The HOLODOMOR aka The 1933 Ukrainian Famine Genocide

In the early 1930’s, the Soviet Union created a policy in an attempt to increase the food supply. Stalin was convinced an agricultural collectivization that forces farmers to give up their private land, equipment and livestock, and join state owned, factory-like collective farms would not only feed the industrial workers in the cities but could also provide a substantial amount of grain to be sold abroad, with the money used to finance his industrialization plans. The policy turned out to be devastating as it helped spawn one of the biggest famines in history.

The most affected areas included Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia. The famine was extremely bad in Ukraine, and became known as the Holodomor, which many historians felt was an actual genocide, carried out by Joseph Stalin and comparable to the Holocaust.

Holodomor - Death by starvation

The Holodomor (translated: death by starvation) refers to the famine of 1932–1933 in the Ukrainian SSR during which millions of people starved to death as a result of the economic and trade policies instituted by the government of Joseph Stalin. The famine was a part of wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933. There were no natural causes for starvation and in fact, Ukraine - unlike other Soviet Republics - enjoyed a bumper wheat crop in 1932. The Holodomor is considered one of the greatest calamities to affect the Ukrainian nation in modern history. Millions of inhabitants of Ukraine died of starvation in an unprecedented peacetime catastrophe. Estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range mostly from 2.6 million to 10 million.
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The GRAUBALLE Man

The Grauballe man is one of the best preserved bog bodies in the world. He was found on April 26, 1952, in a bog near the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark, by a person digging for peat. Carbon dating has determined him to be from around 290 BC. Grauballe Man is currently on display at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, Denmark.

The Grauballe Man is very well preserved with nails and hair in evidence. His fingers were even in good enough condition to allow his fingerprints to be taken. While his hair and beard is well preserved, it has been discoloured by time, as is his skin. No clothing or jewellery was found on or near the body.

The CHINCHORRO Mummies of South America

Chinchorro Mummy 

The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture found in what is now northern Chile and southern Peru. The Chinchorro mummies (named in the 1960s for a beach in Arica where similar mummies had been found), are the oldest examples of mummified human remains, dating to thousands of years before the Egyptian mummies. They are believed to have first appeared around 5000 B.C. and reaching a peak around 3000 B.C. Often Chinchorro mummies were elaborately prepared by removing the internal organs and replacing them with vegetable fibers or animal hair. In some cases an embalmer would remove the skin and flesh from the dead body and replace them with clay. Shell midden and bone chemistry suggest that 90% of their diet was seafood. Many ancient cultures of fisherfolk existed, tucked away in the arid river valleys of the Andes, but the Chinchorro made themselves unique by their dedicated preservation of the dead.
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The Chinchorro mummies are significant because during the periods of these mummies, everyone who died was mummified, including children, newborns and fetuses. This shows that it was not reserved for those of high rank or high status - mummification was not a sign of social stratification.
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OGOPOGO - Canada's Lake MONSTER

The origins of the monster

Ogopogo 2 Lake Okanagan Ogopogo Monster.
Photo by Dan Basaraba

Indian legend has it that the large lake creature, Ogopogo, was originally a demon possessed man who had murdered a well known and respected local man named "Old Kan-He-Kan." In memory of this man, his people named Our beautiful lake "Okanagan." To pay for his sins, the Indian gods changed the murderer into a lake serpent so he would forever be at the scene of his crime and suffer eternal remorse. The creature's name became "N'ha-A-Itk" which roughly translates into sacred creature of the water, water god or lake demon.

His mind was full of dark thoughts and the demons spoke to him. His wild eyes and words frightened his people, and he became an outcast, shunned by all. One day in a fury of rage and pain, he attacked old Kan-He-Kan, a local wise man. The demon-possessed man killed the venerable sage on the shores of a beautiful lake near his home, and then ran away, afraid of what the people would do to him when they found out.

Daniel Tammet - The Man with the INCREDIBLE BRAIN

Daniel Tammet

British high-functioning autistic savant, Daniel Paul Tammet is gifted with a facility for mathematical calculations, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy and has been "studied repeatedly" by researchers in Britain and the United States. He was the subject of several peer-reviewed scientific papers. Professor Allan Snyder at the Australian National University has said of Tammet: "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can describe what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the 'Rosetta Stone'."

