Month: May 2013

This week, federal officials announced that they had found unapproved, genetically modified wheat growing on farms in Oregon. They noted that wheat of this type was developed by Monsanto to resist the herbicide Roundup during the late 1990's and early 2000's. According to officials, for unknown reasons, Monsanto suddenly “dropped the project” in 2005 before seeking FDA approval. The department said they had not determined if any of the wheat had yet entered the food supply or into grain shipments. The genetically modified wheat was found in at least two fields in the area. A similar situation occurred in 2006 when unapproved genetically engineered rice was found growing in a farmer's field. In that particular case, since the rice had been engineered to resist herbicides, it grew

Saudi Arabia continues to announce new deaths from a lethal outbreak of a mysterious new novel coronavirus (NCoV) in the Middle East.  The new virus is a cousin of the SARS virus that causes kidney failure and pneumonia.  To date, 16 of the 24 that have been infected have died.  The virus, named Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, has been reported in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the U.K. (two members from a British family caught the virus from a relative who had been travelling through Saudi Arabia).  The World Health Organization (WHO) does not yet know how the virus is transmitted nor how widespread it has, or will, become.  Genetic sequencing shows that nCoV is most closely related to a

The next time you feel like complaining about turbulence while flying aboard a commercial airlines, consider the situation Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin survived after ejecting from his F-8 jet fighter that was flying Mach .82, at 47,000 feet, above a thunderstorm. To date, Rankin is the only known person to survive a fall through a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud.  He paid one heck of a price for his adventure. On July 26, 1959, Rankin was flying from Naval Air Station South in Weymouth, Massachusetts to Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. Seeing that he was approaching a thunderstorm ahead, he increased the speed of his F-8 Crusader jet to over 600 MPH and climbed to 47,000 feet in order to pass safely above the thunderstorm cloud.

A 60-year-old man from Belarus has died after a beaver bit him to death. The man was traveling near Shestakovskoye Lake with friends when he saw a beaver on the side of the road. The man pulled over, hoping to grab the furry critter for a quick picture. Police say the beaver attacked, biting the man repeatedly on the legs which resulted in severe leg wounds and a severed artery. Local travelers tried to help the man but could not stop the bleeding in time. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at a local clinic. Officials at the local clinic say the wounds were some of the worst they've ever encountered. Local doctor Leonty Sulim told the Guardian: “The character of the wound was totally shocking. We

A Polish court this week sentenced three men for up to four years in prison after the men accidentally stole a van full of dead bodies . A coroner assistant was driving the Mercedes Sprinter van from Berlin to a crematorium in the town of Meissen, Germany. The driver stopped at a “car park” to wash his hands and when he returned, the van was gone. The three men who stole the van were unaware that it contained 12 German corpses that were on their way to be cremated. When the thieves discovered the bodies in the back of the van, they promptly dumped the coffins in a nearby forest where they were later discovered, “strewn around the forest” but intact and still in their

Teachers at Mathiba Primary School in Maun had to abruptly end classes yesterday after students reported seeing a “black little hairy creature which resembled a human being” moving about the property. Following the incident, which occurred around noon local time, students went into a panic, fainting, and running amok while fleeing from the small humanoid creature. Ten students were admitted to a local hospital and treated for shock. Police chiefs investigated the area but could find no trace of the little creature. Maun is the fifth largest city in Botswana, Africa. Although one species of monkey is native to the nearby area (the Vervet monkey), it is distinctly silver in color and easily recognized by the local children. School officials had no recollection of any previous similar

El Henry, a member of California's Santee Historical Society (SHS) snapped an interesting photo a couple of weeks ago, one that is leaving a lot of folks scratching their heads. While Henry and another photographic crew were shooting photos of the historic Edgemoor Barn, which was celebrating its 100 year anniversary, she noted that her camera suddenly stopped working. She recalled that after taking the picture, she checked the shot for clarity and noticed a “speck” on the LCD display but did not immediately recognize what it was.  Later, when she uploaded the photos to her computer, the anomaly was much more evident. After enlarging the image she was surprised to see that she had captured a disc or oval-shaped metallic object in the sky

Looking like someone out of the Flintstones, 38-year-old Liu Lingchao is the human equivalent of a real-life human snail, carrying his 132 pound (60 kilogram) house, made of bamboo poles and plastic sheets, on his back as he travels throughout China.  A veritable travelling salesmen, he earns money for food and supplies by collecting plastic bottles and metal cans along his route that he sells when he passes through a new Chinese city along his way. Lingchao has thus far gone through three such portable shelters.  The one he carries around now measures 5-feet wide (1.5 meters) and stands 7.2 feet (2.2 meters) high.  Inside the shelter, he has a padded horizontal bar that rests upon his shoulders while carrying the home on his back.  As

