>Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April 2011.

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Well done to Olivier Morel and Francine Blake’s group for photographing this aerial shot of the formation at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent. Wales. Reported 22nd April. We know this was a long and expensive flight due to this there was great reluctance by other photographers to take to the air.

via Crop Circle at Innage, nr Chepstow. Gwent Wales. Reported 22nd April   2011..

>Dogs Detecting Cancer? It’s in the Breath, Experts Say

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Carol Witcher says she knows it sounds crazy, but she swears that her dog, Floyd Henry, discovered the cancer in her breast in 2008. “When he sniffed me, he kind of turned back and really pushed into my right breast, real hard,” she said. “He started sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing.”

It took four days of nudging and nipping by the 8-year-old boxer before Witcher went to a doctor. “He pushed real hard for one shot. … Then he looked at me straight in the face, took his right foot and began to paw my right breast. And I thought, ‘This is not good,'” she said. “I knew instantly that there was an issue.”

Witcher’s stage-three cancer required surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.” Her type of cancer was rather large in her breast,” said Dr. Sheryl Gabram-Mendola, a breast surgical oncologist at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.  “I absolutely believe that the dog saved Miss Witcher’s life.

“Gabram-Mendola has been studying the breath of cancer patients. She said cancer causes the body to release certain organic compounds that dogs can smell but people cannot. Gabram-Mendola and her team have developed a test in which they look for more than 300 molecules in the breath.

“Our model predicted in over 75 percent of the time correctly which patients did have breast cancer and which ones did not,” Gabram-Mendola said. When Witcher breathed into the tube, the test confirmed that she was sick.

“You could potentially go to a physician’s office, blow in the bottle and ultimately have a direct read system where we would know in the office …

It’s estimated that a dog’s sense of smell is up to a million times better than that of a human, depending on the breed. Dogs have also reportedly sniffed out skin, bladder, lung and ovarian cancers.

“Dogs smell different things and they understand different things,” said Charlene Bayer, a principal research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute. “They don’t necessarily know what’s wrong, but they know that there’s something that’s not normal, that you don’t smell the way you normally do.” …

via Dogs Detect Cancer? Experts Say Compounds in Breath Can Signal Breast Cancer – ABC News.

>Steytlerville ‘monster’ strikes again

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A ‘monster’ plaguing the sleepy Karoo town of Steytlerville struck again over the Easter weekend, Eastern Cape police said on Monday.

Another two sightings of the “shape-shifting creature” were reported on Sunday evening, said Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani .

“Two men were walking near a tavern when they saw another man wearing a black jacket. One of the men, identified only as Nozipho, went up to the stranger and asked him, “What is your problem?” said Nelani.When the stranger did not respond, Nozipho went closer and saw that the man had no head. The man then turned into a dog that was “very angry” and “as big as a cow”, Nelani said.

He said that as Nozipho and his friend ran away, the monster allegedly turned on another group of people in the same road. “They said it turned into a big monkey, and then it was gone,” Nelani said.

He said that since the monster was spotted near the tavern, people were afraid to go there at night.

Last week police were told by residents that the monster changed shape while one looked at it. One man had reported that it changed from a man wearing a suit into a pig and then into a bat.

There had also been rumours that the monster could fly. Previously, the monster had only been spotted near the church. It had even been seen peering through the windows during a service, but had vanished by the time the congregation came outside.

Nelani said that the community had dubbed the monster “Bawokozi”, meaning ‘brother-in-law’.Sightings of the monster began over a month ago when it was seen by mourners attending two separate funerals, Nelani said.

He said that the community requested a meeting with police because they were frightened of it. Police agreed to work with residents, but asked them to try to take a photograph of it as evidence.

Nelani said that a photograph had since been taken of the monster resting under a tree.

He said that when the photo was taken the monster had been in human form but when the photo was developed an unknown animal was visible in the picture.

“It is a very strange thing happening in Steytlerville, but no one has been hurt by it,” Nelani said.

via Steytlerville ‘monster’ strikes again: News24: South Africa: News.

>New York cabbie picks up $5,000 fare to California

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New York taxi driver Mohammed Alam has picked up the fare of a lifetime – $5,000 (£3,000) to drive across the US to Los Angeles.

Investment banker John Belitsky said he and friend Dan Wuebben wanted to do something “magical”.

They decided on a cab ride to LA and struck the deal with Mr Alam after finding him at LaGuardia Airport.

The 2,448-mile trip took six days and included a stop in Las Vegas where the friends won $2,000.

Mr Belitsky, of Leonia, New Jersey, and Mr Wuebben, of Queens, New York, haven’t yet said how they intend to get back to the East Coast.

