I spend more time than I should reading nonsense about 'Mysteries of the Unexplained'. This garbage is fun to read but I've debunked a majority of these yarns long before the recent de-bunkers have gotten a hold of them. It takes the fun out of life maybe but we all should sharpen our critical minds.
But there are still a lot of odd things that happen. The category of 'Strange Coincidences' is something that happens to me frequently. Tonight I drove up to a restaurant with Kansas' 'Song For America' blaring on my truck stereo. I've been an insane Kansas fan for over 30 years. I've played 'Song For America' zillions of times. So I go into the restaraunt and the song playing over the intercom is.... 'Song For America'. This is made stranger to me in that I've never heard this song broadcast over the radio or played publicly. And it started playing as soon as I walked in. So when I left, my truck stereo kicked back on and played the rest of 'Song For America'.
Does this sound odd to any of you? Or am I just stretching things?

TORRINGTON, Conn. — A Connecticut Salvation Army chapter got a pleasant surprise when its members were counting change dropped into one of the organization’s holiday donation kettles. Members found a rare 1881 “half eagle” coin last week while counting donations made somewhere in Torrington on the day after Thanksgiving.

The half eagle was the country’s first-ever gold coin and had a face value of $5. It was in circulation from 1795 to 1929.

Lt. Alan Galentine of the Salvation Army’s Torrington Corps. said the chapter will be having the coin appraised, but it appears it’s worth between $250 and $400. He said it’s not clear at which location the coin was donated.

The coin was found when a change counting machine didn’t recognize the half eagle and separated it from other coins.

Generous!

http://www1.theworldlink.com/weird_news/2009/12/1881-gold-coin-donation-kettle/

Two penniless brothers who are so poor they live in a cave could be set to inherit a share of a £4 billion fortune.

Zsolt and Geza Peladi live in the cave outside Budapest, Hungary, and sell scrap they find on the street for pennies.

Now they and a sister who lives in America are said to be on the verge of inheriting their grandmother's massive fortune after a life of poverty.

They learned of their good fortune after homelessness charity workers in Hungary were contacted by lawyers handling the estate of the brothers' maternal grandmother who died recently in Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany.

"We knew our mother came from a wealthy family but she was a difficult person and severed ties with them, and then later abandoned us and we lost touch with her and our father until she eventually died," said Geza, 43.

Under German law however direct descendents are automatically entitled to a share of any estate.

Geza added: "If this all works out it will certainly make up for the life we have had until now - all we really had was each other - no women would look at us living in a cave.

"But with money maybe we can find a partner - and finally have a normal life. We don't know yet if she even told our grandmother about us - I understand it was only while they were carrying out genealogical research that lawyers found we existed."

Volunteer Gyula Balazs Csaszar - who works for Budapest's Maltans charity - told ATV television: "We were contacted by a lawyer asking us to find the brothers. He claimed he could help their lives with a large sum of money."

The grandmother's name was not revealed to prevent fraudsters trying to cash in on the inheritance but a spokesman for the legal firm said: "We know who we need to speak to and that is the two brothers who we are pretty sure are the grandchildren - there is no need for anyone else to be informed."

Now the brothers are obtaining copies of their mother's death certificate and proof of their family connection before travelling to Germany to claim their inheritance.

Oswego swimming stars share common backgrounds
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September 17, 2009
By CHRISTINE BOLIN For The Beacon-News

The similarities between Karolina Wartalowicz and Nicole Ligeza are almost endless.

The two seniors on the Oswego Co-op girls swimming and diving team were both born in Chicago, and they both have parents who were born in Poland. They both attend Oswego East. Both athletes are state qualifiers who are being highly recruited by Division I programs across the country, and they will leave the high school as the fastest swimmers to come out of the program.

Oswego coach Deryl Leubner needed a moment to think if there were any major differences between the two.

"Karolina is taller," he said. "They are two of the hardest working kids on the team. Karolina is more serious -- not that Nicole isn't -- we are splitting hairs here -- but they are both very dedicated athletes and very similar people. You normally don't see one without the other. They are always side by side."

Ligeza also paused to think of any differences between her and her best friend.

"We do a lot of the same things together," she said. "Karolina is technically good in the breaststroke. She focuses on one part of her swimming, and I try to focus on everything."

Wartalowicz focused on similarities away from swimming.

"We deal with the same problems and issues," she said. "We are both bubbly and like the same music."

Their friendship began in the summer before seventh grade in 2004, when the girls discovered they were neighbors while both swimming in the local pool. What were the chances both of them having a love for the water, living in the same neighborhood in the same town and parents born in Poland?

"I'm sure it's more than one in a million," Ligeza said.

Leubner's first time meeting Ligeza was when she introduced herself after a meet when she was in eighth grade. His first time meeting Wartalowicz was the first day of practice freshman year. Wartalowicz and Ligeza both had no problem making the varsity as freshmen.

Right away, the two made a difference. Wartalowicz was a state qualifier on a relay team and Ligeza in the 200 IM.

As sophomores, Wartalowicz placed fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke (1 minute, 5.86 seconds) in front of Ligeza's sixth-place time of 1:07.43. Ligeza also was fifth in the 200 individual medley.

As juniors, the duo made another appearance at the state meet. Wartalowicz placed third in the 100 breaststroke (1:03.87) and Ligeza sixth (1:06.87). Ligeza also finished eighth in the IM. They helped the Oswego squad finish in the top 16 in the state.

"They both have had tremendous success," Leubner said. "I can count on them to win any event in any meet. We need them to be team-first people."

Because of the success Ligeza and Wartalowicz have had, one tends to wonder how competitive they are with each other. Is there any sort of rivalry?

Well, yes and no.

Ligeza said they make sure they keep it at a level that will not hurt their friendship, and Wartalowicz said it depends on the day and who wants it more.

"They definitely have a rivalry," Leubner said. "Neither is going to back down to the other. Both understand the big picture of swimming -- not just high school -- but moving on to the next level. They know there is room at the top for everybody."

In the end, all their similarities may lead them in different directions in college. Both are being recruited by many Division I programs, but they want to make sure they don't attend the same one.

Wartalowicz's list includes Indiana, Penn State, Ohio State, Arizona State and Louisville. Ligeza's includes Illinois as well, along with South Carolina and Utah.