23-year-old Jason Leon was riding his ATV with a few of his friends when he noticed a few feet of snake sticking out of the brush by the gravel road. Jason crawled off the ATV, grabbed the head of the snake, and yanked it free from the brush. To his surprise, there was 15 more feet of the snake that was concealed by the thick brush.  The battle began. The 18-foot female python wrapped around his leg once, then twice, and then began working its way to Jason's waist. A friend handed Jason a nine-inch hunting knife which he sunk into the head of the snake. He then decapitated the snake and contacted wildlife officials. Wildlife officials took the snake and confirmed that it was indeed a

An Arizona man, who had a runny nose for over a year, was shocked to hear that the fluid leaking from his noise was not snot – it was brain fluid. Thinking he had year-round allergies, Joe Nagy visited his doctor where he was diagnosed with a perforated brain membrane. A tiny hole in the membrane was allowing brain fluid to leak into his sinus cavity and out the nose. "You don't really think about it, but our brains are really just above our noses all of the time.” Unfortunately, Nagy contracted meningitis and the fluid inside his brain became infected - a very dangerous situation. However, once the meningitis cleared up, doctors were able to plug the hole with medical glue. A happy Nagy told Fox Phoenix: “I

By 1955, Senator Richard Russell had become one of the most powerful and influential U.S. Senators in modern history. After serving as Governor of Georgia, Russell served for almost 40 years in the United States Senate during which time he was a candidate for President of the United States in the 1948 Democratic National Convention, and the 1952 Democratic National Convention. He was chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1951 through 1969 and at the time of his death, was the most senior member of the Senate.  His credibility as a witness is beyond question. In 1955, Senator Russell was dispatched to Russian on a fact-finding mission. It was during this trip, just after 7:00 PM on October 4, 1955, while traveling on a Soviet

Vladimir Demikhov's illustrious career provided many interesting advances in the Russian medical science field.  In 1937, at the young age of 21, Demikhov designed the first ever cardiac-assist device, a pump mechanism which was capable of taking over a heart's cardiac function for a full five and a half hours.  In 1946, Demikhov became the first to perform a heart transplant on a dog.  Remarkably, the dog survived for five months after the operation.  In subsequent years, Demikhov was able to transplant a lung and perform a cardiovascular bypass - all using dogs for patients.  For a while, his work was renowned and respected in the medical community.  Dr. Alexis Carrel, an American surgeon and experimental biologist who won a 1912 Nobel Prize, said that

    Officials in Belize say a road-building construction company has purposely destroyed one of the country's largest Mayan pyramids. The company destroyed the Mayan pyramid in order to extract rock for a road-building project. The Mayan temple dated back to pre-Columbian times and is estimated to be 2,300 year old. Only a small piece of the pyramid was left standing. An archeologist explained that the ruins were well-known and easy to identify. "It is incredible that someone would actually have the gall to destroy this building out here. There is absolutely no way that they would not know that these are Maya mounds.” Destroying Mayan temples for their rock is not a new problem. “Bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize. The whole of

Mourners filing past the casket during a Zimbabwe funeral this week were shocked when they man they came to mourn suddenly “returned from the dead”. 34-year-old Brighton Dama Zanthe was laid to rest on Monday after dying at his home the day before. At his funeral, one family member thought he noticed Zanthe's leg twitching. “I was the first to notice Zanthe's moving legs as I was in the queue to view his body. This shocked me. We called an ambulance immediately. It's a miracle and people are still in disbelief.” Zanthe was taken to a hospital where he spent two days on life support before finally being released back to his family. Zanthe told reporters: “Everything is history to me. What I can only confirm is that

There's a bit of rumbling on the wires the past few days. I cannot validate all of the sources so for now, just consider this “interesting” reading and watch for more news. Sources are claiming that one or more attacks against large U.S. targets or infrastructure are in the pipeline. The attacks are said to be sponsored by a major government and conducted through “proxies” and could include a Mumbai type attack (in 2008, a Mumbai hotel was targeted, hostages were taken, and 164 people killed over the course of several days). It is believed that communications with the operational center have been cut, a sign that the attacks are moving ahead quickly. The intent of course, would be to promote fear and push the population