But Mr Alam says a friend will help him make the drive back home.

The epic trip has been documented by Mr Belitsky on his Twitter page.

On 22 April, after their winning streak in Las Vegas, he tweeted: “Woke up Alam to a shower of $100 bills at sunrise.”

New York news blog NYU Local estimated that the trip would have cost $17,000 (£10,000) if the meter had been running for the whole trip.

via BBC News – New York cabbie picks up $5,000 fare to California.

Life is short, make fun of it.

>Switzerland: Smelly corpse flower draws thousands

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Thousands of people are flocking to the northern Swiss city of Basel to see a giant, stinky flower bloom for the first time.

The amorphophallus titanum – known as corpse flower because it exudes a smell of rotting flesh – is the first to blossom in Switzerland in 75 years.

The Basel Botanical Gardens expects the 6.6ft (2m) plant to attract 10,000 people whilst in bloom.

The bloom is set to wilt late Saturday or Sunday.

Worldwide, there have been only 134 recorded blooms from artificial cultivation, according to AP news agency.

The flower first began to poke out of the soil in March, and in the past few days it had been growing at about six centimetres a day, according to Swissinfo news website.

Its mother plant last bloomed in the Frankfurt Palm Garden in 1992.

Originally native to the tropical rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the plant requires a humid climate to grow and rarely blossoms, even in the wild.

The flower’s smell, said to be a cross between burnt sugar and rotting flesh, is designed to attract insects for pollination.

via BBC News – Switzerland: Smelly corpse flower draws thousands.

>Police investigate Charlie Sheen’s high-speed escort

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Police in Washington DC are investigating who authorised a controversial high-speed police escort for actor Charlie Sheen.

He was apparently escorted from an airport outside the city to his stage show, Violent Torpedo of Truth: Defeat is Not an Option, on Tuesday.

Police chief Cathy Lanier told a local TV station the escort appeared to violate department policy.

Police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said the department was investigating.

Sheen posted a photo to Twitter of a speedometer reaching about 80mph (129km/h) and wrote: “In car with Police escort in front and rear! Driving like someone’s about to deliver a baby! Cop car lights #Spinning!”

Sheen was reportedly running late for the one-man show. It is not clear for how much of the journey he had a police escort.

Sheen’s spokesman, Larry Solters, declined to comment on Friday.

Phil Mendelson, who chairs the DC Council’s committee on public safety, said on Friday he considered the escort inappropriate and was glad it was being investigated. …

via BBC News – Police investigate Charlie Sheen’s high-speed escort.

Related:

>Mostly fat diet ‘can reverse kidney failure’ in mice with diabetes

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A controlled diet high in fat and low in carbohydrate can repair kidney damage in diabetic mice, according to US scientists.

The study, published in journal PLoS ONE, showed a “ketogenic diet” could reverse damage caused to tubes in the kidneys by too much sugar in the blood.

In the UK around a third of the 2.8m people with either type 1 or 2 diabetes go on to develop kidney damage.

Diabetes UK said it was “questionable” whether humans could sustain the diet.

Damage reversed

The researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York used mice with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Once kidney damage had developed, half the mice were put onto the ketogenic diet for eight weeks.

The highly controlled diet, which is 87% fat, mimics the effect of starvation and should not be used without medical advice.

After eight weeks the researchers noted that kidney damage was reversed.

Professor Charles Mobbs, who led the research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said: “Our study is the first to show that a dietary intervention alone is enough to reverse this serious complication of diabetes.

“I certainly think it has promise, but I can’t recommend it until we have done clinical trials.”

The researchers also need to figure out the exact process that leads to repair.

via BBC News – Diet ‘can reverse kidney failure’ in mice with diabetes.

>Good catch: Florida balcony fall baby saved by British tourist

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A toddler who fell from the top floor of a four-storey Florida hotel has escaped injury after being caught by a British woman on holiday.

Jah-Nea Myles, 16 months, apparently slipped through the balcony railing and fell into the arms of Helen Beard.

Ms Beard, of Worksop, was at the pool at Orlando’s Econo Lodge hotel when she saw the baby hanging from the railing and ran underneath, she said.

She held the child until emergency medical workers arrived.

‘Not a scratch’

The baby was taken to hospital, where medical staff said they saw no bruises or scratches and deemed her in good health.

An investigator with the Orange County sheriff’s office described her as “playful” and said she was not crying.

Helena Myles, Jah-Nea’s 20-year-old mother, told police her friend Dominique Holt had been watching the baby in the adjacent hotel room.

Ms Holt, 21, said she went to the bathroom about 2100 local time (0100 GMT), then heard screaming and saw the balcony door ajar.

She ran out onto the balcony and saw the baby in the arms of Ms Beard, from Nottinghamshire.

