A new weekly column from Dr. Ruehl

From the early days of the Tabloid Baby website, genius, cable television legend, TV and film actor, certified genius, supermarket tabloid writer and nuclear physicist Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. has been a favorite of readers and a valued contributor.

His As Dr. Ruehl column answered questions from across the cosmos, and now Tabloid Baby is honored to announce that we’re picking up his syndicated Realm of Bizarre News column, a phantasmagoria of fascinating and often fantastic facts that has been enterianing and educating email recipients for at least 142 weeks now.

We pick up with No. 143:

This Week's
"Realm of Bizarre News"
Top 13

* Ouch! Chicago gal, 18, developed a massive 10-pound hairball in her tummy from years of chewing on her own hair! The bezoar, which resembled a dead rat, had to be surgically removed!

(Trivia Q: What is the technical term for eating hair? Answer below)

* Incredibly well-preserved fossil of a plant-eating dino, the hadrosaur, has been unearthed in North Dakota. Even its skin and some internal organs were recovered, allowing paleontologists to conclude that the creature may have been striped, perhaps like a zebra!

* Roadkill stuffed animals now being sold for Xmas! The 1st, Twitch the Raccoon, is marked by a tire print across its back. A zipper on each side allows the owner to remove its innards, and is accompanied by its own body bag!

* Understandable, completely understandable! A motorist in Knoxville, TN fired 3 shots into a speed camera with a high-powered rifle, putting it out of commission! Other such hated cameras have been smashed, hacked, and even burned in the states and Great Britain.

* New Yeti footprints have been discovered in the Himalayas in Nepal by an American television team! They will be subjected to intense laboratory analysis to determine if they do indeed represent an unknown species.

* Bad! A serious shortage of prized Hungarian goose feathers, used in pricey pillows, has developed as a result of bird flu and the soaring price of feed. These particular geese are feed a special diet, bathed in the summer, and kept cold in the winter, practices which yield extra-large soft feathers. Couldn’t they just use pigeon feathers instead? They’ll never run out!

* For the third time this year, surgeons at the Rhode Island Hospital have operated on the wrong side of a patient's brain! But the Ruehl solution can easily eliminate this problem: each patient slated for brain surgery should be appointed with a black monk's cowl, with plastic tape placed on the side on which the surgery is to be performed!

* Spooky! The image of a Jesuit priest executed for treason involving the Gunpowder Plot in England in the 1600s has materialized on the cover of a book chronicling his demise... Eerily, the cover was fashioned from the priest's own skin!

* A boy's metal ID bracelet lost some 25 years ago on a farm in Fairmont, Massachusetts, was discovered in the gizzard of a chicken being processed for market. The bird probably dug it out of the ground and swallowed it!

* Moo! A female artist in London is raking in a small fortune substituting cows for humans in her renditions of famous paintings, such as The Mona Lisa!

* Judge in Niagara Falls, Canada, infuriated that a cellphone went off in his courtroom, ordered all 46 audience members arrested, with a bail set at $1500! Ironically, he has been divested of his post as a result of this action!

* Study proves that the number 13 is unlucky, at least, for the British National Lottery. Mathematicians have determined that since 1994, when the lottery was initiated, 13 has come up the fewest number of times. Other unlucky numbers include 6,9, and 11. Contrariwise, the luckiest number is 38, followed by 25 and 31.

* Boy in a Cambodia village and his beloved pet python, Lucky, have slept together for the past six years, and are closer than if they shared the same skin!

(Trivia answer: The technical term for eating hair is "trichophagia.")


Dr. Ruehl is host of the cable TV series, Mysteries From Beyond The Other Dominion." Recently, he was the resident anomalist on The New Tom Green Show on MTV, guested on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and the new ALF'S Hit Talk Show, and hosted a recurring UFO segment-- was profiled-- on "9 On The Town."

See Dr. Ruehl’s USA network promo here.

His own channel at Mania TV is viewable here.

His special"Hollywood Hopefuls" demo reel can be found here.

Two episodes of his show from Tom Green Productions here.

The trailer for the film in which he portrays "Running Owl" is here.

His straw-in-potato demo at "Heroes" website (1:26 minutes into reel) is here.

Check out the Doctor’s IMDb profile here.

Reed his UFO column here.

See his profile at Expert Village here.

See his straw-in-potato video at Expert Village here.

Link to his demo reel here.