His 2006 memoir, Born on a Blue Day, about his life with high-functioning autism and savant syndrome, was named a "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association. Tammet's second book, Embracing the Wide Sky, was one of France's best selling books of 2009. Thinking in Numbers, Tammet's third book, was published by Hodder in the UK on 16 August 2012, and by Little, Brown in the United States and Canada on 30 July 2013. His books have been published in 20 languages. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2012.

The TOLLUND Man

The Tollund Man is the naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the time period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950 buried in a peat bog on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, which preserved his body. Such a find is known as a bog body. Tollund Man, and in particular the head and face, was so well-preserved that at the time of discovery he was mistaken for a recently deceased murder victim.

On May 8, 1950, Viggo and Emil Højgaard from the small village of Tollund were cutting peat for their stove in the Bjældskor Dale peat bog, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of Silkeborg, Denmark.As they worked, they noticed in the peat layer a face so fresh that they could only assume that they had discovered a recent murder victim, and notified the police at Silkeborg. The police were baffled by the body, and in an attempt to identify the time of death, they brought in archaeology professor P. V. Glob. Glob determined that the body was over two thousand years old, most likely murdered, and thrown into the bog as a sacrifice to fertility goddesses.
The Tollund Man lay 50 meters (164 ft) away from firm ground, buried under approximately 2 meters (7 ft) of peat, his body arranged in a fetal position. He wore a pointed skin cap fastened securely under his chin by a hide thong. There was a smooth hide belt around his waist. Additionally, the corpse had a garrote made of hide drawn tight around the neck, and trailing down his back.

Jill Price - The Woman Who CAN'T FORGET

Jill Price (née Jill Rosenberg December 30, 1965) is an American woman who has been diagnosed with hyperthymesia. She was the first person to receive such diagnosis, and it was her case that propounded such research.

Price is able to recite details of every day of her life since she was fourteen years old. She can recall various obscure moments of her life in great detail.

Her condition, termed hyperthymesia, or "hyperthymestic syndrome", is characterized by a highly superior autobiographical memory.

The RATTAIL aka Grenadier Fish

Rattail fish are deep sea fish who tend to travel alone. This species of fish are known to account for 15% of the deep sea fish community.

These Grenadiers or rattails (less commonly whiptails) are generally large, brown to black gadiform marine fish of the family Macrouridae. Found at great depths from the Arctic to Antarctic, members of this family are among the most abundant of the deep-sea fishes.
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The Macrouridae are a large and diverse family with some 34 genera and 383 species recognized (well over half of which are contained in just three genera, Caelorinchus, Coryphaenoides and Nezumia). They range in length from approximately 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in the graceful grenadier (Hymenocephalus gracilis) to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in the giant grenadier, Albatrossia pectoralis. An important commercial fishery exists for the larger species, such as the giant grenadier and roundnose grenadier, Coryphaenoides rupestris. The family as a whole may represent up to 15 percent of the deep-sea fish population.
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Typified by large heads with large mouths and eyes, grenadiers have slender bodies that taper greatly to a very thin caudal peduncle or tail (excluding one species, there is no tail fin): this rat-like tail explains the common name rattail and the family name Macrouridae, from the Greek makros meaning "great" and oura meaning "tail". The first dorsal fin is small, high and pointed (and may be spinous); the second dorsal fin runs along the rest of the back and merges with the tail and extensive anal fin. The scales are small.
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The KAKAPO - a Flightless Parrot

This fascinating bird, the kakapo, holds several records such as being the world's only flightless parrot as well as being the heaviest parrot in the world, and is also unusual in being nocturnal.

The Kakapo (Māori: kākāpō, meaning night parrot), Strigops habroptila (Gray, 1845), also called owl parrot, is a species of flightless nocturnal parrot endemic to New Zealand. It has finely blotched yellow-green plumage, a distinct facial disc of sensory, vibrissa-like feathers, a large grey beak, short legs, large feet, and wings and a tail of relatively short length. A certain combination of traits makes it unique among its kind—it is the world's only flightless parrot, the heaviest parrot, nocturnal, herbivorous, visibly sexually dimorphic in body size, has a low basal metabolic rate, no male parental care, and is the only parrot to have a polygynous lek breeding system. It is also possibly one of the world's longest-living birds. Its anatomy typifies the tendency of bird evolution on oceanic islands with few predators and abundant food: accretion of thermodynamic efficiency at the expense of flight abilities, reduced wing muscles, a diminished keel on the sternum, and a generally robust physique.

