Oddity Central |
- Real-Life Mutant Girl Causes Things around Her to Catch on Fire
- Painter/Scientist Turns Neuroscience into Visual Art
- Dream Job: University Will Pay You $3,500 to Eat Fast Food for Three Months
| Real-Life Mutant Girl Causes Things around Her to Catch on Fire Posted: 16 May 2012 03:27 AM PDT
A yet unnamed 11-year-old girl from Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City has been making headlines in Asia, for her alleged uncontrollable power to set things around her on fire. According to Vietnamese website Ngoisao, on May 12, a young girl living in the Tan Binh district of Ho Chi Minh has burned down almost the entire third floor of her family’s home. Her father says the child did not have access to any fire-inducing objects, and that the fire was caused by the super-energy in her body. How many times have we heard that one before, right? But while that may sound like the exaggerations of a parent looking for media attention, this is apparently not the first time this Vietnamese girl has caused things to burst into fire just by going near them. The unnamed girl’s parents say they’ve noticed her peculiar abilities about a month ago, when their home’s electrical network underwent repeated short-circuiting. Then the power outlets around the house burst into fire when their daughter came near them, and at one time she even burned a corner of the toilet seat. What’s even more intriguing is they claim the same phenomenon repeated itself when they took the girl to other places, as well. For example, during a vacation to Vung Tau beach, she burned the hotel room. The 11-year-old told Vietnamese media that on occasions, even her clothes catch on fire for no apparent reason. After the incident that occurred on May 12, the girl’s family rerouted the house’s entire electrical network, moved all furniture and electrical appliances as far away from their daughter as possible, and got separate keys for all family members so they could all escape the house, should something like this happen again. They keep guard over their daughter 24/7 and sleep with buckets full of water and wet towels next to them to extinguish potential fires. They have also taken the girl to be tested by scientists at the Hong Bang International University, in Ho Chi Minh. Du Quang Chau, an expert in radiesthesia (the ability to detect “radiation” within the human body) conducted a series of tests on the child and found something odd in her brain’s right hemisphere. Realizing this was an unprecedented case both in Vietnam and the world, he created a panel of scientists to conduct studies on the girl and her surrounding environment. The unique phenomenon attracted scientists from various fields, including physics, medicine, psychology, culture and sociology. Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Director of the Hong Bang University, said RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) tests showed a weird “halo” in the girl’s right hemisphere that could be the cause of her unusual power. The girl was medically examined at Cho Ray Hospital and the Children No 2 Hospital, but doctors didn’t find anything abnormal. The names of the unique girl and her parents have not been made public, but photos of their damaged home were published in the media. Real-Life Mutant Girl Causes Things around Her to Catch on Fire was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Painter/Scientist Turns Neuroscience into Visual Art Posted: 16 May 2012 02:21 AM PDT
Greg Dunn is on his way to earning a doctorate in neuroscience, from the University of Pennsylvania, but he’s also passionate about pan-Asian art, so he decided to combine his two main interests into one unique art form. Dunn paints neurons, the tiny cells that comprise our brain, using the Asian sumi-e style, an ancient technique that aims not just to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its soul. Sumi-e is regarded as the earliest expressionistic art form that captures the unseen. For example, East Asian Ink Brush Painting, as this style is commonly referred to, isn’t used to replicate a person’s appearance perfectly, but rather to express their temperament. In the same way, Greg Dunn doesn’t use photomicrographs as reference to paint a perfect picture of the neurons, but rather as a guide upon which he likes to add his own touch. Painting an exact replica of what he see would “rob the painting of sponteneity”, according to Dunn. The neuron painter says he has always been more of an introverted person, so he spent a lot of time with his thoughts. So you can understand why he became so curious about what really happens up there, in his head, that he developed scientific interests and decided to study neuroscience. He now refers to himself as a scientist who wants to understand himself. Although he doesn’t remember when exactly he was drawn to Asian art, he believes it was the result of over-exposure to Renaissance art, during a trip to Europe. In contrast to a lot of the art produced in Europe, Asian art was so simple, emotional, and direct. There was breathing room on the canvas, and the techniques were so raw and bold,” Dunn remembers. “Neural forms are naturally elegant and spontaneous, characteristics that also describe the more traditional forms of Asian sumi-e painting- branches, grasses, etc. All that is required to connect the dots is the realization that you need to crank down your awareness to the micron scale to see that nature has very similar forms across different scales of magnitude. The branching form of a dendrite is nearly identical to the form of a branching tree, a series of cracks in the pavement, the movement of rivers and streams as viewed from space, or a lightning bolt. I wouldn't be surprised if the form were represented on a cosmic level as well. It is a fractal solution to the Universe,” the artist said in an interview with The Beautiful Brain. Asked what he finds beautiful about the human brain, Greg Dunn said: “It is literally the most complicated object in the known Universe! The tremendous knot of cells when connected in a certain way gives rise to a strange sense of "I" that is able to ponder and learn things about its environment. It is an utter miracle, and is at the root of why we are conscious beings able to appreciate this world and all of its beauty. How can you not love it?!”
Painter/Scientist Turns Neuroscience into Visual Art was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Dream Job: University Will Pay You $3,500 to Eat Fast Food for Three Months Posted: 16 May 2012 01:09 AM PDT
Let’s face it, many of us do it for free, but Washington University, in St. Louis, will gladly pay participants in its new study $3,500 to eat fast food for a period of three months. I tell you, job offers don’t get much better than this. A top American university is conducting a study on obesity and asking participants to gain weight during a period of three months. In order to properly motivate them to fill their bellies with various types of fast food, researchers have decided to reward them with a check of $3,500 for the three months of heavy eating. The only real requirement is people who participate in the study must gain at least 5% their starting weight, before the three months are over. Considering they’re all allowed to eat whatever kinds of junk food they like multiple times a day, I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem. Photo: samplesize “By choosing fast foods, we can regulate that food intake much better than trying to tell people to try and decide on their own eating food at home, which requires judgment and educations on what you’re eating … By going to eat fast food, we know exactly what they’re eating,” said Sam Klein, a Washington University representative involved in the study. The main goal of the three-month eating marathon is to find out why some individuals who consume unhealthy food become overweight while others don’t. The study will also try to determine why some overweight people develop diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other conditions associated with obesity, and others don’t. Photo: TaranRampersad To qualify for this fast-food-eating study, participants must be between 18 and 65 years old, be a non-smoker and must not have diabetes. Also, they have to already be at least 30 pounds overweight. Just in case you were concerned about the health consequences of this research on participants, you should know the university plans to register them for a weight loss program, so no harm done… Washington University has even released a list of restaurants participants can visit during the study: - McDonald's If this sounds tempting, you can apply here. Dream Job: University Will Pay You $3,500 to Eat Fast Food for Three Months was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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