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Archive for the ‘Amazing Stories’ Category

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Man Invents Time Machine

In Amazing Stories, Fun Technology, Science on April 19, 2013 at 6:25 pm

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Reposted from National Geographics: Iranian Scientist Claims to have built “Time Machine”

It’s not quite Back to the Future, but a young Iranian inventor claims to have built a time machine that can predict a person’s future with startling accuracy.

Ali Razeqi, who is 27 and the “managing director of Iran’s Center for Strategic Inventions,” claims his device will print out a report detailing an individual’s future after using complex algorithms to predict his or her fate.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Razeqi told Iran’s state-run Fars news agency that his device “easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you. Read the rest of this entry »

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Horace, Lost Cat, Finds His Way Home After Three Weeks With Two Broken Legs

In Amazing Stories, Strange Oddities on January 24, 2013 at 6:48 pm

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Article excerpt reposted from The Huffington Post

After almost three weeks of being missing, 18-month-old Horace the orange tabby cat managed to find his way back home again with two broken legs, the East Anglian Daily Times reports.

Thirty-eight-year-old owner and mother-of-three Kara Hayward told the paper she had almost given up hope of ever seeing their pet again.

“I began to put posters up … I had a few phone calls but they turned out to be somebody else’s cats,” Hayward told the East Anglian Daily Times. “I was watching a clip of Horace on my phone and it wasn’t doing my health any good, I was worrying about him.”

Eighteen days after he had gone missing, however, Horace came hobbling through the family’s door. Hayward told the paper they immediately took him to the animal hospital, where doctors were shocked at how long the cat had survived on his own in that condition. Eight more lives to go!

Read more at: Horace, Lost Cat, Finds His Way Home After Three Weeks With Two Broken Legs

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Alex’s Lemonade Stand

In Amazing Stories, Local Heroes on July 23, 2012 at 3:09 am

Reposted from the website of Alex’s Lemonade Stand with kind regards:

Alexandra “Alex” Scott was born to Liz and Jay Scott in Manchester, Connecticut on January 18, 1996, the second of four children.

Shortly before her first birthday, Alex was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer. On her first birthday, the doctors informed Alex’s parents that if she beat her cancer it was doubtful that she would ever walk again. Just two weeks later, Alex slightly moved her leg at her parents’ request to kick. This was the first indication of who she would turn out to be – a determined, courageous, confident and inspiring child with big dreams and big accomplishments.

By her second birthday, Alex was crawling and able to stand up with leg braces. She worked hard to gain strength and to learn how to walk. She appeared to be beating the odds, until the shattering discovery within the next year that her tumors had started growing again. In the year 2000, the day after her fourth birthday, Alex received a stem cell transplant and informed her mother, “when I get out of the hospital I want to have a lemonade stand.” She said she wanted to give the money to doctors to allow them to ”help other kids, like they helped me.” True to her word, she held her first lemonade stand later that year with the help of her older brother and raised an amazing $2,000 for “her hospital.”

While bravely battling her own cancer, Alex and her family continued to hold yearly lemonade stands in her front yard to benefit childhood cancer research. News spread of the remarkable sick child dedicated to helping other sick children. People from all over the world, moved by her story, held their own lemonade stands and donated the proceeds to Alex and her cause. Read the rest of this entry »

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Back From The Dead

In Amazing Stories, Mind-Body, Strange Oddities on February 10, 2012 at 10:59 pm

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NARVIK, Norway (CNN) — Fresh from medical school, Anna Bågenholm chose to do her residency in the Norwegian city of Narvik because of its spectacular mountain slopes. An expert skier, Bågenholm had gone off the trail with two other young doctors on a warm spring afternoon when she fell.

Bågenholm slid down a steep, icy gully and ended up submerged head first in a hole in the ice in a mostly frozen stream. Only her skis and Telemark boots and bindings protruded from the thick, opaque ice. As the 29-year-old struggled, her friends Marie Falkenberg and Torvind Næsheim began a frantic effort to free her, made impossible by a torrent of frigid spring runoff pouring over them into the hole where their friend was submerged.

They called for help, starting a chain of events that is now part of medical literature and local lore.

Bård Mikkalsen, a police lieutenant in Narvik at the time, took the call.

“I realized this was really a serious case,” said Mikkalsen, who has since retired. He scrambled a pair of rescue teams in Narvik, one from the top of the mountain, the other from the bottom. He also contacted the nearest rescue team in Bodø, nearly 200 miles away, but the Sea King helicopter had already left to transport a sick child. Watch more of Anna Bågenholm’s story »

“I told the operator, ‘You must send the helicopter to here, and you have only one minute to decide it. You have to call me back. The time is running out.’ ” The dispatcher turned the helicopter around.

