truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

News of the Weird reported in 2003 on San Francisco artist Jonathon Keats' project to sell "futures contracts" on his brain cells (provided science discovers how to keep them alive after he dies), with $10 buying a million of Keats' radically imaginative neurons. In a new recent project, which critiques today's hyperactive media, Keats has published a story in print that will take almost 1,000 years to read beginning to end. Actually, it is only nine words long (published in the interactive multimedia print magazine Opium) and, according to the instructions, the ink will reveal itself, ever so slowly, as it is exposed to air and light, taking about one century per word.

A June article in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases reported the worldwide reach of incidents of tapeworms that grow inside humans to nearly 40 feet in length. The most serious carrier, according to a Scientific American summary, is salmon sashimi. (Anthony Franz's 2008 lawsuit against a Chicago sushi restaurant, for a 9-foot-long tapeworm, is still pending.)

Medical Marvel: Paul Gibbs, 26, hopes soon to have his left ear reattached after losing it in a barroom fight, but for now, the ear needs to be re-nourished to be strong enough to survive the surgery. Consequently, Gibbs has become the most recent person to have one organ surgically implanted elsewhere in his body while it absorbs nutrients. His lawyer reported in June at England's Leeds Crown Court (at a hearing for the two thugs convicted of beating Gibbs up) that the ear was successfully sewn into Gibbs' abdomen.

Anna Ryan, 42, of Blue Springs, Mo., was baffled for years why her normal 140 pounds sometimes ballooned to as much as 260 despite her consistently rigorous diet and exercise regimen. Finally, two years ago (according to a June 2009 dispatch in London's Daily Mail), nocturnal tests performed by Overland Park, Kan., physician Scott Eveloff revealed a disorder: Ryan was a sleepwalker whose routine included as many as eight kitchen visits a night in which she gorged herself but of which she had no memory the next morning.

Willie Windsor, 54, of Phoenix has for several years lived as a full-time baby, wearing frilly dresses, diapers and bonnets, sucking on a pacifier, eating Gerber cuisine and habitually clutching a rag doll, in a home filled with oversized baby furniture. According to a long Phoenix New Times profile in June, the diaper is not just a prop. Windsor said he worked hard to learn to become incontinent, even chaining the commode shut to avoid temptation, and the reporter admitted feeling "disconcert(ed)" that Windsor might be relieving himself at the very moment he was describing his un-toilet training. Apparently, Windsor's brother, ex-wife, girlfriend and a neighbor tolerate his lifestyle (though no girlfriend has yet been willing to change his diapers). Windsor is a semi-retired singer-actor and said he's been celibate for nine years.

Competitive Facial Hair: At the biennial World Beard and Moustache Championships in May in Anchorage, Alaska, four local heroes "defeated" the usually dominant German contingent in the 18-category pageant, including overall champ David Traver of Girdwood, Alaska, whose woven chin hair suggests a long potholder. Said Traver, of the Germans, "They were humble, and you have to respect that." One defending champ, Jack Passion of Los Angeles, fell short with his navel-length red hair, despite having authored "The Facial Hair Handbook" after his 2007 victory. Traver acknowledged that no money was at stake (only trophies and "bragging rights"), but added that there are "a lot of ladies" who fawn over men's facial hair. "Seriously, they exist."