Kids that see dead people
thesun - Trembling with fear, ten-year-old Fae Jackson darted out of her bedroom and down the stairs to her mum.
She had just seen the wispy image of a person - who had hissed into her ear: "Can you hear me?"
It was the first of hundreds of ghost sightings that would plague the young girl and lead her to believe she may have psychic powers.
Incredibly, Fae's younger brother, Ashley, has now started reporting similar eerie sightings - despite not knowing of Fae's.
Mum Lynn has come to accept her kids have supernatural powers and that, just like the movie The Sixth Sense, her children can "see dead people".
To Lynn, this is anything but a special gift - she sees it as a curse she would love to break.
The 39-year-old, from Waltham Cross, Herts, says: "It feels like someone is bullying my children and I can't do anything about it.
"It would have been easier to deal with if they had an illness. At least I would know where to go for treatment.
"Fae has got used to it and now she enjoys having this ability - but Ashley hates it."
Last week we revealed one in five Brits have seen or felt the presence of a ghost - and that 53 per cent believe in psychic ability. The research coincides with Matt Damon's new film, Hereafter, about a reluctant medium. Fae, now 13, and Ashley, eight, can relate to that.
Stay-at-home mum Lynn says: "The first sign was when Fae started primary school.
"She used to tell me one of her friends was purple or the teacher was red. So one day I told her, 'No darling that boy isn't purple'. She said, 'Mummy I mean the colour around him'."
Now they both believe Fae was recognising auras, the glow said to radiate around a person.
Ghostly sightings started when Fae turned ten, and appeared nearly every day. Once Fae reported her bed being shaken by a frustrated female ghost.
Another time she said she could feel the energy of an old woman against her back while showering. She even says that at times she can feel ghosts playing with her hair.
A figure who regularly appears is "the druggy man", who has droopy eyes and slumps next to Fae in her room.
A figure who regularly appears is 'druggy man' who slumps next to Fae in her room
Lynn says: "How do you deal with something like that? She was terrified. I did start off thinking it might be attention-seeking, but you know your own children. She was shy and not a story teller."
In her skinny jeans and patent Dr Martens, petite Fae today seems at ease with her powers but her huge blue eyes still betray her fear during one of the most terrifying incidents.
She says: "I had walked out of my bedroom and there was a mirror at the other end of the hall. In my reflection I saw a person's head on my shoulder. It was red. I was so scared. But now I understand that it is my grandad and that he is my spirit guide, who is protecting me."
Fae matter-of-factly goes on to relate how she encounters these unexpected visitors.
She says: "It's not like seeing something solid like a chair, it's like a glimpse of the person.
"Mostly I can sense something or feel the energy there and the picture and details come into my head. Like their name can pop into my head or how they died.
"If I close my eyes I see their picture building up. It happens so quickly. I have all this information in a couple of seconds.
"I used to be really scared, I wouldn't like the dark and I wouldn't like looking in the mirror in case I saw something."
The double blow came when Ashley began to see ghosts too.
He refuses to discuss the idea that he may be psychic. Lynn says: "We had been careful to keep everything that was going on with Fae from Ashley. I didn't want him to be frightened. Then, about a year ago, he refused to go into our conservatory and wouldn't go to the toilet alone.
"I asked him what the matter was and he told me, 'There's a head following me around'.
I asked Ashley what the matter was and he said: there's a head following me around
"My blood went cold. How do you tell a seven-year-old that some people can see dead people?"
Lynn's husband, David, 45, is clearly concerned and supportive yet, like Ashley, prefers not to discuss the issue.
But supernatural powers may run in the family. Both David's dad and Lynn's gran believed they saw spirits.
Lynn says: "Fae has tried to tell Ashley it's OK and happens to her but he doesn't believe her.
"She's intrigued by it now but he hates it and is terrified."
Through talking to other mediums, Fae has learned to cope with the sightings but Ashley is very much in denial. Instead, a friend who does distant healing - called Theta Healing - has focused on Ashley, asking that he doesn't see anything frightening. Lynn believes this has reduced the sightings but says he still has what he calls "bad thoughts".
Fae, who has learned to channel her ability into learning Reiki healing, says: "I can close down my chakras - points in the body from the head to the feet.