Map of historic Kakapo distribution. Based loosely on an image
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kakapohist.png) by James Dignan.
A derivative work of a multi-licensed image
(Image:NZ Locator Blank.svg) by Ozhiker.

Kakapo are critically endangered; as of April 2009, only 125 living individuals are known,most of which have been given names.The common ancestor of the Kakapo and the genus Nestor became isolated from the remaining parrot species when New Zealand broke off from Gondwana, around 82 million years ago. Around 70 million years ago, the kakapo diverged from the genus Nestor. In the absence of mammalian predators, it lost the ability to fly. Because of Polynesian and European colonisation and the introduction of predators such as cats, rats, and stoats, most of the Kakapo were wiped out. Conservation efforts began in the 1890s, but they were not very successful until the implementation of the Kakapo Recovery Plan in the 1980s. As of January 2009, surviving Kakapo are kept on two predator-free islands, Codfish (Whenua Hou) and Anchor islands, where they are closely monitored. Two large Fiordland islands, Resolution and Secretary, have been the subject of large-scale ecological restoration activities to prepare self-sustaining ecosystems with suitable habitat for the Kakapo.

Mandy Sellars - The Woman With the GIANT LEGS

Doctors can't tell Mandy Sellars why her legs keep expanding – all they say is that her only option is a drastic amputation. She travelled to the US for a new TV show in search of an alternative...

It’s not easy being Mandy Sellars. She has hugely outsized legs that make having a normal life nearly impossible.

People stare whenever she leaves the house, she needs a special car to get around and can’t work full time.What’s more, her condition is getting worse and doctors say she needs an amputation so severe she won’t be able to sit up. And she doesn’t even know what’s caused it.

But the cheerful 33-year-old from Accrington, Lancs, just won’t be told. She’s challenged medics’ verdict and has just got back from America where she went to find a new treatment.And now she’s on a mission to find out once and for all what’s the matter with her.

“As you can imagine the size of my legs and clubfoot make walking difficult and I need crutches just to get around my ground floor flat.“And people can be very cruel. I was in a park a few months ago when a group of teens started pointing at me, they were saying to each other, ‘Look at the size of her legs.’

“I wish they could experience how it feels to have strangers laugh at you.“I don’t mind curiosity – it’s the laughing and nudging that gets to me. ”

The MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM

Mongolian Death Worm

The Mongolian Death Worm is a cryptid purported to exist in the Gobi Desert. It is generally considered a cryptozoological creature; one whose sightings and reports are disputed or unconfirmed.

It is described as a bright red worm with a wide body that is 0.6 to 1.5 meters (2 to 5 feet) long.

In general, scientists reject the possibility that such mega-fauna cryptids exist, because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population and because climate and food supply issues make their survival in reported habitats unlikely.

The JAPANESE MACAQUE aka the Snow Monkey

The Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species native to Japan, although an introduced free-ranging population has been living near Laredo, Texas since 1972.It is the most northern-living as well as the most polar-living non-human primate. In Japan, they were historically known as saru ("monkey"). Nihonzaru (Nihon "Japan" + saru) is used in modern times to distinguish from other primates. Individuals have brown-gray fur, a red face, and a short tail. There are two subspecies of this macaque:

Macaca fuscata fuscata
Yakushima macaque, Macaca fuscata yakui


Range and diet

The Japanese macaque is diurnal and spends most of its time in forests. It lives in a variety of forest-types, including subtropical to subalpine, deciduous, broadleaf, and evergreen forests, below 1500 m. It feeds on seeds, roots, buds, fruit, invertebrates, berries, leaves, eggs, fungi, bark, cereals and in rare cases even fish. It has a body length ranging from 79 to 95 cm, with a tail length of approximately 10 cm. Males weigh from 10 to 14 kg, females, around 5.5 kg.
The Japanese macaque lives in mountainous areas of Honshū, Japan. It survives winter temperatures below -15 °C (5°F), and is perhaps most notable for the amount of time it spends in naturally heated volcanic hot springs in Snow Monkey park located in Yamanouchi town, close to a historical hot spring area named Shibu Onsen. In Life on Earth from 1979, David Attenborough notes that the monkeys (not the entire population) first moved into the volcanic area with the springs, "Only a few years ago."