"Nicole is my best friend, but we don't want to end up at the same place," Wartalowicz said. "It's better for us, but we will always remain close."

"We made sure we weren't looking at the same schools," Ligeza said. "We have such a great relationship, but we want to meet new people. We'll always keep the same relationship."

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/sports/1774959,2_2_AU17_SWIM_S1-090917.article

Little more than a year ago, Evelyn Stevens was just another associate on Wall Street, working 50-hour weeks with an investment fund and trying to stay in shape by sneaking the occasional jog.

Then she bought a bike.

On Sunday, the 26-year-old former college tennis player competed in the Route de France, a six-day race that draws some of the world's top female cyclists. And here's the part nobody, not even Stevens, could have imagined just a few months ago: She might just win.
The story behind Stevens's dramatic rise from nowhere to the top echelon of an international sport isn't the usual cliché of hard work, sacrifice and perseverance. In fact, if there's a lesson aspiring athletes can take from this, it's that it helps to be blessed with very good genes. The truth is that Stevens is one in a million: She was lucky enough to stumble into the exact pursuit she was born for.

"She's the most complete rider I've ever come across," says her coach, Matt Koschara, who has raced against the likes of Lance Armstrong. "I imagine she's going to some day be world champion."

Exactly what makes Stevens so physiologically different is still somewhat of a mystery. Football players have big biceps, and baseball players have incredibly fast reflexes. The exceptional attributes of cyclists and other endurance athletes are less obvious — they're hidden in their blood and their lungs. For this reason, it's not uncommon, especially in women's cycling, for athletes to discover their hidden talents late in life, after leaving other sports like soccer or swimming. "You can have this mild-mannered kind of Clark Kent with glasses working 45 hours a week, and they get on the bike and find they have this tremendous engine," says Koschara, who also coaches other cyclists in the New York area.

Stevens still has not gone through the complete battery of tests that gauge athletic potential, but the tests that have been conducted on her show remarkable results. She is capable of producing a huge amount of leg power — measured in watts — for someone her weight and with her training history. With less than a year on the bike, Stevens could put out 310 watts of power for five minutes when she was tested by Koschara this past spring. Most women at her weight of 120-pounds can put out only about 220 watts, he says, while the elite professionals can produce around 350.

Her light weight and high power output allow her to climb uphill faster than anyone she's faced so far. "That is what makes her the star she is," says Koschara.

After playing college tennis at Dartmouth and landing a job at investment bank Lehman Brothers in New York, Stevens says she was content to leave sports behind. Her exhausting schedule left her with barely enough time for jogging. "That was about the extent of my athletic life," she says.

On a Thanksgiving visit to northern California in 2007, Stevens's sister and brother-in-law persuaded her to try a cyclocross race, an often-muddy hybrid between mountain and road biking. After numerous falls, she ended the race dirty and sore. "But I had so much fun," she says.

For the next four months, Stevens contemplated buying a bike, finally settling on a low-end Cannondale with an extra "granny" gear to help beginners push themselves uphill.

After a few rides, Stevens realized she wasn't going to need the granny gear. On a spring bike ride in 2008, she says, a couple of male friends who were bike racers timed her up a hill climb in New Jersey that rises about a mile and a half from the Hudson River to the top of a bluff. A strong male cyclist can do this in just over six minutes. Without any serious training, Stevens clocked it somewhere in the high fives.

At the end of May, she got her first taste of racing at a clinic in Central Park organized by the Century Road Club Association. There, she found the experience "addictive." Within a month, she'd won the Union Vale road race, a gruelingly hilly jaunt in upstate New York. She capped the season with a victory over some of the top amateurs in the Northeast at the four-day Green Mountain Stage Race in Vermont.

This April, after hiring Koschara and training hard all winter, she won the country's largest sanctioned one-day bike race (in participation), the Tour of the Battenkill in upstate New York. Last month, she won her biggest race yet — the Cascade Cycling Classic stage race in Oregon — by a healthy margin.

At the office — investment fund Gleacher Mezzanine, where she worked until last month — Stevens's co-workers have been following the action on cycling Web sites. Phil Krall, a managing director at Gleacher who happens to be an avid cyclist, was shocked when she won at Battenkill. And as she kept winning bigger and bigger races, he became more and more shocked. "Everyone is, like, 'She won again?'" says Krall.
Stevens won the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic stage race in Massachusetts last month. Jim Miller, head of athletics for USA Cycling, says Stevens's numbers are impressive when weighed against her limited training background. He estimates that when she climbed up Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, solidifying her win in the Cascade Cycling Classic, she was averaging somewhere around 260 watts for just under a half hour. "It's good for a girl who's been riding a bike for a year," says Miller.

Karen Brems, manager of the Webcor professional cycling team, which brought Stevens on as a guest rider for the Cascade race, says the wins have boosted her profile. "I'm sure all the teams are courting her," she says.

In women's cycling, where the talent isn't as deep as it is on the men's side, women with natural talent can sometimes stand out without much training. Christine Thorburn was a physician at the time she won the national time trial championships in 2004. Mara Abbott was a swimmer at Whitman University when she discovered cycling, and would later win the national road race championships.

A bigger obstacle is the pay: Top women's professionals make about $30,000 a year, a figure that makes it tempting to try to keep working. Dr. Thorburn continued to practice medicine while cycling competitively.

Most people agree Stevens could be one of the next great American women cyclists, but there's no guarantee that she will conquer the world. Connie Carpenter, an Olympic gold medalist in cycling in 1984, calls her ascent "remarkable," but adds she still has work to do. "The difficult part will be to go from being good to being great," she says. To become world-class, Miller says, Stevens will have to bump up her power anywhere from 6% to 13%.

Working in Stevens's favor is her natural ability to grasp tactics. She says her years of playing tennis have helped. "Cycling is a tactical sport and she has good instincts," says Brems of Webcor. "When she makes attacks, they are at good times," she says.

At the end of June, Stevens left Wall Street and devoted herself to cycling full-time. The sport's governing body, USA Cycling, sent her to do training sessions on a velodrome with competitors who are almost 10 years younger.

