Demonophobia Fear of Demons

Demonophobia is an abnormal and persistent fear of evil supernatural beings in persons who believe such beings exist and roam freely to cause harm.

Those who suffer from this phobia realize their fear is excessive or irrational.

Nevertheless, they become unduly anxious when discussing demons, when venturing alone into woods or a dark house, or when watching films about demonic possession and exorcism.

Sufferers are most likely to be recognized by the strings of garlic around their neck, crucifixes, wooden stakes they carry, and gun loaded with silver bullets.

The Way The Earth’s Core Spins

In 1692, Edmond Halley, of Halley’s Comet fame, first discovered that the Earth’s geomagnetic field drifted westward.

He concluded that Earth must have two cores spinning at different speeds, but no one knew why.

Science later realized that the Earth’s inner core of solid iron (about the size of the moon) spins eastward, but the outer core of liquid iron rotates in the opposite direction—but at a slower pace.

The relationship between the two remained a mystery, however.

This year, scientists at Leeds University were able to use a supercomputer to simulate this relationship 100 times more accurately than ever before.

They found the difference can be explained in terms of equal and opposite action (Newton’s Third Law of Motion).

The magnetic field pushes one way on the outer core and the opposite way on the inner core, causing the differing rotations.

Pentheraphobia Fear of Mother-in-Law

Of all the phobias on this list, pentheraphobia is probably the most common. It is, as stated above, the fear of one’s mother-in-law.

I am sure that most married people have, at one time or another, suffered from this terrible fear.

This fear is one that is so common in Western society that it frequently appears in movies and other forms of entertainment.

Of the many available therapies for this illness of the mind, divorce seems to be the most popular.

A related phobia to pentheraphobia is novercaphobia which is a fear of your stepmother – the most famous sufferer of which is Cinderella.

Do Women Blush In The Dark?

“The question whether young women blush in the dark is a very difficult one,” wrote 18th-century German scholar Georg Lictenberg.

While it seems a trivial question, it was also impossible to answer.

In the dark, no one can see the blushing. Turn on the light, and it’s no longer dark. Charles Darwin even offered up a comment on the problem (he reckoned women probably could blush in the dark).

Technology has come to humanity’s aid in providing an answer.

Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands collaborated on an experiment in which they pointed a heat-sensitive camera at a woman in a dark room and asked her to blush.

When she claimed to be blushing (they picked someone who could do it at will), there was more heat coming from her cheeks, showing that blood had rushed to the surface.

So it turns out that women can blush in the dark. Keep smashing those boundaries, science!