A disgusting factor which separates consuming human flesh from consuming muscle tissue of non-speaking animals is that you can’t separate eating dead humans from eating live humans. In the way that you call a baby cow “veal” or a pig “pork,” human flesh is just human flesh—you wouldn’t think about eating Dave’s…
Spiders are typically thought of as solitary creatures that don’t partake in social pleasantries unless it has something to do with mating. But as new research shows, the African velvet spider is an exception to this rule. Mother spiders are assisted by closely-related virgin females who, in addition to engaging in…
Distinctive zig-zag etchings on a prehistoric human bone found at Gough’s Cave in England suggests that Ice Age cannibals consumed human flesh not purely for the nutritional value, but as part of a sophisticated funeral practice.
Sometimes, we humans let our dumb values prevent us from taking biological realities seriously. Take pooping, for example: People have decided pooping is gross, even though it’s a thing that most of us do literally every day. Now, some scientists think that even cannibalism is worth another hard look.
In the caterpillar-versus-plant fight, the winner might seem obvious. One side sits motionless in the sun, while the other feasts on it. But the tomato plant has a nefarious defense strategy. In some encounters with herbivores, it winds up relatively unscathed, while the caterpillars wind up eating each other.
Cannibalism is having a moment. Between zombie fare like The Walking Dead and The Santa Clarita Diet, and the upcoming French film Raw, which caused attendees of a Toronto Film Festival screening to pass out last year, contemporary pop culture is increasingly fascinated by the rigors of eating human flesh. For a take…
Hannibal may be gone from the airwaves, but it’s forever in our hearts, our nightmares, and on our dinner tables—thanks to Feeding Hannibal: A Connoisseur’s Cookbook, a recipe collection is curated by the show’s food stylist, Janice Poon. And you don’t even need an appetite for human flesh to enjoy it.
Male widow spiders often end up as a tasty meal for their partners after sex, but new research shows that some males are employing a rather unsettling strategy to prevent this from happening, and it’s a little bit twisted.
Luke Scott is about to release his much-anticipated debut feature, Morgan, and he’s already got another project lined up: The Hunger, which is not about sexy vampires but ill-fated pioneers. It’s based on a yet-to-be-written novel about the Donner Party, with what Deadline describes as “a Walking Dead-style twist.”
For over a century, paleoanthropologists have been fascinated by a gory question: were Neanderthals cannibals? In recent years, we’ve found remains that suggest cannibalism did exist in various parts of southern Europe but new remains found in northern Europe add further evidence to the “yes” answer and tell us more…
Female praying mantises have a habit of killing and eating their partners during sex, which sucks for the male. Or does it? A fascinating new study shows this sacrifice is actually giving the males a distinct reproductive advantage.
This is so weird and hilarious: as part of W Magazine’s “Casting Call” video series, Kristen Wiig, Jane Fonda, Mya Taylor, Carey Mulligan, and Greta Gerwig read one of Hannibal Lecter’s pointed monologues from The Silence of the Lambs. Fonda is a boss no matter what, but Wiig kind of steals the show, as you can see.
Alfred G. Packer first made headlines in 1873, when he returned from a harrowing journey through the Colorado Rockies ... alone. What happened to his five traveling companions became the stuff of legend, as author Harold Schechter explores in the new Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal.
“I have a problem. I’m a cannibal.” These matter-of-fact words, uttered by 22-year-old “Satan cultist” Stanley Dean Baker, chilled the California Highway Patrol officer who arrested him in July 1970. And it wasn’t long before that horrifying statement was proven to be completely true.
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence proving that members of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition resorted to cannibalism. The two-ship fleet, dispatched in 1845 to map the Northwest Passage, became hopelessly stuck in the Arctic ice. Remains of 36 bones show signs of cutting, breakage, and bone marrow extraction.
A friend of mine decided to get a group of children in her care a fish tank and guppies as a “class pet.” The guppies were soon joined by baby guppies. The babies disappeared, one by one. Turns out, guppies are known for this shit.
Remember those dark nights from your childhood when you were afraid of the boogeyman? He never did leap out of your closet, but that doesn’t mean all monsters are make-believe. Meet Albert Fish: a real-life nightmare, who preyed upon children as if they were food.
If you search Leonarda Cianciulli on the website for Rome’s Museo Criminologico, you’ll see that her nickname was “la Saponificatrice di Correggio.” What’s so sinister about a soap maker? Well, because she crafted it out of at least one of her murder victims ... and then gifted the bars to her friends.
Hannibal is back for its third season, its carnage-drenched season two finale still lingering in viewers’ minds. The premiere’s title, “Antipasto,” suggests we’re about to see a pre-meal taste of what’s to come, and indeed many familiar characters (the ones who are still alive, anyway) don’t yet appear.