She's now in Italy, training with the U.S.A. Cycling National Development Team, and enjoying the perks of a professional athlete — or a "wannabe" one, as she put it — like the ability to let her legs recover between workouts. "I just feel fresher when I get on the bike," she says. Instead of going to the office, she says, "Today, I came back from a ride, ate, surfed the Web, wrote emails, read books, hung out. It's really nice, actually."

As strange as it sounds, in 1998, 11 members of a Congolese soccer team were all electrocuted to death. It’s bizarre considering your chances of electrocution by lightening are about 1 in 300,000. Of course, all the Congolese players were wearing metal studded cleats, whereas the opposing team were wearing rubberized ones.

http://purpleslinky.com/offbeat/five-true-urban-legends/

By Andrew Levy
13th May 2009

With twin teenagers and a nine-year-old to look after, Joadey Dyer was more than a little taken aback to find she was pregnant again.

And her surprise turned to shock when doctors revealed she was expecting triplets - doubling her brood.

Her husband Gary is now badly outnumbered in the Dyer household because all six children are girls.

His wife, who gave birth in March, said she suspected she had more than one baby soon after learning she was pregnant.

'I knew something wasn't right because I was growing really quickly and was eating like a horse,' said the 39-year-old.

'Now I'm up nearly all night. After one wakes up to be fed I get back to bed and then half an hour later another one wakes.'

She and her roofer husband already had 15-year-old non-identical twins Kirsty and Brook and nine-year-old Maddison.

Two of the girls' triplet siblings, Erin and Evie, are identical because they came from the same egg.

However, the third, Riley, came from a separate egg released during the same cycle - a type of conception known as polyzygotic.

Weighing between 2lb 4oz and 2lb 10oz, they were born by Caesarean section four weeks early, helped by a team of 26 medics. They spent six weeks gaining strength in the maternity unit at Southend Hospital near their home in Benfleet, Essex.

Mrs Dyer, whose twins were conceived as triplets before one miscarried, said: 'When you're pregnant with three babies all you keep thinking is what's going to go wrong because the odds of there being problems go up.

'For them to all come out screaming and not have any problems is brilliant.'

The triplets are now feeding every four hours and go through 20 nappies a day.

Mrs Dyer said there were twins on her mother's side dating back to 1837.

'They seem to crop up every 37 years or so but we've never found another set of triplets,' she said.

Her husband was dealing well with being surrounded by girls, she added. 'We keep reminding him there is only one of him and seven of us,' she added.

'At least he's got the dog - he's a boy too.

'When we're buying bits for the babies he asks "Does everything have to be pink?"

'He moans about being outnumbered but he loves it really.'

Debbie Ross, of the Twins and Multiple Births Association, said naturally conceived triplets from two eggs were highly unusual.

'They could well be one in a million. It's very, very rare for a woman to conceive twins and then for one of the eggs to split to produce triplets,' she added.

The family lives in a five-bedroom semi-detached house with the triplets sleeping together in a single cot in one room.

To create extra space, Kirsty has moved out into a converted summer house in the garden.

Only 149 of the 764,387 births in 2007 were triplets - most of these conceived by IVF.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1180854/Meet-million-family-Mother-teenage-twins-gives-birth-triplets.html

March 14, 2009

Not as vast as space but big enough to intimidate human imagination, Earth's ocean depths would be an unlikely place for collisions. And yet in the depths of the Atlantic, two nuclear submarines, bristling with weapons of mass destruction, hit each other in yet another one in a million collision. Both vessels, HMS Vanguard and a French submarine of the Triomphant class, were damaged while on a routine patrol at relatively low speeds in the word’s second largest ocean, although no one was injured.

Despite what we see in movies, submarines do not travel around the world pinging their sonar to see what is out there, since this gives away their own position. As part of its nuclear deterrent, Britain maintains at least one submarine in the Atlantic twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year. HMS Vanguard carries 16 Trident missiles with a maximum of 48 nuclear warheads. Its French counterpart is no doubt similarly equipped. The odds of this happening may seem high, but it is clearly possible and if a bigger collision had occurred, an explosion involving multiple warheads, as well as two nuclear reactors, would have been catastrophic.

This wasn’t the first such accident either. In recent years, there have been numerous submarine collisions with icebergs, rocks, underwater mountains and of course other undersea vessels, as well as numerous incidents from the Cold War that were long kept secret. Engaged in covert surveillance, NATO and Soviet submarines would engage in deadly games of cat and mouse, coming as close as they dared to their adversaries. Collisions were inevitable and although many weren't too troubling, some were very serious, since even a slight bump between two vessels weighing in at 4000 tons could have disastrous consequences.

While the damage to the British and French submarines is reported as minor, the same cannot be said for the nuclear powered US submarine San Francisco, which in early 2005 plowed into an undersea mountain in the Pacific. The mountain apparently did not appear on the navigational charts of the area. The head on crash occurred some 500 feet below the surface, destroying a sonar dome on the sub’s nose and peeling back a large portion of the vessel’s outer hull. Fortunately the inner hull, protecting the living quarters and operational areas of the submarine, was largely undamaged, although crew members were forced to take emergency measures to reach the surface before limping back to Guam. One man was killed and sixty others injured in the incident.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/03/one-in-million-collisions.html

March 14, 2009

Collisions of an unusual nature have been in the news lately. First, we had the story about the satellites, one Russian and one American, colliding in space and then only days later, two heavily armed and highly dangerous nuclear submarines belonging to Britain and France collided in the vast empty spaces beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Two one-in-a-million collisions, it would seem.

Space objects have collided accidentally in orbit before, but these were considered minor incidents and involved either leftover portions of used rockets or small satellites. The February 2009 collision, five hundred miles above Siberia, was the first impact at high-speed involving two intact spacecraft - a derelict Russian satellite and a working American Iridium satellite.

The Iridium network consists of sixty six very fast moving communications satellites in relatively low orbit. Most communications satellites circle the planet in higher orbits, making collisions much less likely. The collision at 26,000 mph completely destroyed both the Kosmos 2251, a former military communications craft, weighing 2000 lbs, and the Iridium orbiter, which was 1235 lbs. The American satellite was operational at the time of the collision, but its Russian counterpart had been inoperative since at least 1995. The crash created debris clouds traveling at about 660 feet per second, between 300 and 800 miles above the surface of the Earth.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/03/one-in-million-collisions.html

03/02/2009
by Patricia Raskin

Here’s what happened:

I was in the final stages of producing a television documentary on Positive Aging in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My production team had decided to end the documentary with an older gentleman who had been featured in the closing segment. The elderly man came to a final editing session with a collection of photographs he thought would be perfect for the ending. When we disagreed about several of his selections, he became difficult. He finally stormed out of the studio, leaving me without a completed documentary and without very much time to find available talent.

