It's your mind

March 15, 2013 at 4:36 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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THE NEWS

Odd news from around the world

Disposable chopsticks under attack in China: “With 1.4 billion people ploughing through 80 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks each year, China has admitted that its forests can no longer provide enough cutlery for its dinner tables. ”We must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware,” Bo Guangxin, the chairman of Jilin Forestry Industry Group, told fellow delegates at the National People’s Congress. Pointing out that only 4000 chopsticks could be carved from a 20-year-old tree, he even went so far as to suggest that restaurants should offer metal knives and forks instead. Today, China is chopping down 20 million mature trees a year to feed its disposable chopstick habit, according to Mr Bo. Nor can China find enough wood in its own forests. It is now the world’s largest importer of wood and even imports chopsticks from America.”

Mother’s devastation as husband, daughter and son ALL die within hours of each other in separate tragedies: “Three members of the same family died within hours of one another in three different tragedies. Carl Dennis, 79, died a day after hearing that his daughter, Caryl, had passed away after being taken ill and his son Nigel’s body was found in his house. The fateful 24 hours started when Mrs Dennis was at home in Bridgend, South Wales, when her daughter Caryl visited, complaining she felt unwell. She said: ‘She had been suffering from gallstones and was complaining about her stomach so I called 999. They were here immediately. She was happy and chatting with the paramedics, looking up at them and smiling. ‘But when I was told the next morning she had died I couldn’t believe it because her illness didn’t seem so serious.’ After losing her daughter, Mrs Dennis tried to contact her son, Nigel, but was unable to summon him. She knew that there was something wrong. ‘I was devastated when I was told he had been found dead – just a few hours after his sister died. The next day her husband of 60 years, who had been ill for some time, also passed away and she puts it down to the grief he was feeling.”

The man who won the lottery TWICE: Property developer beats 438,000,000-1 odds to scoop prize again: “A man who won the lottery twice, scooping over £1.16 million in total, joked that he was not ‘that bothered’ by the wins and wanted more. George Traykov beat odds of one-in-438 million when he picked up a £160,873 EuroMillions prize this year to add to the £1 million sum he won in the Millionaire Raffle in September 2011. But the Bulgarian property developer, who lives in Ilford, Essex, joked that his windfall could have been even bigger. ‘I missed the big jackpot by one number,’ said the 45-year-old, who was just one digit short of claiming £12 million. ‘The first win enabled me to make a few changes in my life, most importantly sending my daughter Elaine to private school and maintaining her skydiving training sessions,’ he said. Mr Traykov, who never picks his own numbers and always plays the lucky dip, was so laid back about his second big money win that he didn’t even claim it until two months after the prize draw in November.”

Terrifying Mako shark can swim at 100kmh, spots its prey through haunting black eyes: “The Mako has a reputation as one of the deadliest and fastest sharks in the ocean and could certainly make its displeasure known if it wanted to. With its seemingly lifeless eyes and terrifyingly sharp teeth the Mako has been known to stalk its prey at lightning speeds of almost 100kmh – and has even been known to attack humans. But Mexican photographer and diver Gerardo del Villar has set out to prove that the world’s ‘deadliest’ sharks are misunderstood – by taking these stunning pictures of the shark without the protection of a cage in a bid to save the species from overfishing. At up to 10 ft in length and weighing in up to a hefty 135kg, the Shortfin Mako, sometimes described as the ‘peregrine falcon’ of the shark world because of its speed, will not hesitate to attack especially when provoked. The shark has even been known to break free of fishing lines and try its best to attack fishermen attempting to catch it, battering their boat and sometimes leaping out of the water up to an impressive 20ft. The sharks are mainly found in relatively warm water most commonly in the Atlantic from Argentina to the Gulf of Mexico.”

The woman who sees the world upside down: “A woman’s world has literally been turned upside down by a rare condition which causes her to see everything the wrong way up. Council worker Bojana Danilovic, 28, sees everything upside down because of an extremely rare fault in the way her brain processes images. That means , reads papers from the bottom up and even has special topsy-turvey official forms to fill in for her job at the Uzice town hall in Serbia. Then when she gets home, she watches one TV balanced on its top while the rest of the family watch another. ‘I was born that way. It’s just the way I see the world,’ said Bojana, an economics expert. Neurological experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the USA say she is suffering from a condition called ‘spatial orientation phenomenon’. ‘They say my eyes see the images the right way up but my brain changes them.”

And don’t forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go.

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