The LIGER

Hercules The Liger with Ragani Ferrante from
T.I.G.E.R.S.(The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species )

The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a tigress (Panthera tigris), hence has parents with the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tiglon.
It is the largest of all cats and extant felines.

Ligers inherit characteristics from both species. Ligers enjoy swimming which is a characteristic of tigers and are very sociable like lions. However ligers may inherit health issues or behavioural issues due to conflicting inherited traits, but this depends on the mix of genes inherited. Ligers exist only in captivity because the parental species do not normally meet. None have been confirmed in the one region where both cats coexist (Gir Forest region, India). Ligers may grow to, or exceed, the size of the larger parent.

The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in, India Asia. In 1799, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) made a colour plate of the offspring of a lion and a tiger.

In 1825, G.B. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in 1824. The parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th Century painting in the naïve style.

Two liger cubs which had been born in 1837 were exhibited to William IV and to his successor Victoria. On 14 December 1900 and on 31 May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg in 1897.

CLEVER HANS the Horse

Clever Hans (in German, der Kluge Hans) was a horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.

After formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.

In honour of Pfungst's study, the anomalous artifact has since been referred to as the Clever Hans effect and has continued to be important knowledge in the observer-expectancy effect and later studies in animal cognition.

The Long-eared JERBOA

The Long-eared Jerboa, Euchoreutes naso, is a nocturnal mouse-like rodent with a long tail, long hind legs for jumping, and exceptionally large ears. It is distinct enough that authorities consider it to be the only member of both its genus, Euchoreutes, and subfamily, Euchoreutinae.

Long-eared Jerboa -at the scenic spot of the Mountain of Flames
(Huoyanshan) in Turpan City, northwest China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.Xinhua photo

It has been reported in China and in ten localities in desert habitats of Trans Altai Govi Desert and the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

A large part of the species is believed to occur in Mongolia within protected areas.

Very little is known about the species.

Globally, it is listed by IUCN as Endangered and within Mongolia it is listed as Vulnerable.

The cause of their threatened status is not well understood, but it has been suggested that it is due to habitat disturbance from mining activities, overgrazing and agriculture as well as possibly climate change.

The SHOEBILL aka the Whalehead

Shoebill Balaeniceps rex Zoological Garden,
Frankfurt/Main, Germany pic by Fritz Geller-Grimm

The Shoebill, Balaeniceps rex, also known as Whalehead, is a very large stork-like bird. It derives its name from its massive shoe-shaped bill.

The Shoebill is a very large bird. The adult is 115-150 cm (45-60 in) tall, 100-140 cm (40-55 in) long, 230-260 cm (91-125 in) across the wings and weighs 4 to 7 kg (8.8-15.5 lbs).The adult is mainly grey while the juveniles are browner. It lives in tropical east Africa in large swamps from Sudan to Zambia.

This species was only classified in the 19th century when some skins were brought to Europe. It was not until years later that live specimens reached the scientific community. However, the bird was known to both ancient Egyptians and Arabs. There are Egyptian images depicting the Shoebill, while the Arabs referred to the bird as abu markub, which means one with a shoe, a reference to the bird's distinctive bill.

The TONGUE EATING LOUSE

The Cymothoa exigua or the Tongue eating louse is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae(Isopods). It tends to be 3 to 4 cm long. This parasite enters through the gills, and then attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper's (Lutjanus guttatus) tongue.

It then proceeds to extract blood through the claws on its front three pairs of legs. As the parasite grows, less and less blood reaches the tongue, and eventually the organ wastes away from lack of blood. The parasite then replaces the fish's tongue by attaching its own body to the muscles of the tongue stub. The fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue. It appears that the parasite does not cause any other damage to the host fish. Once C. exigua replaces the tongue, some feed on the host's blood and many others feed on fish mucus.

They do not eat scraps of the fish's food. This is the only known case of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ.

There are many species of Cymothoa, but only C. exigua is known to consume and replace its host's tongue.