I sat in the conference room wondering how on earth I was going to fix the "broken" ending, when the studio's receptionist entered the conference room unannounced. She was carrying a package addressed to me. I was flabbergasted. I only worked in the studio once a month, so any mail addressed to me usually laid in my in-box, awaiting my arrival. This particular package arrived and was delivered to me the day I was there.

The package contained a national press release from Houston, Texas announcing a senior sports classics competition. One of the people featured was a 102-year-old golfer named Harley Potter. He was from – you guessed it – Winston Salem. I’m sitting in a conference room at the Fox TV affiliate in Winston-Salem approximately 20 minutes away from an centenarian who would be the perfect closing story for my documentary.

I called his 75-year-old daughter and she arranged for me to meet them at the local club where he played golf almost daily. The rest, as they say, is history – or should I say miraculous history. When events like this unfold, I believe there has to be a guiding hand that waves some sort of cosmic wand that transforms ordinary experiences into extraordinary events.

I believe the “spiritual economics” of miracles were at work here, making it possible for all of us to be in the same place at the same time for the same event. I believe we receive multiple miracles every day in the form of coincidences and chances.

http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/03/02/one-million-perfect-coincidental-miracle

Jul 26, 2009
By John Moss

Fall River —

When Phillip Brunelle won $1,000 on a Massachusetts State Lottery ticket, little did he know that would be just the beginning of his good fortune early Sunday morning.

The 29-year-old professional photographer of this city bought the ticket about 2 a.m. from the 24-hour Tedeschi convenience store on East Main Street, along with several other items.

When he got home, he forgot about the Billion Dollar Bonanza scratch ticket at the bottom of the bag and almost threw it away.

After scratching it and realizing he won $1,000, he awoke his partner, Jeffrey Brunelle.

“I just needed to tell someone,” he said.

He then returned to the store to report his winning status.

While there, he figured he'd shell out $20 for a $1,000,000 Money Mania scratch ticket. After all, he had just won $1,000.

“It’s not going to hurt my wallet,” he said.

When he scratched the ticket with his “lucky penny,” low and behold, he had won again — this time for the amount for which the game is named — $1 million.

“I was excited about $1,000,” he said. “This was unbelievable.”

Another customer, Lisa Reynolds, told The Herald News that after he scratched the second ticket, “He started breathing really heavy and kept saying 'no way ... no way ... no way!'"

She said another patron asked him if he won another $1,000, and he replied, “No, I think I just won even more, I think I won a million dollars.”

Reynolds said she and the customer approached Brunelle and verified that the numbers matched and the prize was $1 million.

“I didn’t even sleep last night,” Brunelle reported from his home Sunday afternoon.

Asked what he intended to do with the money, he replied, “Obviously, family comes first.”

So he plans on helping his 49-year-old mother, Linda Daggett of Brockton, who has cerebral palsy. Her car broke down several months ago and, being on a fixed income, she is unable to afford another one, he said.

“I’m going to try to help her out, get her a new car or newer car, so she does not have to depend on everyone else to do everything for her,” he said. “So she can have some dignity. Without her, I wouldn’t be here.”

Brunelle is a self-employed professional photographer who primarily shoots weddings.

He said he would not quit his job because he loves it so much.

“Now, I’ll consider opening a studio or two locally,” he said. “I want to get my name established out there.”

That was something he certainly accomplished Sunday. Video and print media from throughout the region were calling him for his story.

At Tedeschi's, two signs hang over the counter, telling customers that he is a $1,000 and $1 million lottery ticket winner.

Brunelle grew up in Middleboro and graduated from Middleboro High School. He moved to this area about 10 years ago, attracted by the inexpensive rental rates, he said.

He has a photo journalism degree from New England School of Photography.

He worked for the Hilton Hotel chain as a corporate sales manager before suffering a serious back injury from an accident in which a section of concrete fell on him at a home.

That was a time of misfortune. On Sunday, Phillip Brunelle was basking in good fortune.

http://www.heraldnews.com/news/local_news/x1543602704/ONE-IN-A-MILLION-Man-hits-lottery-twice-in-one-day

By David Stringer
February 17, 2009

LONDON — Nuclear submarines from Britain and France collided deep in the Atlantic Ocean this month, authorities said Monday. It’s the first acknowledgment of a highly unusual accident that one expert called the gravest in nearly a decade.

Officials said the low-speed crash did not damage the vessels’ nuclear reactors or missiles or cause radiation to leak. But anti-nuclear groups said it was still a frightening reminder of the risks posed by submarines powered by radioactive material and carrying nuclear weapons.

The first public indication of a mishap came when France reported in a little-noticed Feb. 6 statement that one of its submarines had struck a submerged object—perhaps a shipping container. Confirmation of the accident only came after British media reported it.

France’s defense ministry said Monday that the sub Le Triomphant and the HMS Vanguard, the oldest vessel in Britain’s nuclear-armed submarine fleet, were on routine patrol when they collided this month. It did not say exactly when, where or how the accident occurred.

France said that Le Triomphant suffered damage to a sonar dome—where navigation and detection equipment is stored—and limped home to its base on L’Ile Longue on France’s western tip. HMS Vanguard returned to a submarine base in Scotland with visible dents and scrapes, the BBC reported.

“The two submarines came into contact at very low speed,” Britain’s Adm. Jonathon Band said. Band, Britain’s most senior naval officer, offered no further explanation.

“This is the most severe incident involving a nuclear submarine since the sinking of the Kursk in 2000 and the first time since the Cold War that two nuclear-armed subs are known to have collided,” said Kate Hudson, head of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Russia’s Kursk nuclear submarine crashed to the bottom of the Barents Sea during a training voyage in August 2000, killing all 118 crew members.

