US armless girl Jessica Cox gets pilot certificate

    US armless girl gets pilot certificate

    Jessica Cox, 25, a girl born without arms, stands inside an aircraft in this undated photo. The girl from Tucson, Arizona got the Sport Pilot certificate lately and became the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

    TUCSON -- Jessica Cox of Tucson was born without arms, but that has only stopped her from doing one thing: using the word "can't."

    Her latest flight into the seemingly impossible is becoming the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

    With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column, Cox, 25, soared to achieve a Sport Pilot certificate. Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

    "She's a good pilot. She's rock solid," said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel's Ray Blair Airport.

    He runs PC Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Services and has trained many pilots, some of whom didn't come close to Cox's abilities.

    "When she came up here driving a car," Traweek recalled, "I knew she'd have no problem flying a plane."

    Finding a plane that was compatible with her abilities was a task within itself. She found it in the Ercoupe, a plane manufactured in the mid-1940s. Locating one took her to Florida and California, although she finally find one less than 70 miles away in San Manuel.

    US armless girl gets pilot certificate


    Flight lessons usually run more than $100 per hour, but Cox was able to get her 40-plus hours of training through an Able Flight Scholarship.

    "Once you're with Jessica for about 20 minutes, you don't even notice she doesn't have arms," Traweek said from the one of the airport's hangars.

    Cox, unwrapping a piece of chewing gum with her toes nearby, was clad in a yellow T-shirt sporting a stick figure with truncated arms beneath the phrase: "Look Ma, No Hands."

    "Jessica's showing people there are no limits," he said.

    Most who meet her, especially on her motivational speaking circuit, agree. She's spoken at hundreds of gigs, from Wisconsin to Phoenix, where she shares her upbeat philosophy and incredible story.

    Doctors never learned why she was born without arms, but she figured out early on that she didn't want to use prosthetic devices.

    "I realized it was more important to celebrate my difference," she said.

    She gave up the prosthetic arms for good when she turned 14 and her family moved to Tucson from their hometown of Sierra Vista.

    "When we moved to Tucson, I had a fresh slate," she said.

    That slate is now covered with achievements from a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Arizona to two black belts in tae kwon do. She's also seeking a publisher for her life story.
    US armless girl gets pilot certificate

    US armless girl gets pilot certificate

    US armless girl gets pilot certificate

holding scorpion in her mouth sets new world record

    It's a feat worthy of a Bushtucker trial on reality TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

    But even the likes of I'm A Celebrity winner Joe Swash would be unable - or unwilling - to match this.

    Thailand's Scorpion Queen has set a new world record - by holding a poisonous scorpion in her mouth for just over two minutes.
    holding scorpion in her mouth sets new world record

    Don't do it! Thailand's Scorpion Queen Kanchana Kaetkaew is given a scorpion by her husband Boonthawee Siangwong as she makes her record attempt today


    holding scorpion in her mouth sets new world record

    Toying with her food: Kaetkaew dangles the scorpion before placing it in her mouth

    And Kanchana Kaetkaew, 39, may be able to hold that title for a while - it's doubtful she will see any challengers any time soon.

    Kaetkaew went for the record today in a mall in Pattaya, a city on the Gulf of Thailand known for its nightlife and cabaret.

    She was handed the arachnid by her husband - who, coincidentally, is known as the Centipede King - and held it in her mouth for 2mins 1.8secs before spitting it out.
    holding scorpion in her mouth sets new world record

    Victory: Kanchana Kaetkaew celebrates with her husband, the Centipede King

    The pair were married in a haunted house on Valentine's Day in 2006. The Centipede King - Bunthawee Siengwong, 31 - placed a centipede in her mouth, while she wore a white lace dress covered in scorpions.

    Kaetkaew wore a similar dress - also covered in scorpions - for her record-breaking success today.

    But the feat wasn't enough for the ever ambitious Kaetkaew.

    Now she has gone on to begin her second world record attempt: entering a glass compound where she hopes to stay for 33 days and nights along with 5,000 scorpions.

    But again, the field of competition remains thin. The previous world record 32 days was set in 2002 - by Kaetkaew herself.

Lingerie maker presents bras for men

    Lingerie maker presents bras for men
    Lingerie maker presents bras for men

    Wishroom Representative Director Masayuki Tsuchiya puts on his company's men's bra in Tokyo.. The Japanese online lingerie retailer is selling bras for cross-dressing men and they've quickly become one of its most popular items.

    Lingerie maker presents bras for men

    Lingerie maker presents bras for men

    Lingerie maker presents bras for men

    Lingerie maker presents bras for men

Chinese man hangs girlfriend out the window

    It's not the best way to resolve an argument: Hang your lover out the window until the police take you away.