Ms Myles told Reuters: “She’s perfectly fine. Not a scratch on her body.

“I’m thanking the Lord above right now for saving my child’s life. I’m also thanking that lady because she was an angel sent from heaven.”

Police said no criminal charges were pending.

Orlando is a popular destination for holidaymakers, with Walt Disney World and other tourist attractions.

via BBC News – Florida balcony fall baby saved by British tourist.

>Teen fakes pregnancy as school project

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Gaby Rodriguez would worry whenever anyone asked to touch her baby bump.

It wasn’t because she felt shy or embarrassed. It was because the bulge – fashioned from wire mesh and cotton quilt batting – didn’t actually contain a baby.

For the past 6 1/2 months – the bulk of her senior year at Toppenish High School – the 17-year-old A-student faked her own pregnancy.

Only a handful of people – her mother, boyfriend and principal among them – knew Gaby was pretending to be pregnant for her senior project, a culminating assignment required for graduation.

Her teachers and fellow students, except for her best friend, didn’t realize they were part of a social experiment.

Neither did six of her seven siblings, including four older brothers, her boyfriend’s parents, and his five younger brothers and sisters.

“At times, I just wanted to take it off and be done,” she says. “I didn’t want to go through this anymore.”

But Gaby didn’t give up the charade until Wednesday morning, when she revealed her secret during an emotional, all-school assembly.

The topic of her presentation: “Stereotypes, rumors and statistics.”

“Teenagers tend to live in the shadows of these elements,” she says.

Before taking off her fake baby belly in front of the entire student body, Gaby told her audience, “Many things were said about me. Many things traveled all the way back to me.”

Then, she asked several students and teachers to read statements from 3×5 cards, quotes people actually said about her during the course of her experiment.

Her best friend, Saida Cortes, a 17-year-old senior who was sitting in the front row, read card No. 3: “Her attitude is changing, and it might be because of the baby or she was always this annoying and I never realized it.”

It grew quiet in the gym as more and more quotes were read aloud. Then Gaby dropped her bomb: “I’m fighting against those stereotypes and rumors because the reality is I’m not pregnant.” …

Gaby began wearing her homemade, basketball-sized, prosthetic belly to school after spring break. Before that, she wore baggy sweaters and sweatshirts to conceal her faux pregnancy.

Her supposed due date was July 27, not quite two months after graduation. …

Wednesday, Gaby apologized to teachers and students for misleading them.

When she took off her baby belly, there were a few nervous giggles, and a loud, “Whaaaaat?!” from the audience.

Then, there was applause. And, at the end of the assembly, following a Q&A session, there was a standing ovation, the first one Greene says he remembers during his three-year tenure at Toppenish High School.

“She really fooled me. I never would’ve guessed it,” says 17-year-old senior Vicente Villanueva. “I’m really surprised.”

So was 19-year-old Angel Jalomo, a 2010 Davis High School graduate and Gaby’s niece: “I didn’t know what to say. I just started crying.”

Gaby will present her research to a board of community members in May. It will include photos and video from Wednesday’s assembly. And Gaby still needs to finish writing her report. But by revealing the project to students Wednesday, she can go on her English class trip to Ashland, Ore., on Friday without her baby belly.

Plus, she didn’t want to be pregnant for prom. She already has her dress, a teal form-fitting mermaid gown with spaghetti straps.

Gaby plans to attend Columbia Basin College to study social work or sociology in the fall. And, she says, “I’m not planning to have a child until after I graduate.” …

via Local News | Toppenish teen fakes pregnancy as school project | Seattle Times Newspaper.

>Bullet lodged in man’s brain for 23 years

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Doctors have finally discovered why Wang Tianqing has been suffering from epilepsy for more than two decades.

A two-centimetre rusted bullet, embedded in the head of a farmer for 23 years, has been removed at a local hospital.

In 1988 Wang Tianqing, who lives in Zhangjiakouin city in northern China’s Hebei province, was knocked unconscious on his way home by a blow to the head.

“I thought I’d been hit by a slingshot,” said Wang. “I saw a man standing on a hill and thought he’d hit me.”

He woke up in a hospital bed, was given anti-inflammatory drugs by the doctors and sent home.

Shortly afterwards he started having epileptic seizures which grew progressively worse over the next two decades.

On a return trip to the hospital for treatment for his convulsions, the bullet was spotted on his CAT scan.

Wang Zhiming, an attending surgeon from Neurosurgical Oncology department, said that the survival rate for being shot in the head would usually be one out of several thousand, but the bullet missed his brain’s main veins and not injured his brainstem.

via Video: Bullet lodged in man’s brain for 23 years – Telegraph.