Heading the rescue party from the top of the mountain, Ketil Singstad skied as fast as he could in the wet springtime snow to the spot where Bågenholm remained trapped under the ice.

Singstad said he and others tied a rope to her feet and tried unsuccessfully to pull her free, and the snow shovel and small saw they had brought were no match for the thick ice. Then he saw another rescuer heading up the mountain with a pointed gardening shovel. Read the rest of this entry »

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Madame Ching – Worlds Greatest Female Pirate

In Amazing Stories, Wild Stuff, Zowie Fun Facts on December 13, 2011 at 9:00 pm

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Shih Yang also known popularly as Madame Ching was one of the greatest Chinese pirates who sailed the seas in the 19th century.

 At the height of her career she commanded approximately 2,000 ships and 50,000 pirates controlling the seas from Hong Kong to the Vietnamese border. Piracy was instigated by the people living by the sea; they were starving. They could see the Portuguese and English trading ships carrying fruit, vegetables and meat to the more wealthy Chinese people.

When one of these ships was wrecked by a storm, the sea-side villagers sailed out to the ship to retreive its cargo. When they got to the ship the produce was still being guarded! Out of desperation, the villagers murdered all the guards and took the food home.

This activity was soon organized into a systematic operation under the command of Ching Yih. In fact, other pirates realized how good he was and joined under his command. Ching did not limit his theivery to the sea. His crew also went inland. Along with booty and produce, this pirate crew took villagers as slaves.

The officials at Peking sent forty warships to take down this pirate armada, but failed. Ching sank all these ships except twenty-eight, which he kept for his armada. After the battle with Peking, Ching decided to ‘take’ a wife. Twenty of the ‘choice’ female slaves where brought before him bound, one being Shih Yang. Not only was Shih thought to be beautiful, but she was larger than most women and her feet had not been bound as is traditional custom. Read the rest of this entry »

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Breitling Jet Team Flies With JetMan!

In Amazing Stories, Flight, Fun Technology on November 29, 2011 at 1:09 am

The Swiss fighter jet aerobatic team sponsored by Breitling, recently surprised everyone with a new addition to their formation: JetMan!

In an awe inspiring performance, JetMan streaked across the Swiss countryside at almost 12o MPH in formation with the L-39 Albatross fighter jets to show off the stability and performance cababilities of his amazing flying suit. Seeming to easily maintain position in their formation, JetMan, aka Yves Rossy, a former Swiss fighter pilot himself, showed off the agility of his micro-jet engined flying-wing-suit and established yet another milestone in his breathtaking new venture: making self-propelled flight a reality anyone can someday enjoy.

His major sponsor, Breitling watches has kept Rossy financially powered and in the spotlight with recent exploits such as spanning the Grand Canyon and now this latest incredible formation flying with their Breitling jet aerobatic team. Read the rest of this entry »

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Blonde Saves Boy From Grizzly Bear Attack

In Amazing Stories, Local Heroes, Wild Stuff on September 23, 2011 at 1:00 am

A lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.

On July 30, Erin Bolster of Swan Mountain Outfitters was guiding eight clients on a horse ride on the Flathead National Forest between West Glacier and Hungry Horse, Mont.

“It’s the shortest ride we offer,” she said Wednesday, recalling the incident. “We’d already led two trips that morning. It’s always been a very routine hour-long loop, until that day.”

The group included a family of six plus a vacationing Illinois man, who’d booked the trip for his 8-year-old son’s first horse-riding experience.

The young boy was riding Scout, a steady obedient mount, following directly behind Bolster, who was leading the group on Tonk, a burly 10-year-old white horse of questionable lineage.

Tonk isn’t the typical trail mount. Best anyone knows, he’s the result of cross-breeding a quarter horse with a Percheron – a draft horse. Bolster is 5-foot-10, yet she relies on her athleticism to climb into the saddle aboard Tonk.

“He was one of the horses we lease from Wyoming and bring in every year,” Bolster said, noting that she’d picked him from the stable in May to be hers for the season.

“He’s a very large horse – 18 hands high. That intimidates a lot of riders. But I’ve always loved big horses. He’s kind of high-strung and spooky, the largest of our wrangling horses. I like a horse with a lot of spirit, and I was really glad to be on him that day.” Read the rest of this entry »

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