    But that appears to be just what this man tried.

    The unidentified man was caught by a passing photographer forcing a woman, said to be his girlfriend, out a third-storey window in the Chinese city of Kunming today.
    Chinese man hangs girlfriend out the window

    Lovers' spat?: The man hangs the woman upside down from the window in Kunming, China


    Chinese man hangs girlfriend out the window

    Terror is clear on the woman's face as the man appears to be on the verge of climbing out the window with her and sending them both to their deaths

    The enraged man kept the woman pinned to the windowsill and in fear for her life for more than two hours.

    Horrified crowds gathered before the building as police frantically tried to talk him down.

    They finally succeeded - but he took the woman with him as a hostage, holding a knife to her neck.
    Chinese man hangs girlfriend out the window

    The man finally pulls the woman inside - but holds a knife to her neck

    Chinese man hangs girlfriend out the window

    Crowds watch as the man is taken away by police

    Her terror can plainly be seen on her face.

    Finally specialist hostage negotiators were able to persuade the man to give himself up. He was swiftly taken away by police.

    It is not yet known what happened to the woman - or, more tantalisingly, what they could have been arguing about that drove him to such extremes.

Indian girl has heart and liver outside body

    Indian girl has heart and liver outside body

    A four-day-old female child whose heart and part of her liver is growing outside her body is seen at the north Bengal medical college on the outskirts of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri November 26, 2008. "This is a very rare case, we are not sure if we can perform surgery to put her heart and liver back, but we'll try our best," a child specialist Miridula Chatterjee said on Wednesday

    Indian girl has heart and liver outside body

    Indian girl has heart and liver outside body

Chinese Man Drives with no Arms

    Chinese police got a surprise when they pulled over a brand new 4x4 for a routine check - the driver had no arms.

    Zing Shen, 42, was steering the vehicle with his feet and was amazed when officers decided issue him with a public safety summons.

    He told the traffic officers he had been driving like that for years after losing both arms below the elbows in an industrial accident.
    Chinese Man Drives with no Arms

    An officer in Beijing tells Mr Shen why it isn't a good idea to steer a car with his feet

    A police spokesman in Beijing said: 'The man said that he was a very safe driver and felt he was as good as anyone else on the road, despite his disability.

    'He had an automatic so did not need to worry about changing gears and said he had put a lot of practice into learning to control the steering wheel with his legs.

    'He said he was actually even more careful now with driving than he had been before he lost his arms. He was surprised when we arrested him.'

    Chinese Man Drives with no Arms
    Caught red-handed: Police arrested Zing Shen who has no arms beneath the elbow but had been steering with his legs

Mafia gun hidden agenda as a mobile phone

    It's the mobile phone that could leave you with more than a warm ear.

    As startled Italian police discovered, the device seized in a raid on a Mafia gang is actually a pistol.

    The phone gun - complete with a dummy display - holds four .22 bullets.
    Mafia gun hidden agenda as a mobile phone

    The mobile that calls you only once: Mafia gun was disguised as a phone

    It was fully loaded and ready to be used when it was found in Naples.

    The phone transformed into a gun by sliding the keypad section.

    The stubby antenna is the barrel, and a touch on a particular key fires a bullet.

    A police spokesman said: 'This is the first time such a weapon has been seized and shows the sophistication that the crime syndicates are turning to.

    Mafia gun hidden agenda as a mobile phone

    Killer call: A policeman demonstrates how the bullets were loaded

    'Tests are being carried out to see if it has been used recently or has been involved in any shooting attacks.'

    The raid in a Naples suburb was part of an operation against the Gionta crime family of the Camorra, the port city's version of the Mafia.

    Officers from the paramilitary Carabinieri police also seized two ordinary handguns, ammunition, bullet-proof vests, drugs and cash.

    A 28-year-old man was arrested during the raid in the Torre Annunziata area but several other suspected gang members escaped.
    Mafia gun hidden agenda as a mobile phone

    The pistol, which carries four bullets, can be fired from a button on the phone's keypad

Group wedding of traditional Chinese style

    Group wedding of traditional Chinese style
    The newly-weds tour on boats during a group wedding of traditional Chinese style in the Shajiabang Scenic Spot in Changshu, east China's Jiangsu Province, Nov. 16, 2008. Eleven couples attended the group wedding on Sunday.