“It’s an absolute one in a million chance that the two submarines were in the same place at the same time,” said Lee Willett, head of the maritime studies program at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based military think tank. “There is no precedent of an incident like this—it’s a freak accident,” he said.

Stephen Saunders, a retired British Royal Navy commodore and the editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships, said that while NATO countries let each other know what general area of the Atlantic they are operating in, neither submarine would have had a precise position for the other.

“This really shouldn’t have happened at all,” Saunders said. “It’s a very serious incident, and I find it quite extraordinary.”

Both Saunders and Willett said submarines don’t always turn on their sonar systems, or make their presence obvious.

“The whole point is to go and hide in a big chunk of ocean and not be found. They tend to go around very slowly and not make much noise,” Saunders said.

Willett said the greatest risks from an accident would be from a leak of radioactive waste. An accidental firing of a nuclear weapon as a result of a crash would be impossible, because of the complex processes needed to prime and fire a missile, he said.

13 June, 2009, 13:51

The chances of being hit by a passing meteorite are tremendously small, but that’s exactly what has happened to a German schoolboy. The pea-sized space-traveling object hit the boy’s hand leaving a scar.
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The rock flew down from space at the speed of 48,000 kilometers per hour and struck 14-year-old Gerrit Blank on his way to school before crashing into the pavement, ending its billion-year space journey in a smoking 30 centimeter wide crater.

Read more

Gerrit is now among a handful of people to have been hit directly by a meteorite. The chances of this happening are very small, said to be one in 100 million. Most shooting stars get completely burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. As a result the object that hit the German boy would originally have been a lot larger.

Experts are now examining the pea-sized meteorite to discover its origins. They have already confirmed its magnetic nature. Most meteorites date back to the formation of the solar system 4.55 billion years ago.

As of yet there have been no confirmed fatalities as a result of a meteorite strike, although there are many reported cases of animals being killed by an impact.

The most recent case similar to Gerrit’s was in 1954, when a four-kilogram meteorite smashed through the roof of a house in Alabama, injuring a woman asleep at the time.

http://www.russiatoday.com/Art_and_Fun/2009-06-13/One_in_a_million__German_boy_hit_by_meteorite.html

A mother’s fling has resulted in her bearing twins – by different fathers.

Eleven-month-old Justin and Jordan Washington may have arrived in the world within just seven minutes of each other, but in an amazing twist of fate, they are half brothers.

Each has a different dad because their mother Mia Washington, had an affair and conceived two babies by different men at the same time.

There is only a one-in-a-million chance of twins having different biological fathers.

The bizarre double conception happened when Mia cheated on her partner James Harrison with another man.

One of the boys is James's son, but the other is fathered by another man, whose identity has not been released.

After learning about her infidelity, James agreed to forgive Mia and raise both twins as his own.

Mia, from Dallas, Texas, said: 'I have twins who have different dads.

'Out of all the people in America and all the people in the world, this had to happen to me.'

The truth came out when Mia visited Clear Diagnostics DNA Lab after noticing the twins have different facial features.

A paternity test confirmed her fears - it showed there was only a 0.001 chance that Justin and Jordan have the same father.

Authorities say the result is so rare that there are only a handful of known cases across the globe.

'It's very crazy, most people don't believe it can happen but it really can,' said Genny Thibodeaux, from Clear Diagnostics DNA Lab.

According to doctors, if a woman has more than one sexual partner while she is ovulating, there's a miniscule chance that different sperm cells can fertilise two separate eggs.

Dr Chris Dreiling, from the Paediatric Association of Dallas, told Fox News: 'Because sperm cells take a while to travel and eggs take a while to travel there can be an overlap.'

The couple is now coping with the aftermath of the DNA bombshell and plan to tell the twins when they're old enough to understand.

Mia added: 'When they opened the envelope and delivered the news they told me there was zero chance that James was Justin's father.

'My jaw dropped open.

'It was the weirdest thing to think that two little babies could have grown in my stomach together and been born seven minutes apart but yet have different fathers.

'I had never heard of it happening anywhere else in the world and literally had thought it would have been impossible.

'James said he would stay because he loved me and raise both of the twins as his own.

'I felt very wary at first, I kept thinking he'd try but then find out he couldn't cope with it and leave us after all.

'But everyday I'm thankful because the DNA result hasn't changed the way we are as a family. James is a good man; he's a great father and genuinely loves both of the twins.

'When they are old enough to know the truth about their different fathers I will tell them. Right now they are so young they don't know anything and they don't need to know.

'As far as I'm concerned, James is the father of both boys because he's the one there every morning when they get up and every night when they go to sleep.

'Some people may not agree with what I've done in the past but I have accepted my mistake and taken responsibility for it.

'If when he is older Justin wants to meet his real dad then that's his decision.

'Everyone around us has been shocked by the miracle of them having been conceived separately but born together.

'It's hard for me to wrap my head around it but those are the facts.

'Five months ago we found out that I was pregnant again and our new baby is due to arrive in the autumn.

'Right now I'm fully committed to taking care of my family and making sure their needs are met. I can guarantee there'll be no questions raised this time around!

'I'd advise other women to be careful about starting an affair - look what happened to me. Think hard about the consequences first, because the most bizarre things can happen when you least expect it!'

James said: 'It's a day by day thing.

'It's going to take time to build up trust between us like we had. Mia immediately came clean about her mistake and says she takes full responsibility for her actions.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184028/Meet-million-twin-baby-boys--8211-different-fathers.html

April 25, 2009
By traciklein

As an 8-year-old girl from Michigan was headed into surgery for a heart transplant, she asked Mike Ackerman — a pediatric cardiology fellow at Mayo who was part of her care team — if she was going to live. Dr. Ackerman said, “Of course you’re going to live, and I’m going to dance with you at your prom.”

Ten years later — on April 25, 2009 — Dr. Ackerman flew to Michigan to surprise Stefani Pentiuk at her senior prom to fulfill a promise made years ago.

I work at Mayo Clinic in our Public Affairs Department. Specifically, I work on our media team, helping reporters connect with physicians for interviews. I have had the pleasure of helping share Stefani’s story.