In 2005, a fish parasitised by what could be Cymothoa exigua was discovered in the United Kingdom. As the parasite is normally found off the coast of California, this led to speculation that the parasite's range may be expanding. However, it is also possible that the isopod traveled from the Gulf of California in the snapper's mouth, and its appearance in the UK is an isolated incident. The animal in question will be put on display in the Horniman Museum.

Giant SNAKES

Ancestor of the giant snakes

The biggest snake yet discovered, Titanoboa cerrejones, slithers alongside one of its presumed prey, a primitive crocodile, 60 million years ago in an artist's conception.

At least 42 feet long (13 meters) and weighing 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms), the snake was "longer than a city bus ... and heavier than a car," said University of Toronto Mississauga biologist Jason Head, who announced the find.

4 June 2009 a Lisburn man Mike Warner (73) and his son Greg (44) have done, seeking evidence that this was the home of the Yacumama and actually capturing a picture of the creature. A leviathan of the jungle, which reports say reaches 40 metres in length and two metres in diameter, it dwarfs any snake known to science.

This anaconda is not green but dark brown and is known by the locals as the 'black boa' or 'Yacumama'.

"Yacumama is translated as Mother of the Water and reports of this giant snake abound throughout the Amazon basin and history."

Giant Anaconda

After an exhausting 12 days in the jungle and a 30 hour trip back home the father and son team were finally able to examine their photo evidence in more detail, over 700 photos and five hours of video.
"The data is immense and will take months to fully appreciate but already it supports our theories of 'channels' created by these giants as they make their way through the dense jungle knocking down trees 90 feet tall, but more importantly we managed to catch one of these reclusive giants on camera as it made its way through one of its watery channels."

ALBINO Animals

Albinism (from Latin albus, "white" also called achromia, achromasia, or achromatosis) is a form of hypopigmentary congenital disorder, characterized by a partial or total lack of melanin pigment in the eyes, skin and hair, or more rarely in the eyes alone. Albinism results from inheritance of recessive alleles. The condition is known to affect mammals (including humans), fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians. While the most common term for an organism affected by albinism is "albino" (noun and adjective), the word is sometimes used in derogatory ways towards people; more neutral terms are "albinistic" (adjective) and "person with albinism" (noun). Additional clinical adjectives sometimes used to refer to animals are "albinoid" and "albinic".

"Pinky" the bottlenose dolphin

It is not the same as leucism, where all integumental pigment is absent at least in patches but the eyes have their usual color.Leucistic animals are often mistaken as being albino creatures, such as white lions. Leucism is a condition similar to albinism, characterized by reduced pigmentation in general and can also affect distribution of pigment on the hair shaft, but unlike albinism, it’s caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment, not just melanin. Chinchilla and other mutations can also cause white animals, such as some of the animals depicted here, including white peacocks, and white tigers, which are typically white rather than albino.

The RAINMAN Twins - Flo and Kay Lyman

From the moment they were born, Flo and Kay Lyman were unlike any sisters on planet earth. Thought to be mentally retarded, they were tormented by kids. What no one realised is that Flo and Kay are among the most brilliant people the world has ever seen. This is the untold story of the only identical twin autistic savant sisters known to exist.

Over a span of 50 years, Flo and Kay have memorised the world around them. They never forget a date, never forget a song, never forget what they eat, never forget the weather on any day.

Their recall is remarkable, their rituals are riveting. From documenting what dozens of news and talk show hosts wear each day to their obsession with Dick Clark and the 100-Thousand Dollar Pyramid, Flo and Kay’s world is unique.

Even in the world of autistic savants, Flo and Kay Lyman are unique. They're the only identical twins to have this extraordinary condition that, as one expert puts it, makes them part-retarded and part-genius.

Now52, Flo and Kay don't forget anything that has ever happened to them. "We've got a microchip in our brain," is how they describe it.

They can tell you what they ate on a certain day, what the weather was like, and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of every song they've heard or read on an album cover.



You’ll never forget them….and they’ll never forget you.


Sources: Electric Sky, Demand Five

Primordial DWARFISM ft. Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley

Primordial dwarfism Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley

Primordial dwarfism is a rare form of dwarfism that results in a smaller body size in all stages of life beginning from before birth. More specifically, primordial dwarfism is a diagnostic category including specific types of profoundly proportionate dwarfism, in which individuals are extremely small for their age, even as a fetus. Most individuals with primordial dwarfism are not diagnosed until they are about 3 years of age.