    Group wedding of traditional Chinese style

    The newly-weds plant trees during a group wedding of traditional Chinese style

    Group wedding of traditional Chinese style

    The newly-weds tour during a group wedding

    Group wedding of traditional Chinese style

    The newly-weds go across a bridge during a group wedding

World's biggest bowl of Bak Kut Teh in Malaysia

    World's biggest bowl

    Teng Chang Khim(1st L), Malaysian Selangor State legislative speaker, and Ter Leong Yap (1st R), president of Klang Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry pose for photos with the world's biggest bowl of Bak Kut Teh in Klang, Malaysia, Nov. 22, 2008. The bowl of Bak Kut Teh with 182.88 cm in diameter and 91.44 cm in height, and containing 500kg of pork, 450kg of soup and 50kg of herbal medicine, has been listed in the Malaysian Book of Record, and is now applying for Guinness World Records.

    World's biggest bowl

    World's biggest bowl

    People pose for photos in front of the world's biggest bowl of Bak Kut Teh in Klang,

Guinness World Record Heaviest Neck Tumor

    Heaviest Neck Tumor

    Sixty-six year old woman from West Virginia suffered neck tumor from twenty-two years. Due to her tumor, she could not move out of house. Tampa plastic surgeon C. N. Guerriere removed tumor weighing 8kgs from her neck and gave her a new life to move out of home. The tumor was so large that it stymied even MRI scans.

    Guerriere never thought that his surgery would make his way into the Guiness Book of World Records.

    Below is the photograph taken after surgery.

    Heaviest Neck Tumor

World's Heaviest Woman

    World's Heaviest Woman

    Renee Williams in hospital before her operation

    After years of gorging on burgers, French fries and chocolate chip cookies Renee Williams tipped the scales at 64 stone. She was just 29 years old.

    The mother of two, who weighed almost half a ton, was bedridden and knew her only chance of survival was to beg doctors for a gastric bypass to reduce the size of her stomach.

    Before her death she let cameras into her home in Austin, Texas, to raise awareness of the dangers of obesity.

    She said: "I'm not the average overweight person and never have been. My stomach has always been flat and my waist is really small compared to my weight.

    "I have to be helped with everything. I can brush my own teeth and comb my own hair but a lot of people who are this weight cannot move around at all."

    Renee battled with her weight since childhood but convinced herself her obesity was due to a genetic problem.

    She said: "There are times when I have to force myself to eat because I know it's been a while since I've eaten something."

    By the age of 12 she weighed 21 stone and was classified as morbidly obese and by the age of 29 was six times the size of a healthy woman of the same age.

    Renee married at the age of 15 and weighed more than 30 stone by the time she gave birth to oldest daughter Mirina a year later.

    Five years later her weight had soared to 35 stone, but it didn't stop there. At the age of 24, Renee's weight had ballooned so much she had to weigh herself on industrial strength scales at a local garage.

    She said: "I was finally able to get the courage up and I asked my mum and sister to go with me.

    "The numbers are on this little display not near the scale so I stepped on it but had my sister go and cover up the numbers with her hand because I refused to have anyone else know what I weighed."

    In 2003 Renee was left bedridden after a drunk driver smashed into her car crushing her left leg. Unable to control her appetite, she got bigger and bigger and piled on another 28 stone. Renee didn't move from her bed for four years and developed weeping sores all over her skin.

    "I can't turn over. My skin has become so fragile when I move my legs too much I feel it rip open," she said.

    "You cannot miss it when somebody looks at you and immediately turns to their friend." Although the 840lb mum insisted romance was never been a problem she admitted showing her daughters affection was.

    She said: "I want my kids to be able to hug and kiss me. They can't get their arms around me so I settle for a hug around my arm.

    "I used to go to the school and see my older daughter in a play. I can't do any of that anymore. I have to see it on video.

    "What's kept me going all these years is my daughters. I can't leave my daughters here for something that can be corrected.

    "I used to be scared of not knowing what was going to happen to my daughters. I'm afraid of them not having their mum but I'm doing something now that I'm hoping will change that."

    Renee's daughter Mirina, 13, said: "I don't know why my mum ate. They told me this has been going on since she was a child. She used to hide food in her closet.

    "She ate everything. There was nothing that she didn't like. Her eating habits were getting worse and worse. She wouldn't stop until her stomach started hurting.

    "She'd go to McDonalds and get eight burgers from the dollar menu and eat all those."

    Renee's sister Lois Quinones added: "I don't know what was going on with her psychologically. She really did want to eat all the time because she didn't feel full.

    "After her accident she was a different person. She was bedridden at 26 and I think she used food to comfort a lot of that isolation, loneliness and knowing that was her future."