I’ve known Dr. Ackerman for about three years, working with him on news releases for his research published in scientific journals and on patient stories with the media. What has struck me about Dr. Ackerman is how beautifully he connects with his patients and their family members. His interest in helping them and getting to know them is incredibly genuine — and his memory of his patients, their specific circumstances and personal stories is amazing. So when he told me about Stefani and that he was traveling to Michigan to surprise her at her prom, I was not surprised.

On the Monday after prom, I talked to Stefani by phone. She told me that when she turned around and saw Dr. Ackerman at her prom, she immediately recognized him. “I would know him anywhere,” she said. And then she cried — which Stefani doesn’t do often. “I was so filled with emotion.”

After sharing a hug, Stefani’s principal announced that a song would be played for Stefani and her friend. Rascal Flatts’ “Bless the Broken Road” began playing.

Not long after the dance, Stefani’s dad, Perry, drove Mike five hours to Detroit to catch a plane to Florida, where he was speaking the next day. The group he was speaking to even rescheduled the time of Dr. Ackerman’s talk, enabling him to be at the prom the night before. Everyone but Stefani seemed to be in on this surprise — and helping to make it work.

But there’s more. Even before Dr. Ackerman entered little Stefani’s life, Mayo cardiologist Martha Grogan did. She has vacationed in Stefani’s town since she was a young girl herself. In 1999, friends told Dr. Grogan about this young girl who was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy and may need a heart transplant. The friend encouraged her to call the Pentiuks. So on a day when Stefani’s mom, Heidi, was very worried about Stefani’s health, the phone rang, Dr. Grogan on the other line offering her help as a cardiologist. Eventually, she helped the Pentiuks, including older sister Anna, bring Stefani to Mayo. “I don’t feel like I was doing anything special,” Dr. Grogan said. “I just wanted to see if I could help.”

Both Dr. Ackerman and Dr. Grogan say they didn’t do anything special. Many beg to disagree. But part of the reason they say that, I think, is because of who they are personally but also because many people at Mayo — whether physicians, nurses or staff members at the front desk — go above and beyond. It’s part of the culture. This prom promise story is obviously a one-in-a-million story, but it’s also a reflection of what we are empowered to do here in our daily work at Mayo — to make a difference in a person’s life.

And it’s a keen reminder to all of us that there is power in words when a person is ill and needs to hear a caring, genuine and hopeful message.

http://sharing.mayoclinic.org/2009/05/09/a-prom-promise-kept/

03/02/2009 - 17:08
By: Patricia Raskin

I was in the final stages of producing a television documentary on Positive Aging in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My production team had decided to end the documentary with an older gentleman who had been featured in the closing segment. The elderly man came to a final editing session with a collection of photographs he thought would be perfect for the ending. When we disagreed about several of his selections, he became difficult. He finally stormed out of the studio, leaving me without a completed documentary and without very much time to find available talent.

I sat in the conference room wondering how on earth I was going to fix the "broken" ending, when the studio's receptionist entered the conference room unannounced. She was carrying a package addressed to me. I was flabbergasted. I only worked in the studio once a month, so any mail addressed to me usually laid in my in-box, awaiting my arrival. This particular package arrived and was delivered to me the day I was there.

The package contained a national press release from Houston, Texas announcing a senior sports classics competition. One of the people featured was a 102-year-old golfer named Harley Potter. He was from – you guessed it – Winston Salem. I’m sitting in a conference room at the Fox TV affiliate in Winston-Salem approximately 20 minutes away from an centenarian who would be the perfect closing story for my documentary.

I called his 75-year-old daughter and she arranged for me to meet them at the local club where he played golf almost daily. The rest, as they say, is history – or should I say miraculous history. When events like this unfold, I believe there has to be a guiding hand that waves some sort of cosmic wand that transforms ordinary experiences into extraordinary events.

I believe the “spiritual economics” of miracles were at work here, making it possible for all of us to be in the same place at the same time for the same event. I believe we receive multiple miracles every day in the form of coincidences and chances.

http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/03/02/one-million-perfect-coincidental-miracle

By BEN SHPIGEL

Correction Appended

The painters finished retouching the kitchen last week. An electrician was in the basement. The hospital bed arrived Monday and was placed in Steven Domalewski’s new room.

“Once Steven comes home, it’s going to be a madhouse,” Marie Fullerton, his aunt, said earlier this week.

Much has been done, and yet much more must be done to prepare this house in Wayne, N.J., before tomorrow, when Steven returns from a hospital to rejoin a family and a community that have been waiting for this day for eight months, since they thought he had died.

On June 6, while Steven, then 12, was pitching for his baseball team in the Wayne Police Athletic League, a ball hit with a metal bat struck exactly the wrong part of his chest at exactly the wrong speed at exactly the wrong time. His heart stopped, a rare condition called commotio cordis, and despite the immediate efforts of some spectators, Steven’s brain did not receive sufficient oxygen for what doctors estimated to be about 15 minutes.

Steven has overcome significant odds just to be able to chew and swallow or to laugh at appropriate times. He cannot walk or talk clearly — and his brain may never recover enough to allow him to relearn those actions — but progress is measured in small steps: munching his first Cheerio, recognizing his parents, saying “ouch” or “mom.”

For Steven and his family, homecoming represents an emotional milestone while also illuminating how much further they must go. Beyond their home, the saga has rekindled a national discussion on what kind of bats young people should use in baseball, galvanized a community that acknowledges him with green and white ribbons — the colors of his uniform — tied around mailboxes and trees, and captured the attention of innovative medical experts.

When he arrives home, he will see his parents, Joe and Nancy, who have remained by his bedside. His siblings, 15-year-old Jimmy and 18-year-old Arlene, will welcome the boy Arlene called “the most fun I know.” Countless relatives will be there, too.

One person who will not attend the reunion is Fullerton, who drove from her home in upstate New York on June 7 and has slept on the living room couch nearly every night since.

She has minded the home, become the family spokeswoman and sifted through the mail. She left Wednesday afternoon because she had business to attend to back home. This will be a private moment, she said, for everyone else who has not seen Steven yet.

A Love for the Outdoors

“You want to know what kind of kid Steven is?” Fullerton asked. “I’ll show you Steven. Hold on a minute.”

Fullerton retrieved a block of wood from the basement. The home’s previous owners had inscribed thank-yous to the house for keeping them secure for 50 years. When the Domalewskis found the block in 2005, two years after moving in, they all wrote notes, too. Steven, then 11, scribbled, “I like how you gave me shelter, but I really like the outdoors better.”