Medical professionals typically diagnose the fetus as being small for the gestational age, or as having intrauterine growth disability when an ultrasound is conducted. Typically, people with primoridal dwarfism are born with very low birth weights. After birth, growth continues at a stunted rate, leaving individuals with primordial dwarfism perpetually years behind their peers in stature and in weight.

Most cases of short stature are caused by skeletal or endocrine disorders. The five subtypes of primordial dwarfism are the most severe forms of the 200 types of dwarfism, and it is estimated that there are only 100 individuals in the world with the disorder. Other sources list the number of persons currently afflicted as high as 100 in North America.

It is rare for individuals affected by primordial dwarfism to live past the age of 30.[2] In the case of microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism (MOPD) type II there can be increased risk of vascular problems, which may cause premature death.

4 UNBELIEVABLE Genetic ACCIDENTS

Frog-like Baby (unidentified baby - Nepal)


On 2006, this bizarre-looking baby was born in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, attracting a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.

The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot. The Karki couple is a permanent resident of Dolakha's Bhirkot VDC.

The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death. The news about such a baby being brought to the hospital spread like wildfire and there were hundreds gathered at the hospital to have a look. The police had to be deployed to control the crowd.

The baby weighed 2kg at birth and was born after the normal nine-month gestation period. Suntali, already a mother of two normal daughters, was not suffering from any illness during the pregnancy. Nir Bahadur, the father, says he does not feel any remorse for the newly-born baby's death. "I am happy that nothing happened to my wife," he said.

Note - it was reported that "the baby has a condition called anencephaly, a neural tube defect (like the cyclops baby), with no proper brain formation. The baby would have died a few days later. That's why women are advised to take folate in early pregnancy. 

The RUBBER BOY aka Rubberboy

Five time Guiness Record holder, The Rubberboy is the most flexible man alive and the most famous contortionist.

He has been in many professional basketball or baseball games and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ESPN's Sports Center, Oprah Winfrey, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Cirque du Soleil, Best Damn Sports Show Period, The Discovery Channel, Men in Black 2, HBO's Carnivale, and CSI: NY and America's Got Talent.

He dislocates his arms to crawl through an unstrung tennis racquet. He performs contortion handstands and unique acrobatics.

Video

BLACK and WHITE TWINS BORN By One in a Million Chance (+ Video)

Million to one odds!

Beautifully different: Twins Alicia (left)
and Jasmin Singerl were born in a
one-in-a-million genetic phenomenon
that saw each take after one of their parents

The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one.

Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together.

If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.

Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race.

But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black.

The PURPLE Frog (+ Videos)

The Purple Frog is a product of isolated evolution that has been taking place for over 130 million years. Evolving from the amphibian family Nasikabatrachidae, the Purple Frog is a very recent discovery, having being discovered in India in 2003 making the Purple Frog the first new family of frogs to be discovered since 1926.

Currently the Purple frog is listed as endangered because the growth of deforestation is destroying its habitat. It is believed that the Purple Frog and its closest relative the Sooglossidae family’s ancestors shared that earth with dinosaurs for around 70 million years  before splitting down two distinct evolutionary paths all before the first human ancestors even emerged.

ALIEN-Like Squid Seen at Deep Drilling Site (+Videos

Kelly Hearn,
for National Geographic News
November 24, 2008

A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible's camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all -"elbowed" Magnapinna squid.

In a brief video from the dive recently obtained by National Geographic News, one of the rarely seen squid loiters above the seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico on November 11, 2007.

The clip—from a Shell oil company ROV (remotely operated vehicle)—arrived after a long, circuitous trip through oil-industry in-boxes and other email accounts.

"Perdido ROV Visitor, What Is It?" the email's subject line read—Perdido being the name of a Shell-owned drilling site. Located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off Houston, Texas (Gulf of Mexico map), Perdido is one of the world's deepest oil and gas developments.

