Strange Things Are Happening

Rocks
Photo Source: Stock.xching

There is so much talk lately of extending life that you can't help but come across articles about older people and how they got that way. As we read these articles we begin to realize that the true formula for reaching old age is largely dependent on your ancestors. I am not saying that if they didn't live as long as they did, you wouldn't be here, although this may be true. I am saying that a lot of longevity is dependent on having good genes. If your ancestors lived a long and healthy life, then you have a better chance of also doing so, than someone who had ancestors that mostly died at an early age. But genes are not everything and there seem to be other factors involved. Sometimes these factors seem to be very bizarre. I came across a story in the news about an 80 year old woman that was said to have lived so long because she ate stones. Yes you read me correctly. The woman lives in Guofu town, Qfjang county, Chong Qing city, China. I hope I got that all correct. Guofu was pretty much unheard of until the story about this woman began to spread.

When neighbors were asked about this woman they said that in all the years that they were there, they had never seen the woman unwell. She is said to go out in the winter in her bare feet and carry heavy burdens in the field. All this at her tender age of 80 years old. It is said that she is constantly chewing on stones and because of this, her teeth are ground down. She actually eats small stones. Experts wonder how this elderly woman can swallow stones without being choked to death. The woman stated that she was eating soil until she was married, because her family was very poor. She went on to say that when she married she didn't like the taste of the soil where she lived and switched to eating stones. Does that make sense? I guess in some perverted way it does. When asked if she could stop eating stones, the old lady said that she eats them every day and would be uncomfortable if she had to stop.

Great Red Spot - Storm On Jupiter
Photo Source: NASA

In astronomy circles there is much talk about some of the storms on other planets. One of the reasons for this is that they seem to last for hundreds of years, unlike storms on earth, which usually last for no more than a couple of days at the most. There is a very strange exception to this however. The exception is the Relámpago del Catatumbo, or Catatrumbo lighting. This is a lighting storm that takes place in the same area in Venezuela for anywhere from 140 to 160 days every year. It usually lasts for about 10 hours at night. Lighting can be seen going from one cloud to the next. There are so many lightning strikes that up to 280 have been recorded in one hour. The storm is always in the same place. It is above the marshlands where the Catatumbo River goes into Lake Maracaibo. Another interesting fact about this storm is that it generates more ozone than anything else on the planet.

A lot of strange things can be seen in the sky. One has only to look at the myriad of reports that have been filed by witnesses stating that they have seen some things (non ufos) that are even too strange to talk about. There is a strange thing that appears in the sky above Idaho. It is an atmospheric phenomenon that is known as the Fire Rainbow. As light passes through some high altitude clouds it creates what looks like a flame in the sky, but not an ordinary flame. It is more like a rainbow with a flame at one end.

Full Moon
Photo Source: NASA

Did you ever hear that all the kooks come out when there is a full moon? I have been hearing that saying ever since I was a small child. Well the British seem to think that there is something to this. A couple of years ago, BBC reported that the British Police Departments were beefing up their police forces on nights when there was a full moon. The police said that there was nothing supernatural about this, they were doing it because the crime rate goes up during those times and there is more petty thievery and violent crimes committed. The old theory goes that when the moon is full, the tides are pulled on more and because we have liquid in our brains, it might be that are brains are also tugged on more. So far studies have indicated that there is no reason for the moon to effect humans physically. Could it be that concentrated moonlight is the culprit?

One day a guy decided to buy some used furniture and a painting to cover a hole in the wall that he was sick of looking at. His total investment was about $30.00. Years passes and one day he was playing a game called Masterpiece. The idea of the game is that players try and outbid each other for rare art. He draw a card and there was a picture of a rare painting featuring flowers. He was surprised to see that the painting looked just like the one that he had hung on the wall years ago to hide the hole. He had his painting checked by a gallery in New York City and was surprised to find out that this work, while not being exactly the same as depicted on the card, was an unknown work by the same artist. He later sold the painting for 1.2 million dollars. Not a bad return on his money.

There is an amusement park in Japan dedicated to Nintendo. What makes this so unusual is that it is NOT virtual. To play you actually have to get into the game. Here is a link so that you may see it:

NASA scientists have just realized that the moon may not be the quiet place that they thought it was. It was believed that nothing hardly changes on the moon and that things like footprints would last millions of years, if a meteor didn't wipe them out. It turns out that they have changed their minds. They now realize that the moon is taking a beating every month and this beating is coming from the earth. "Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it," says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges." Wow, those footprints from Apollo 11 may disappear before we ever expected. If we go back there, they should be preserved.