When a discovery falls outside the boundaries of our understanding—sometimes with a lack of context—it will often stump the smartest experts. Here are 10 mysteries that are baffling modern scientists. 10 Giraffe Skin Disease Since the 1990s, baffling cases of skin disease have affected giraffes in captivity and in the wild. It is a widespread condition in sub-Saharan Africa. Experts are unable to determine if this mysterious ailment is due to a combination of diseases or if an environmental effect is in play....

Given their powerful noses, it’s no wonder dogs have been used in hunting, trained to sniff out bombs or drugs, and assisted in search and rescue missions. However, the 10 dogs on this list were able to accurately detect a much more important, typically undetectable odor in their owners—cancer. And they did so long before their human companions were ever diagnosed by a healthcare professional. 10 Sierra the Siberian Husky When Stephanie Herfel’s son left for the Air Force in 2011, she took in his nine-month-old Siberian husky puppy, Sierra....

10Louisiana Burning The Louisiana State Police received an urgent telephone call on October 21, 2012 from Sharmeka Moffitt, a 20-year-old Winnsboro woman. The young woman claimed that racially indeterminate men wearing white hoods had doused her with flammable liquid and set her ablaze at a local park near a walking trail. They had also written “KKK” and a racial slur on her car and then left her for dead. The medics responded, and they took her to LSU Health Sciences Center as she had suffered severe burns over 50 percent of her body, leaving her in critical condition and needing surgery....

10Artificial Reef Pollutes Ocean In 1972, it seemed like it would be a great idea when 700,000 old tires were dropped off the coast of southern Florida in an effort to create an artificial reef. The theory was that the bundled-up tires would attract fish and serve as a base for coral growth. However, the tires broke apart and started killing off established coral reefs, as well as cluttering up the ocean....

Yeah, it turns out there’s another side to oppressive tyrants: one less “terrifying” and more “hilariously pathetic.” 10 General Stroessner’s Name Fixation Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay’s dictator-in-chief between 1954 and 1989, was South America’s longest-lived Cold War tyrant. During his tenure, Paraguay transformed into a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. His brutal security services would reportedly record victims’ dying screams and send the tape to grieving relatives. Yet despite all this, Stroessner seemed terrified that people might one day forget his name....

However, some who commit crimes and get paroled move on to crimes that are even worse. Though just a tiny percentage of murderers and rapists repeat their crimes after being released, those who do seem to do so in the most horrific ways imaginable. 10 Evan Ebel Evan Ebel was always angry. He was born and raised in a well-to-do family but constantly got into trouble growing up, and many around him thought there was something wrong with him....

10 Newborns Can Swim A group of scientists decided one day that it would be a good idea to dip 36 newborns’ faces into cold water and just see what happened. Surprisingly, instead of committing mass infanticide, they discovered something amazing—the babies instinctively knew how to hold their breath. They survived and even came out giggling and smiling. Babies can do more than just hold their breath, though. In another experiment, researchers had parents hold their babies in the water with their tummies down....

10The Confusion Over His Credit for the Lightbulb Many people were taught when they were young that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and when they were older, the Internet told them they were wrong. Now, many confused people wonder what exactly is going on and what all the confusion is about. Well, as it turns out, with many things, the answer is a little complicated. And, as is often the case with inventions, more than one person deserves credit....

Or are they? Turns out some seriously well-qualified people disagree with how we judge our movies. By their count, the following turkeys aren’t even turkeys at all. They’re secretly masterpieces. See what you think. 10 The Happening Is A Misunderstood Parable The Bad Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s film about a family on the run from suicide-inducing plants is so awful its lead actor publicly apologized for it. Aside from being full of unintentional comedy, it features a script where nothing happens....

However, as popular as beer is, there are many things most people don’t know about it. 10 Beer And Facial Hair Facial hair can make drinking beer rather difficult. However, it can also produce drinkable beer. A brewmaster in Oregon has actually discovered a way to make beer from yeast collected from his own beard. Although this may sound rather disgusting, it is actually a valid way to collect yeast....

