Ms. Allison not only can stick change, safety pins, and spoons to her body, but also can blow out lightbulbs, make television screens flicker, set off battery-operated toys, shut down cash registers, and trigger car alarms through her mere proximity.

Scientists seem to think that Ms. Allison’s personal electromagnetic field (we all have them) is just a lot stronger than normal and that the cause may be stress. Through the use of a journal, Ms. Allison has found that her powers are strongest around the time of her menstrual cycle. She also noted that sometimes she emits a positive charge, and sometimes a negative one, meaning sometimes she attracts and sometimes she repels objects.

Sometimes Ms. Allison’s condition embarrasses her, like when she went to a grocery store and the registers went out and the clerk shouted at her and accused her of putting a voodoo curse on the machine.

Other alleged human magnets include Romanian hospital worker Aurel Raileanu, Malaysian farmer Tan Kok Thai (who claims to also attract rocks, plastic, rubber, wood, and bananas . . .), the Tenakaev family of Russia (three generations of human magnets!), and Malaysian Liew Thow Lin, among others.

There even has been a human magnet competition in Vietnam this year as part of a celebration of Vietnam’s department for the research and study of energy. In 1990, 300 people alleging special powers of attraction showed up at the Superfields conference in Bulgaria.

So what causes these mysterious powers?  Why do some people only seem to have magnetic power, while others also have powers that attract other kinds of items?  Are they all hoaxes, or do some people really have a chemical makeup that gives them these abilities?

I don’t know, but for a few years in the early 1990s, I seemed to have the power to affect printers strangely. In various locations, documents I would send to print would come out with characters transposed or strange parts of the page missing, and sometimes my mere proximity seemed to make printers spontaneously reboot or print things that were sent to the queue a long time ago. I have no idea what this was all about, and affecting only printers seemed so random. I often wished I could harness whatever it was that was causing it and put it to use for practical purposes, but I never did figure it out, and it seems to be gone now. I guess I have lost my youthful magnetism.

- Julie

Sources:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3102005/Iron-mam-Brenda-Allison-a-is-human-magnet.html
http://letmeget.com/blog/brenda-allison-magnet-woman
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1304481/The-human-magnet-Mother-power-make-metal-stick-body.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article293333.ece
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2004%2F8%2F13%2Fnation%2F8654247&sec=nation
http://kenh14.vn/c44/t11/20100510120044801/nguoi-nam-cham-hut-phien-da-42kg-pha-ky-luc-viet-nam.chn
http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/human-magnet-contest-held-in-vietnam.html
http://www.today.az/news/interesting/72423.html

The study focused on healing groups in Brazil and Mozambique because of their reputation for being quite effective. These groups pray in particular for improvements in vision and hearing, and they produce measurable results, which is better for a scientific assessment than simply noting that someone says they feel better.  The study noted that the improvements measured were significantly more substantial than those found in studies of  suggestion or hypnosis.

Unfortunately, the study only focused on the results, not the process. So, we are still left to wonder HOW praying for someone in front of you, or laying hands upon an afflicted person while praying for them, effects a change.  Is it divine intervention, some bioelectric process, a freakishly strong placebo effect, or something else entirely?

Some might say it doesn’t matter how it works, as long as it does, but I disagree. If there is any scientific process to it that could be refined and replicated, that could produce a profound benefit for many. If it’s really a matter of faith and divine healing, fine, but wouldn’t that be fascinating to know? Can it occur with all faiths? What about athiests?

What do you think of the power of prayer for healing?

- Julie

Sources:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/14990.html
http://journals.lww.com/smajournalonline/Citation/publishahead/Proximal_Intercessory_Prayer.98984.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1300506/Prayers-really-heal-sick-finds-international-study.html

According to the Telegraph, Ms. Bronwyn Fox of Invercargill, New Zealand, woke up one morning with a new accent said to be similar to a Welsh accent. Ms. Fox suffers from multiple sclerosis, and her doctor thinks two lesions on her brain are responsible for the new accent. Fox and her husband take the strange change in stride and say it can make an otherwise boring day a little more interesting.

Other people with this rare syndrome include Sarah Colville of Devon, England, who got her new Chinese-sounding accent as a parting gift from an especially nasty migraine headache; and Linda Walker of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, whose stroke left her with voice resembling a mix of Jamaican, French-Canadian, Italian, and Slovak accents.

