odd news from across Yorkshire

n God’s own county you can be sure of weird and wonderful news.

In Leyburn, North Yorkshire, a sale of taxidermy and natural history specimens on October 12 includes oddities such as a pelican skeleton which was used as a prop in the film Nanny McPhee.

Among the 250 lots are a hippo, wallaby, duck-billed platypus and a three-legged mallard duck.

Other quirky lots to look out for include the skin of an African rock python, the skull of a giraffe, and a pair of French lop rabbits said to be ‘boxing one another.’read more

Why goosebumps are redundant and other great body mysteries

GO AHEAD, tickle yourself. We’ll wait here. You couldn’t even elicit a smirk, right?

The reason for this conundrum is that the command to tickle yourself is going through the same brain that usually responds to the sensation with a wriggly giggle, and the one cancels out the other.

Or as Sara-Jayne Blakemore, a researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, explained it to Scientific American in 2007:

“The cerebellum can predict sensations when your own movement causes them but not when someone else does. When you try to tickle yourself, the cerebellum predicts the sensation and this prediction is used to cancel the response of other brain areas to the tickle.”

However, schizophrenics are able to tickle themselves. Researchers say it could be because they can’t link the tickle to their initial motive.read more

Odd couples: 16 weird and wonderful twinned towns

On the surface of it, twinned towns feel like an appropriate way for two like-minded settlements to promote unity and shared experience across the globe.

But dig a little deeper and the practically of brethren cities is a weird and wonderful world of arbitrary ties and local government banter.

With thanks to VoucherBox, who felt the need to compile some information on the most peculiar pairings, here are some of the best, worst, and more jarring twinned towns in the world. Come up with your own jokes where necessary.

1. Dull, Boring and Bland

The three unfortunately named towns, Dull in Scotland, Boring in the US state of Oregon, and Bland in Australia, have joined forces to make fun of each other.read more

World Beard Day: 15 brilliantly weird beard trends you need to try

Happy World Beard Day!

It’s probably a little too late to actually grow a beard to celebrate the occasion. Sorry.

But there are other ways to celebrate a day dedicated to the joy of beards.

Create a fake beard out of paper, for example. Draw one on your face with a felt tip pen. Don’t shave this morning, and pretend your stubble qualifies as a beard.

And of course, if you have a beard already, decorate it. That’s important.

Thankfully there have been plenty of brilliantly bizarre beard trends over the last few years to inspire your beard-y creativity.read more

Ten weird and fascinating things every Londoner needs to see at... the Natural History Museum

Cursed jewels, exotic beasts and mysterious terrors of the deep – for centuries everything strange and peculiar has fascinated our curious little minds. With an 80 million-strong collection, the curators at London's Natural History Museum aren't at all strangers to things wonderfully creepy and wildly eccentric. The weirdest and scariest of the bunch live in the Darwin Centre, a magical building home to 22 million barmy specimens that cover a colossal 27 kilometres of floor and shelve space. From 'oh hell no' gasp-inducing scary snakes to ginormous squids, you can go and see these magnificent monsters for yourself on the awesome 'Spirit Collection' tour. Along with some of the stars from the main collection, here are ten of the weirdest, most fascinating and absolutely terrifying things you'll see at this national treasure.  -read more

From melon and cheese Kit Kats to cinnamon Pepsi: Bizarre flavours from around the world from top brands that you'll NEVER get back home

Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry suddenly seem very mundane when you realise some of the very strange flavours being sold around the world.

From melon-and-cheese flavoured Kit Kats in Japan to yoghurt and mint Doritos in Turkey, a new visual guide shows you where you can buy some of the rarest - and often weirdest - flavours of your favourite brands.

It comes after a limited-edition range of Oreo cookies flavoured like Swedish fish sweets left die-hard fans in the US puzzled last week.-read more

8 weird Olympic events that no longer exist

Although the Olympic games have ancient roots in Greece, the modern Olympic Games started in 1896 in Athens. And what a wild first few decades it was. While the International Olympic Committee was still new, the organization dipped its toes into lots of odd, one-off events to see what viewers and attendees would be most interested in.

Here a few events that are no longer part of the Games, for better or for worse. -read more