10Rat-Free Alberta Rats are a dreaded vermin the world over, spoiling billions of dollars worth of food supplies, spreading a laundry list of disease, and even causing housefires from chewed wires. These creatures have infested the globe, and dwell over nearly every inch of North America. Except the Canadian province of Alberta. When rats threatened the eastern border of the province (shared with infested Saskatchewan), a perimeter was set up and staunchly defended....

Ancient hunter-gathers used ivory for tools as well as their most sacred objects. Since then, countless other cultures have carved ivory into items both decorative and utilitarian. The demand for this precious substance is so great that many ivory-producing animals have been hunted to near-extinction. Today, the world struggles to find a replacement for this beautiful, useful, and utterly unsustainable resource. 10 Ivory Rope Maker In August 2015, archaeologists discovered a 40,000-year-old, ivory rope-making tool in a cave in southwestern Germany....

Although an actual cause of déjà vu has yet to be confirmed by science, over 40 theories have been proposed to try to explain it. This list includes 10 of the most interesting and thought-provoking examples! 10 A ‘Mix-Up’ Of Senses And Memory This hypothesis tries to explain the sensation of déjà vu by linking it to our sensory perspectives. A famous psychological experiment, the Grant et al study, shows that our memory is context dependent, meaning that we can recall information better when placed in the same environment in which we studied it....

Thanks to Twitter and their letters home, we get to hear these people talk about their experiences. As it turns out, terrorist recruits have the same first world problems as a freshman on vacation in South America. 10 No Starbucks A Russian terrorist who calls herself “Green Bird of Dabiq” is being heavily monitored by the Middle East Media Research Institute, and she has given them a unique view into the hardships of terrorist life....

SEE ALSO: 10 Ridiculous Myths People Believe About Fast Food Some of the items on this list may actually surprise you, given that you either had them growing up or consider them perfectly fine. These ten foods are considered safe for almost everyone else on the planet. The US government, however, has determined that they aren’t good for Americans. 10 Raw Milk Remember in school, when you learned that Louis Pasteur figured out how to pasteurize milk, saving millions of lives and making milk safe for everyone to drink?...

And we don’t just mean Marquis de Lafayette and Casimir Pulaski. Countless soldiers from all over the world stood up and fought with America, and without them, the United States never would have won its independence. 10Crispus AttucksThe Slave Who Was The First Casualty Of War The first man to fight and die in the War of Independence was born in America, but most of his fellow Americans didn’t think of him as a countryman....

10 Betty Boop Was A Dog In 1930, when the Fleischer brothers created the Betty Boop character, she was a French poodle, drawn with flabby ears and a black round nose. In her first appearance on screen, at 2:39 in 1930’s “Dizzy Dishes” above, she looks very much like an anthropomorphized dog. She was only slowly was transformed into a fully human character. In the wonderfully trippy “Bimbo’s Initiation” from 1931, when she seduces Bimbo in the final scene, she no longer has a very pronounced dog face but she still sports long flabby ears....

Thus, the idea of popular representation of the citizenry is often seen as a quintessentially Western cultural product that is nonexistent elsewhere. This belief may be incorrect because sources of proto-democratic thought and behavior can be found in unusual places throughout history. 10 Lanfang Republic In the 18th century, the West Kalimantan region of Borneo was divided into three sultanates that were interested in exploiting the local deposits of gold, tin, and other valuable minerals....

10Marozia In the early 10th century, Europe seemed in a state of terminal decline. The Frankish Empire was crumbling, and the power of the pagan Vikings was growing. In the South, Muslims had conquered Spain and Sicily, while the nomadic Hungarians had swept across the Carpathians. Only the Catholic Church seemed to hold Europe together. And the Church was led by a remarkable woman: the senator Marozia. Marozia was the daughter of Count Theophylact, the most powerful man in Rome....

These are stories of people who had the mother of the first type of day, and the grandmother of the second . . . on the same day. People who found themselves struck by the worst luck imaginable—only to turn it completely around, immediately, with the biggest breaks of their lives. Lives that may have been a lot shorter had they not. 10Heart Like A Wheel In 2014, an unnamed Italian man in his late forties displayed some unusual symptoms in the hospital after a motorcycle accident....