One of my cats has taken to sounding an awful lot like Mary Tyler Moore saying “Ohhhh Loooouuuuu,” when he begs for treats, but I’m pretty sure it’s just him being weird and not some medically induced phenomenon.

- Julie

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/7887985/New-Zealand-woman-sounds-Welsh-after-suffering-foreign-accent-syndrome.html

The cause could be a dietary or a virus, and the vets suspect it is fermented nectar. The parrots can’t tell the difference between fermented and unfermented nectar, so they don’t know not to drink it. At least they aren’t intentional drunks. Once intoxicated, the birds’ mood changes from kind of “obnoxious” to “friendly and jovial,” according to Veterinarian Lisa Hansen. I guess they aren’t imbibing enough to go full circle back to obnoxious like people do sometimes, especially in college.

As the more entertaining effects wear off, the birds get headaches (how do vets know that?), are lethargic, and seem really bummed out, much like humans with hangovers. The vets at the Ark Animal Hospital treat the birds with the avian equivalent of a college hangover cure: sweetened porridge and fresh fruit.

The possibility of an unknown illness still exists, however, so vets are still concerned about the parrots.

- Julie

Sources:
http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/drunk-lorikeet-parrots-struggle-to-fly-in-australian-town-of-palmerston/19501157
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/06/03/sign-of-the-apocalypse-drunk-parrots-fall-from-the-trees-in-australia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiscoverMag+%28Discover+Magazine%29
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/828896-drunk-parrots-hit-by-mystery-illness-down-under

Photo by C. Goodwin

An Australian woman says her illness was cured when she drank from a holy tap in Hermannsburg.  The tap is located next to a former Lutheran church, and aboriginal people believe the tap is therefore on holy ground. Lutheran officials are uneasy about the whole thing and hope to avoid a mass influx of people seeking to drink from the tap to cure their ailments. Hundreds of people have already done so, however, so the clergy may be out of luck.

The precinct manager for Hermannsburg, Heidi Williams, says the piping in the area is in need of repair but she is now afraid to make the repairs lest that change the properties of the water (and make the pilgrims and their money go away, I would imagine).

People will do strange things when they’re desperate for healing or desperate for dollars.

There is no word on what the nature of the woman’s illness was, nor are their other accounts of particular ailments being cured. The power of suggestion is strong, though, and perhaps plain old water can have healing power via the placebo effect. Maybe the water is particularly blessed because of its location. Perhaps the deteriorating pipes have allowed in some mineral contamination that helps with certain conditions. Whatever the cause, no harm seems to be coming to anyone, aside from a nuisance to the church next door, and people are feeling like they are getting their needs met.

- Julie

Sources:
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/05/26/150421_ntnews.html
http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/weird/hundreds-flock-to-hermannsburg-to-partake-in-holy-tap-water-from-side-of-lutheran-church/story-e6frep26-1225871838363

Scientists call this Foreign Accent Syndrome (creative!) and postulate that the change in accent is due to brain injury that causes slight changes in pitch, tone, and melody, making the speech sound like particular accents. Listeners think they hear a specific accent because of pareidolia, our brains’ tendency to recognize patterns or familiar images or sounds where there really aren’t any, like seeing faces in tree bark.

In Vanderlip’s case, the head injury also made her tire very easily, and her “accent” gets worse as she becomes more tired.

Foreign Accent Syndrome has been associated with head trauma, stroke, and, in one case, severe migraine. Apparently, no amount of speech therapy seems to correct the damage. Fewer than 60 cases of the syndrome have been reported. The recent case of the Croatian girl waking from a coma speaking fluent German does not fall under this syndrome. It is neat, though.

Boy am I relieved that I didn’t wake up speaking in anything other than my normal voice when I was knocked unconscious by a falling flagpole when I was nine.

- Julie

Sources:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/weird/Woman-Falls-Down-Stairs-Wakes-Up-With-Russian-Accent-95159764.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052801724.html?wprss=rss_metro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_accent_syndrome

None of the many scans or x-rays done of Amber’s kidneys picked up the anomaly, adding to the doctors’ amazement.

Her condition is called duplex kidney, which means her kidneys are made up of two units joined together, and this only occurs in about one percent of the population. They way Ambers are formed means she has four kidneys and four ureters. The two healthy kidneys have taken over and Amber is now healthy.

We throw the phrase “medical miracle” around, but this is about as close to the real thing as I’ve ever heard of.

- Julie

Sources:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592991,00.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1279060/Girl-grows-new-kidneys-old-ones-fail-thanks-million-genetic-quirk.html