What do you get the two-headed, six-legged bearded dragon who has everything?
Well, everything it needs, anyway.
For Todd Ray, who actually owns such a creature — a reptile he calls “Pancho and Lefty” — the answer was found in a lookalike pinata.
Yep, you read that correctly: A giant pinata that looks like his beloved pet two-headed, six-legged bearded dragon.
Pancho and Lefty turned 1 back in May, but Ray, who runs the Venice Beach Freakshow in Los Angeles, is celebrating the big day on June 11 with a big shindig fit for, well, a two-headed, six-legged bearded dragon.
“These are literally the rarest animals in the world,” Ray told AOL Weird News, and he should know. He has the largest collection of two-headed animals around, more than 100 specimens including 22 living creatures.
Ray has been collecting double-domed animals for the past 10 years and exhibiting them publicly for six. He considers it a calling.
Interesting little bit about this young boy claiming to be “magnetized”.
What do you think?
Young Ivan Stoiljkovic poses for pictures with a Samsung Galaxy Tab stuck to his chest in front of his home near Koprivnica, about 62 miles (100km) north of Croatia’s capital city, Zagreb, on May 12, 2011.
Ivan, 6, is purported to posess an extraordinary and seemingly magical talent: the ability to attract metallic objects — from spoons to heavy frying pans — to his body.
He is said to be able to carry up to 25 kg of metal stuck to his torso. Ivan’s family also claims that his hands can emit heat and his mysterious ability has also given him healing powers.
“Medical checkups so far have reaped inconclusive results,” reports Reuters. More images follow, in which Ivan “attracts” cutlery, cookware, an iron, and other metallic objects. In the image below, his grandfather tosses coins at his chest. Surely this isn’t a hoax!
HUGE new ocean-dwelling dinosaur has been discovered that could SNACK on a T-rex!
It is said to be “the most fearsome predator that ever lived,” according to a BBC News report. It is a pliosaur, or “sea monster,” and now its 2.4 meter-long skull has been unearthed and presented to the public. UPI reports that Naturalist and TV presenter David Attenborough unveiled the fossil to the public this past Saturday.
The 155-million-year-old fossil was accidentally discovered in Dorset, U.K. by local collector Kevan Sheehan, who told BBC News: “It was sheer luck – I was sitting on the beach, and saw three pieces. I had no idea what they were, but I proceeded to drag them back. Then over several years, I’d go back every year and find a new piece.” According to The Guardian, Dorset county council has decided not to reveal the specific location of the find, since the area is prone to rock falls.
It is possible that the discovered creature may be a new species, or possibly even genus. Scientists estimate that the predator could have measured up to 18 meters from tip to tail.
Found this on Discovery.com, thought our readers would be interested. Enjoy!
A Triceratops may have been the last dinosaur standing, according to a new study that determined a fossil from Montana’s Hell Creek Formation is “the youngest dinosaur known to science.”
The Triceratops, described in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, dates to 65 million years ago, the critical period of time associated with the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs and many other animals and plants.
Since this rhinoceros-looking, three-horned dinosaur lived so close to the mass extinction moment, it could negate an earlier theory that dinosaurs gradually died out before 65 million years ago.
Heard of “Lizard Man” yet? If not, that may soon change. Because the new mystery creature is stalking car fenders in rural South Carolina in the dead of night. That’s a diet Bigfoot never went for in his pursuit of wild berries and always making sure he was just out of camera range. There’s nothing like eating the clunker in the front yard for pushing you up to the top of the Cryptid sighting list.
According to local channel 19 in Lee County, SC, the legendary lizard creature made a return after a 23-year hiatus, and he’s up to his old tricks.
Witnesses on a rural road in the county are saying they heard a strange noise on the morning of July 4th and went outside to investigate.
That’s when they discovered the front bumper of their car had been chewed and clawed in a way no normal creature of the woods could manage. Police veterans realized they’d heard this story before.
“This part here is how it all started in 1988,” explained former Lee County Sheriff Liston Truesdale. “We got a call to come and look at something that had mauled a car. I went out there and looked at that damaged car, and I haven’t seen anything like that before.”
Then reports of a lizard-like creature in the area started coming in. Only this terrifying animal was 7-feet tall, with red eyes and three claw-like fingers on each hand. With an appetite for chrome… just like the old days.
So the hunt is on, pushing Bigfoot off the front pages. But he hasn’t been seen in a while anyway.
10:00 PM CST, TONIGHT: It’s that time of the week… time to ease into your favorite chair, sit back and relax as we explore the sublime world of the strange, the odd, and the unusual. It’s time once again for… The Shadow Hour.
Tonight’s guest, Austin reader Diane Parma, joins us again to talk astrology. While Diane is not a full time astrologer, she has long used astrological information as part of her work. She’ll talk to us about different perspectives on astrology and how it connects to the other tools that hse uses. If you’ve been curious about astrology, this will be a great place to begin.