The GOBLIN Shark (+ Video)

The goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni, is a deep-sea shark, the sole living species in the family Mitsukurinidae.The most distinctive characteristic of the goblin shark is the unorthodox shape of its head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like rostrum or snout, much longer than other sharks' snouts. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long, protrusible jaws. When the jaws are retracted, the shark resembles a pink grey nurse shark, Carcharias taurus, with an unusually long nose.

VIDEO: Skateable Living Room in Athens, Greece with Tony Hawk

Can you imagine having a skateable room right in your very own home?

VIDEO: Extreme transformer home in Hong Kong: Gary Chang's 24 rooms in 1

And you thought your space was small! Check out this transformer home in Hong Kong!

The Naked or Desert Mole RAT (+ Video)

The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber), also known as the sand puppy, or desert mole rat is a burrowing rodent native to parts of East Africa and the only species currently classified in genus Heterocephalus. It is one of only two known eusocial mammals (the other being the Damaraland mole rat) and has a highly unusual set of physical traits that enables it to thrive in a harsh, underground environment, including a lack of pain sensation in its skin and a nearly cold-blooded metabolism.

Typical individuals are 8–10 cm long and weigh 30–35 g. Queens are larger and may weigh well over 50 g, the largest reaching 80 g. They are well-adapted to their underground existence. Their eyes are quite small, and their visual acuity is poor. Their legs are thin and short; however, they are highly adept at moving underground and can move backward as fast as they can move forward.

Their large, protruding teeth are used to dig, and their lips are sealed just behind the teeth to prevent soil from filling their mouths while digging. They have little hair (hence the common name) and wrinkled pink or yellowish skin.

The World's Largest Known Freshwater GIANT Stingray? (+ Video)

The photo is very real: this giant stingray may be the largest freshwater fish ever recorded. With an estimated weight between 550 to 990 pounds (250 to 450 kilograms), the image was captured as part of a National Geographic Society expedition in Thailand.

The stingray measuring around two meters in diameter was released later. Its tail was missing, and Zeb Hogan, Biologist from the University of Nevada, estimated its size with it could have reached 5 meters.

As part of the Megafishes Project, Hogan had already recorded last year a stingray four-meters long in Chachoengsao. See video below.

These giant stingrays were first described scientifically as recently as 1989, and the expedition and project are part of an effort to better understand, protect and preserve them.

Source: forgetomori.com



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The BARRELEYE Fish (+ Video)

Barreleyes, also known as spookfish (a name also applied several species of chimaera), are small, unusual-looking deep-sea osmeriform fish comprising the family Opisthoproctidae. Found in tropical-to-temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the family contains thirteen species in six genera (four of which are monotypic.

These fish are named for their barrel-shaped, tubular eyes which are generally directed upwards to detect the silhouettes of available prey; however, according to Robison and Reisenbichler these fish are capable of directing their eyes forward as well. The family name Opisthoproctidae is derived from the Greek words opisthe ("behind") and proktos ("anus").

The PURPLE SQUIRREL That Baffled Experts

Back in 2008, a purple squirrel which appeared at a school had baffled experts who were unable to explain its colour. As the story goes...

Teachers and pupils at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, were amazed when they saw the creature through the window during a lesson.

Since the squirrel, now nicknamed Pete, was first seen, it has become a regular fixture at the school but no one has been able to say whether the animal has fallen into purple paint, had a run-in with some purple dye, or whether there is another explanation.

Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher, said: "I was sitting in my classroom and looked out the window and saw it sitting on the fence. I had to do a double take.

"Since then it's been a bit of a regular at the school - everyone's seen it."

"We thought it might have been paint or something but then when you look at it up close, it's an all over coat, not in patches like you'd expect if it had been near some paint."

Rare PREHISTORIC SHARK Photographed Alive! The FRILLED Shark (+ Video)

The frilled shark, Chlamydoselachus anguineus, is a living fossil shark species, the only member of the family Chlamydoselachidae in the order Hexanchiformes. The Southern African frilled shark is a proposed new species from the Southern African range.

These two species are very different from the other hexanchiform sharks, and it has recently been proposed that the two frilled sharks should be given their own order: Chlamydoselachiformes.

Additional extinct types are known from fossil teeth. The frilled shark was thought to be extinct itself; it was only discovered alive in Japanese waters in the 19th century. On January 21, 2007, a specimen was found alive off the coast of Japan and was brought to Awashima Marine Park in Shizuoka, where it died after a few hours. It was a 1.6 m (5.2 ft) long female found alive at the surface, perhaps there because of illness or weakness from the warm water.