A popular seventh-grader at Anthony Wayne Middle School, he was also an avid Boy Scout who would stay up late in his cabin at camp finishing merit-badge projects. He enjoyed visiting Fullerton at her old home in Schooley’s Mountain, N.J., because she let him help plant bulbs and explore a nearby creek.

Some evenings after dinner at home, Steven would glide in his in-line skates down a winding hill toward his friend Michelle Linteris’s home.

“I’m looking at the backyard now at the pool he was always swimming in and the tree he was climbing all the time,” said Bill Linteris, Michelle’s father and a close friend of the Domalewskis’. “All the time.”

Then Steven would head inside and eat dinner again. Not that anyone minded. His root beer eyes would sparkle, and he would flash an impish grin, and, just like that, Steven had turned on the charm.

He wolfed down green vegetables, particularly spinach, and preferred lemon to more exotic flavors of Italian ice because he liked what he liked and no one was going to tell him otherwise. Which is why, when Steven proclaimed that he wanted to be a professional baseball player and an entomologist, it did not sound strange. More like a prediction.

‘I Thought He Was Dead’

The night of June 6 supplied a perfect backdrop for Steven’s loves of baseball and the outdoors. His team, Tomascovic’s Challengers, was facing Gensinger Motors on a mild evening, and Steven, a talented pitcher, was on the mound.

With the score at 0-0 in the fourth inning, a batter ripped a line drive at Steven. Spectators recall that it hit Steven in the chest and that he crumpled onto his side, groaning. His upper body did not move. His lower body trembled. A hushed crowd stood around him. Someone yelled, “Call 911!”

Howard Levine, who was with his 9-year-old daughter at a playground beyond the right-field fence, hurried over. When he arrived, he said, Steven’s breaths were coming in shallow gasps. Then his face turned gray. His pulse stopped. So did his breathing.

“I thought he was dead,” Levine said.

Levine and Charles Rigoglioso, the third-base coach, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Levine said he almost cried when he heard Joe Domalewski repeat to his son, “Steven, please don’t leave us now.”

When the paramedics arrived, Steven was breathing. They took him to the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson. His brain had swelled. He was in a coma and on life support.

“Those first two weeks, no one knew what would happen,” said Dr. Catherine Mazzola, a pediatric neurosurgeon who treated Steven at the hospital and has remained a part of his coverage team. “You just hope.”

While waiting for daily reports from Steven’s parents, Fullerton assembled a scrapbook of the cards and letters sent by well-wishers. She found a sketchbook in Joe Domalewski’s drawer that contained only one drawing, a snowman sketched by Steven. Fullerton wrote notes to Steven, hoping that he could one day read them.

June 11: Today Steven’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of Nancy’s voice. A few breaths were Steven’s own. Thank you Boze. (Polish for God.)

June 12: An M.R.I. indicated that brain swelling went down. No tracheotomy. Our handsome Steven’s neck will not be marred.

June 14: When the nurse Stephanie asked you to wiggle your toes, you did.

Still in a coma, Steven showed signs of waking. His gag reflex returned. His pupils reacted. He started breathing without the full aid of a ventilator. He was, doctors realized, going to live. A few days later, Mazzola sat down to talk with the Domalewskis.

“I don’t know if he’ll ever walk again,” she recalled telling them. “I don’t know if he’ll ever speak again, and I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to feed himself again. But we’re going to do everything we can.”

Unexpected Help

Doctors have their anecdotal cases, their one-in-a-million stories of patients emerging from lengthy comas, but a majority of people with traumatic brain injuries are like Steven. It will be a huge victory if he ever uses a walker or tells his mother he is thirsty.

In Steven’s favor is his age. He turned 13 on Aug. 2, and his capacity for improvement is considered far greater than any adult’s.

Most of the recovery, doctors say, occurs within the first year, and one breakthrough for Steven was a matter of serendipity: The daughter of a neuropsychologist named Philip DeFina read a newspaper article in July about Steven and asked if her father could help.

DeFina founded the International Brain Research Foundation, a privately funded organization based in New York that brings together physicians to develop innovative treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Within two weeks, DeFina received permission to treat Steven, who became the foundation’s fourth patient.

The foundation’s approach combines a patient’s regular therapy with nutritional supplements, electrical stimulation and medication. Steven takes liquid forms of fish oil and turmeric to enhance brain metabolism, and regular doses of the prescription sleep aid Ambien, because DeFina said a South African study indicated that it had helped improve patients’ language functions.

“We come in at a point where people have traditionally given up,” he said.

By August, Steven’s condition had stabilized enough so he could be transferred to the Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside, N.J. By October, he was moving his lips, tongue and mouth and making babbling sounds. On Thanksgiving, he was fed mashed potatoes and turkey.

Mazzola inserted a pump into Steven’s stomach to deliver the muscle relaxant baclofen to alleviate the spasticity in his limbs. The drug relaxed him, and during speech therapy, Steven blew into his Boy Scout whistle and into a harmonica. On Dec. 14, when a relative teased him, Steven laughed out loud for the first time.

“That gave us Christmas,” Fullerton said.

On Christmas, Steven was permitted to go home for the first of five short visits. Joe Campbell, a neighbor, dressed as Santa Claus and delivered the family a stack of donations and gift cards he had collected. Steven’s paternal grandmother, Helen, sang to him in Polish and English. Steven rested his head on his brother’s chest as they watched “A Christmas Story.” When Jimmy burped, Steven laughed.

“If six weeks after the injury he could see the TV, then now he’s thinking about what he’s seeing,” Mazzola said. “His brain is processing it all. You’re starting to see Steven unlocked.”

A Family Moves Forward

Steven’s favorite color is gray. Joe Domalewski painted his son’s old room, the one upstairs, two shades of it. His new room on the ground floor, where his parents used to sleep, is painted gray now, too.

Family friends said Steven was always good at seeing the gray areas, that he would understand just how much life could change while also recognizing that it must go on. And it is going on.

Jimmy played football and wrestles at Wayne Valley High. Arlene, his sister, is a freshman majoring in English at nearby William Paterson University. Baseball registration for the 2007 Wayne Police Athletic League season closes today.