As always, you can listen right here with our blogtalkradio widget! You can listen to past broadcasts at any time, or tune in tonight (Wednesday, July 6th) at 10pm Central for the live broadcast. See you in the shadows…
Ready to go: The Terrafugia Transition has finally been declared road legal, and it could be in U.S. garages as early as next year. It was first developed in 2009, but has faced years of hold-ups
It’s been cleared to take to the skies for more than a year – but that’s not much use when you’re supposed to be able to drive it, too.
But now the flying car has at least been declared officially road legal.
It means the Terrafugia Transition could be in U.S. garages as early as next autumn, after two years of delays.
It may not be the world’s first flying car, but its makers say it is the first to have wings that fold up automatically at the push of a button.
It costs $200,000 – about the same price as a Ferrari – and can be reserved online for what Terrafugia describes as a ‘modest’ $10,000 deposit.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has officially announced the Transition, called a ‘roadable aircraft’ by its makers, can now be legally driven on America’s roads.
It granted the vehicle special dispensations, which allow it to use airplane-style plastic windows instead of the safety glass usually used in cars, as it would be too heavy.
Innovative: The Transition 'roadable aircraft' costs $200,000, and can be reserved for a $10,000 depositReady for lift-off: It takes just 30 seconds for the Transition to convert from a car into a plane
The polycarbonate windscreens can withstand the impact of birds, so they won’t fracture.
The administration has also granted Terrafugia permission to use heavier-grade tyres, which are not normally allowed on multi-purpose vehicles.
It’s the second hurdle the Transition had to overcome before it could go on sale, after the Federal Aviation Administration ruled last year it could fly with its current weight, 110lbs over the normal legal limit for light sport aircraft category.
Terrafugia had originally hoped to deliver its first production vehicles as early as this year, but after problems with suppliers it has had to delay the release date to late 2012.
A 25-foot-long giant squid is splayed out on a tarp after it was picked up by a fishing crew over the weekend.
By Nidhi Subbaraman
Florida fishermen snared a real-life sea monster over the weekend: a giant squid measuring 25 feet in length.
“It’s really, really, really rare to get giant squids because they’re so huge, and live so deep,” John Slapcinsky, a collection manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, told me. For museum workers and scientists who specialize in giant squids, this specimen is quite the catch.
University of Florida researcher Roger Portell injects preservative into the giant squid.
The animal was bobbing in the water when the fisherman chanced upon it on Sunday. They hauled it onto their boat, put it on ice, and brought it to shore. There, they alerted the Florida Fish and Wildlife conservation commission, who called in the Florida Museum of Natural History.
“I thought we definitely need to bring it in, because no one’s going to believe us if we don’t,” Robert Benz, one of the original squid finders, said in a press release. “I didn’t want to leave it out there and just let the sharks eat it.”
Somewhere along the way, the squid died.
It’s now been relocated to the Florida Museum of Natural History, where Slapcinsky and his colleagues are preserving the massive invertebrate. “Soft bodied squids spoil easily,” Slapcinsky told me.
The squid will be put through quite the regimen over the next month, and will be injected with and bathed in a cocktail of preservatives. These will kill the bacteria in the body of the squid and firm up the soft tissue of the animal, Slapcinsky explained.
A tentacle coils out from the dead squid's body. Studying the creature and sequencing its DNA should help scientists determine how various breeds of deep-sea squid are related.
Because they’re so rarely observed in the wild, or found dead (they get eaten pretty quickly), there’s a lot that scientists don’t know about the behavior of the enormous animals, like how they reproduce or what they eat. Also, a debate continues about whether giant squids make up a single species, or several, and Slapcisnky hopes that DNA analysis of this new squid will have some answers.
It’s not yet clear if the squid will make it into a museum exhibit, Slapcinsky says — the museum may not have the right equipment or the space to show off the spineless specimen. But it will be available for squid researchers to visit, to take a closer look.
(Reuters) – If Aubrey de Grey’s predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger.
A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to “cure” aging — banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.
“I’d say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I’d call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so,” de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain’s Royal Institution academy of science.
“And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today.”
De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular “maintenance,” which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.
De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he won his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009.
He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.
“The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic,” he explained.
CHALLENGE
Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year at the moment and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.
To date, the world’s longest-living person on record lived to 122 and in Japan alone there were more than 44,000 centenarians in 2010.
Some researchers say, however, that the trend toward longer lifespan may falter due to an epidemic of obesity now spilling over from rich nations into the developing world.
10:00 PM CST, TONIGHT: Have you ever had a psychic event? Been a witness to a UFO encounter, or maybe even been abducted? Ever seen a strange creature you couldn’t explain? Do you have a ghost story you’d like to share?
Tonight, join host Chris Walden of the weekly live radio program “The Shadow Hour” for a special open-line call-in show. Chris will review this week’s “Shadow News” while callers share their stories. That call in number is (347) 826-9662 or call toll-free at (877) 867-0829.
Now you can listen right here with our blogtalkradio widget! You can listen to past broadcasts at any time, or tune in tonight (Wednesday, June 29th) at 10pm Central for the live broadcast. See you in the shadows…