    When doctors gave Renee less than a year to live she knew a gastric bypass was her only chance at life but was turned down by 12 hospitals across America because of her size.

    The determined mum chose to take matters into her own hands and launched an online appeal for help.

    She said: "One day my heart is just going to stop beating. It's going to say I'm tired of pulling this body around. That's it."

    Surgeons at Houston's Renaissance Hospital heard Renee's appeal and admitted her for the operation.

    Renee was the largest person ever to have the surgery and had to be carried from her bed to an ambulance by eight men.

    The operation was a success and within two weeks Renee had lost four stone. Tragically however Renee suffered a huge heart attack and died on March 4, 2007.

Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard

    Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard
    Man challenges Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard

    Sarwan Singh holds onto his beard prior to a ceremony in Surrey, British Columbia November 11, 2008. Singh was attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest beard. Singh's beard measured at 1.895-metres.

    Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard

    Sarwan Singh's beard curls on the floor as he waits to take part in a ceremony in Surrey, British Columbia November 11, 2008. Singh was attempting to break the Guinness World Record. Singh's beard measured at 1.895-metres.
    Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard


    Guinness Record with 1.895-meter beard

World Most Beautiful Goat Found In Riyadh

    World Most Beautiful Goat Found In Riyadh
    People take photographs of a Maaz Al Shami (Damascene goat), which won the "Most Beautiful Goat" title, during the Mazayen al-Maaz competition in Riyadh

    World Most Beautiful Goat Found In Riyadh

    World Most Beautiful Goat Found In Riyadh

World's hairiest dog

    With this much hair you can't always count on a clear view.

    But new mum Kyra sees to it that every one of her nine Komondor pups gets plenty of rest.

    Her large brood - of which six are featured here - has given a fluffy boost to the British population of this rare breed.
    World's hairiest dog gives birth
    Milk time: Kyra's pups try crowd in for a feed

    Until two-year-old Kyra's litter was born there were only 40 Komondor dogs registered in the UK.

    They are known as 'the ultimate sheep-dog' in Hungary, their country of origin.

    Growing up to 80lb, they could fight off wolves and bears and their thick hair protected them from bites.

    Owners Gareth and Debi Young, of Newquay, Cornwall, said they were astonished that Kyra produced so many pups, each worth more than £1,000.
    World's hairiest dog gives birth
    Happy and hairy: Rare breed Kyra the Komondor dog with her nine pups in Newquay, Cornwall

    Mrs Young, 48, said: 'A typical litter is around four.' She added: 'I think the dogs are so rare because they are very hard to breed, and are also quite a lot of work.'

    The couple plan to sell eight of the litter. Mr Young, 39, a fitness coach, said: 'Whoever buys them needs a good-sized garden and good grooming skills.'

    Once the puppies are between six and nine months old, their downy coat will change into the mass of dreadlocks seen on the adults.
    World's hairiest dog gives birth
    Exhausting: Owner Debi Young holds one of the pups as its mum takes a well-earned rest

Snake Massage Therapy

    Snake Massage Therapy

    A client in an Israeli health spa enjoys her latest "snake massage" by six non-venomous snakes. Here, large reptiles are good for deep tissue massage while their smaller counterparts ideal for delicate areas such as face. For 70 U.S. dollars, the spa will treat clients to snakes in what it says a relaxing massage curing aching muscles and joints.

    Snake Massage Therapy
    It's a massage that is sure to make most people's skin crawl, but one woman has got herself in a twist with her latest massage technique. Ara Barak claims her pet snakes make the ideal masseurs as their slithering causes a massage sensation when placed on a person's skin. Ms Barak said she discovered her pet's 'therapeutic value' after noticing her friends became more relaxed after holding them.

    'Some people said that holding the snakes made them feel better, relaxed,' she said. 'One old lady said it was soothing, like a cold compress.' The owner of Israel's Barak's Snake Spa said her pets are able to give massage as their slithering causes a rubbing sensation on the body. Ms Barak had relied on exhibiting her scaly friends to make money, but found there is more cash rolling in from people wanting a massage - reptile therapy style. The larger snakes are used for deep massage while the smaller creatures are used to give a lighter touch - all for a mere £30.

    And those with a slight reluctance to have a snake massage will be pleased to know the reptiles are all non-venamous. But if the thought of reptiles is too much, Ms Barak also offers a rodent-style massage where mouse and rats are placed on the bottom of people's feet instead.

    Snake Massage Therapy

    Snake Massage Therapy

    Snake Massage Therapy

    Ada Barak gives a snake massage treatment. Barak uses California and Florida King snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes in her Snake therapy.

Total Pageviews