For the first time, Steven will not have round-the-clock care. Everyone will have to pitch in. The wrought-iron fence enclosing the front porch may go to make room for a ramp. A stony path leading to the door may need to be fixed, too. They have to find a custom wheelchair, a vehicle to accommodate it and a center where Steven can continue his aggressive therapy every day.

DeFina’s foundation has covered much of the costs of Steven’s treatment, about $200,000 so far. People and groups have donated thousands of dollars to offset the family’s living expenses. A man from Brewster, N.Y., wrote a letter promising he would never again play poker if Steven’s health improved.

“You’re at a loss for what to do, but all you know is that you want to help and show that you care,” said the neighbor Michelle Campbell, Joe Campbell’s wife. “We can’t imagine what life must be like.”

Just the other day, Fullerton said Steven had grown 2 inches. He is up to 5 feet 3 inches now.

“I asked Jimmy, ‘When did he get so tall?’ ” Fullerton said. “I don’t know why I thought that was so strange. I guess that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

Correction: February 16, 2007

A sports article last Friday about the homecoming of Steven Domalewski, from Wayne, N.J., whose heart stopped when he was struck in the chest by a batted ball in June as he was pitching for his youth team, referred imprecisely to the brain injury he sustained, and to the recovery prospects for other patients dealing with brain injuries. Domalewski sustained damage because of a lack of oxygen to the brain, not because of a “traumatic brain injury.” Many people with traumatic brain injuries recover fully; a majority of them are not like Steven, whose recovery faces considerable physical and mental challenges.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/sports/baseball/09pitcher.html?pagewanted=print

US Park Ranger Roy C. Sullivan from Virginia holds the record for the person most times struck by lightning - and living to tell the tale. Between 1942 and 1983, Roy has the dubious distinction of being struck by lightning seven times. He was known as the Human Lightning Rod.

The first lightning strike in 1942 happened as he was working up in a lookout tower and the lighting bolt shot through his leg and knocked his big toenail off.

In 1969 while he was driving along a mountain road a second strike burned off his eyebrows and knocked him unconscious. Another strike just a year later, while he was walking across his yard to get the mail, left his shoulder seared.

He was standing in the office at the ranger station in 1972 when lightning set his hair on fire and Roy had to throw a bucket of water over his head to cool off. A year later, after his hair had grown back, a lightning bolt ripped through his hat and hit him on the head, setting his hair on fire again. It threw him out of his truck, knocked his left shoe off and seared his legs. A sixth strike hit him in 1976 while he was checking on a campsite, injuring his ankle.

The last lightning bolt to hit Roy in 1977 happened while he was fishing. It sent him to hospital with chest and stomach burns.

Roy Sullivan was never killed by lighting - he committed suicide while in his 70's in 1983 reportedly distraught over the loss of a woman.

(http://www.thatsweird.net)

Seven years ago I was on a skiing trip with a friend in Michigan. She had a friend with her by the name Babur. I thought to myself “That has to be the only person in the entire state with that name”, but little more than that.
I remember he was the only person in the group who was snowboarding instead of skiing making him stand out even more. As fate would have it, Babur fell off of his snowboard and broke his arm. Years passed and the skiing trip has become no more than a memory. Recently I ran across a computer on Craigslist that I wished to purchase. I contacted the seller and immediately noticed an accent which was vastly different than that of most Michiganders. I asked the person on the other end of the telephone his name. When he said that it was Babur, my jaw hit the floor. I asked if he had an experience a few years back where he broke his arm snowboarding. He was baffled and asked how I knew. When I told him that my name was Vladimir, he immediately remembered me. What are the chances?

I have what one might call a loosely knit family. I have one sibling and
three first cousins. We have contact a few times a year,maybe. And this is
mostly how it has been my entire adult life, and I'm approaching 60.

During one college summer break I took the mandatory backpack trip in Europe. I was vaguely aware that my recently married older brother was spending some time in Europe with his wife. One gray late afternoon I was meandering through the streets of London and found myself in Trafalgar Square.

Curious about the columnar statue in the middle, I approached the Lord Nelson monument. As one might guess, there stood my brother and his wife casually waving at me. Not so strange, we've all run into people we know in odd places. Their greeting, however, was a Rod Serling moment. They were ecstatic that I had gotten the message they left at Western Union that they would meet me at Trafalgar on that day at 5PM.

I'd never been to the Western Union office!

This is a life story of a vase that has been my family's treasure for a few generations now. Before WWII my grandparents lived in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov with my teen-aged mother. This beautiful vase was decorating the top of the upright piano. My mother was a piano student at that time and music became her career for life. Nineteen forty-one brought the war onto Ukrainian soil... air raids became daily routine. My family had to hide in a bomb shelter many times a day, and our loyal housekeeper put the vase away to save it from falling off from shaking.

In a hurry, she stuck it inside the piano, underneath the keyboard. A few months into the war, the occupation of Kharkov became a reality and my grandfather managed to take the family out of the city just days before the fascists stormed in. After a few weeks of horrible traveling my grandparents, with my mother and the housekeeper, settled in a small industrial town in Siberia. They lived there through the German occupation of Ukraine. My family's beloved city of Kharkov was liberated in August of 1943 and shortly thereafter they returned to ruined and looted city.

All their possessions were lost. My mother had to resume her music education, but she had no piano to practice on.

Somebody who survived the war within the city witnessed my grandparents house being looted and knew the person who'd taken my mother's piano. My grandfather found that person and offered him money for his own piano so my mother could play again.

When the piano was delivered back to my family home the housekeeper remembered about the vase.

It was still there, inside the piano, in one piece and as beautiful as ever!

My mother became a music teacher and played this piano many years. Later, I studied piano and played the same upright for 12 years. In 1989, I was leaving Ukraine for good with my husband and our son; my grandparents, my mother and our housekeeper were all long gone... I treasured the memories and the vase and couldn't part with it. I packed the vase in our luggage that was sent by sea to America.

It took 17 months for the cargo to get to the USA . The wooden box was broken in transit, and a lot of things were missing or destroyed. But my vase survived again, in one piece and still as beautiful as ever! The vase proudly decorates my bedroom dresser in our Michigan home now.