Evidence Of NUCLEAR Explosions in Ancient Times? Mohenjo-daro & Harappa and Sete Cidades

Mohenjo-daro (Sindhi: موئن جو دڙو, lit. Mound of the Dead; English pronunciation: /moʊˌhɛn.dʒoʊ ˈdɑː.roʊ/) is an archeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2600 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.

When excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro reached the street level, they discovered skeletons scattered about the cities, many holding hands and sprawling in the streets as if some instant, horrible doom had taken place. People were just lying, unburied, in the streets of the city.

And these skeletons are thousands of years old, even by traditional archaeological standards. What could cause such a thing? Why did the bodies not decay or get eaten by wild animals? Furthermore, there is no apparent cause of a physically violent death. These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on par with those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

ADAM'S Bridge

Adam's Bridge  also known as Rama's Bridge or Ram Setu , is a chain of limestone shoals, between the islands of Rameswaram, off the southeastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar, near northwestern Sri Lanka. Geological evidence indicates that this bridge is a former land connection between India and Sri Lanka.

The bridge is 30 miles (48 km) long and separates the Gulf of Mannar (southwest) from the Palk Strait (northeast). Some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is very shallow, being only 3 ft to 30 ft (1 m to 10 m) deep in places, which hinders navigation.

The bridge was first mentioned in historical works in the 9th century by Ibn Khordadbeh in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms (ca. 850 AD) and was called Set Bandhai or "Bridge of the Sea".. Later Alberuni described it.

The TERRACOTTA ARMY Of China

The Terracotta Army (traditional Chinese: 兵馬俑; simplified Chinese: 兵马俑; pinyin: bīngmǎ yǒng; literally "soldier and horse funerary statues") are the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huangdi the First Emperor of China. The terracotta figures, dating from 210 BCE, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China near the Mausouleum of the First Qin Emperor. (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qín Shǐhuáng Líng).

The figures vary in height (183–195 cm - 6ft–6ft 5in), according to their role, the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.

STONEHENGE Beneath The Waters of Lake Michigan?

In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan.

Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan? view larger

If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest.

In a PDF assembled by Holley and Brian Abbott to document the expedition, we learn that the archaeologists had been hired to survey a series of old boatwrecks using a slightly repurposed "sector scan sonar" device. You can read about the actual equipment – a Kongsberg-Mesotech MS 1000 – here.

The circular images this thing produces are unreal; like some strange new art-historical branch of landscape representation, they form cryptic dioramas of long-lost wreckage on the lakebed. Shipwrecks (like the Tramp, which went down in 1974); a "junk pile" of old boats and cars; a Civil War-era pier; and even an old buggy are just some of the topographic features the divers discovered.

Google Earth Reveals FISH TRAP Made From Rocks 1,000 Years Ago off British Coast

For a millennium it has lain undisturbed beneath the waves a stone's throw from one of Britain's best-loved beaches.

But now modern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.

Stretching more than 280 yards along the sea bed, the V-shaped structure was used to catch fish without the need for a boat or rod. Scientists believe it is one of the biggest of its kind.

FYI - The Biggest Haul of ROMAN GOLD in Britain Could Have been found...

Biggest haul of Roman gold in Britain could have been found.

The treasure, found at Bredon Hill, the site of an Iron Age fort in Worcestershire, is already being compared with the Staffordshire Hoard, the country's biggest ever find of Anglo Saxon gold.
It netted lucky Terry and local farmer Fred Johnson a whopping £1.6 million each after being unearthed in a muddy field at Hammerwich, near Brownhills, West Midlands.

The treasure, which included hundreds of bejeweled battlefield items, added up to 5kg of the purest gold and 2.5kg of silver.

Source : The Telegraph

Europe's Strangest THEME PARK - Survival Drama In A Soviet Bunker

When confronted with the issue of what to do with an ex-Soviet bunker in the countryside, an enterprising Lithuanian decided that some things should be left the way they are…

Welcome to 1984: Išgyvenimo Drama, otherwise known as Survival Drama in a Soviet Bunker.