"You do it by thinking of those points as lightbulbs and you shut them off so you are closed to the spirits. I can also ask them to go away and I can imagine a white light around me to protect myself.
"When it first started I was seeing spirits every day but now it isn't as often."
Fae adds: "I have only told one friend at school, she was fine about it and accepts it.
"But I wouldn't tell anyone else because I think they would tease me. I would be the witch girl."
Lynn and Fae plan to write a book together on their experiences. They have also launched Facebook group Children With Spirit.
Lynn says: "One of my issues is that there's no real help out there for people like us.
"Talking to other psychic children has really helped Fae, so hopefully it can help others too."
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Another Weeping Madonna
wcpo - READING, Ohio - Some are calling it a miracle.
There is a statue of the Virgin Mary that appears to be crying tears inside a Reading shop.
In the back of the small shop is a statue of Mother Mary. It looks like she is weeping and there are two teardrops on her face.
The statue of Mother Mary crying inside Our Lady Queen of Reading religious lending library is bringing tears to some visitors' eyes.
"I believe it's true. They were there. I saw them. It's true. I would imagine it's a miracle," said one visitor from Amberley Village.
WCPO cameras were not allowed inside, but visitors snapped photos of the Virgin Mary.
There are two tear drops on her face, one rests on her chin, the other on her cheek.
There is another statue of Jesus sitting at the top of the stairs with tears falling from its eyes.
"I heard about it on the radio and I didn't think much of it. Being here at work and we saw the lineup of people. Out of curiosity I went over and looked and its unbelievable. It's forming. The tear is there. It does not look like it's water or anything. It's real weird, very weird," said Gayle Walker from Reading.
Most want to believe what they see.
"Well I have faith that it is. We can't always be sure, but I prayed to her and I feel better about it and I'm glad I came," said one visitor from Reading.
There are more visitors arriving every day as word spreads about the crying statues.
Visitors who know the owner tells 9 News the owner wanted to keep it a secret for fear the statues would stop crying.
Others say they believe the tears are a sign of hope.
They believe it should be shared with the community.
"You hear about it in other countries and then it's here in Reading of all places. It is a miracle. I think something will come of it, hopefully, something good," Walker said.
While at the shop, several stories about the tears were shared with 9 News.
Some say they started to form about a week ago when a visionary visited the library.
Someone else said they started after a rosary, which belonged to Reverend James Willig, who died nearly 10 years ago, was placed in her hands.
Whatever is causing the tears, it's bringing smiles to many peoples' faces.
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Pig farms breeding drug-resistant diseases
infozine - A new university study may make you think twice about the occasional fly that lands on the Sunday dinner table.
Research by scientists at Kansas State University and North Carolina State University found a high prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the intestines of house flies and German cockroaches as well as in pig feces – all from the same farms.
For the study, which was conducted on two commercial swine operations in Kansas and North Carolina, scientists isolated the common gut bacteria Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium from the digestive tract of house flies, and the feces of German cockroaches and pigs.
“Our data showed that enterococci were common from all three sources and frequently carried antibiotic resistance genes,” said K-State associate professor of entomology, Ludek Zurek. “The bacteria were found to be frequently resistant to tetracycline, erythromycin, streptomycin, and kanamycin, which are common antibiotics used to treat infections in humans.”
Other collaborators on the study were K-State postdoctoral research associates Aqeel Ahmad and Anuradha Ghosh, and North Carolina State University distinguished professor, Coby Schal.
The research was published in the BioMed Central journal BMC Microbiology on Jan. 26, 2011.
“Because antibiotics are widely used as growth promoters in U.S. swine operations, the digestive tract bacteria in pigs are often exposed to selective pressure and many become resistant to antibiotics,” Zurek said. “Insects such as house flies and German cockroaches can move freely between animal waste and food and may play a significant role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistant bacteria within and between animal production farms and residential settings.”
The study showed that cockroaches and house flies shared some of the same enterococcal clones that were detected in the swine manure, indicating that insects acquired enterococci from swine manure.
Zurek said that this study was the first analysis of antibiotic resistance and virulence of enterococci associated with insect pests in swine farms.
“Since we found such a good match in enterococci, it is possible these insects acquire other bacteria from swine feces with even greater public health significance and could disseminate them to the surrounding environment. This research will enhance our understanding of the role insects play in the ecology of antibiotic resistant and virulent bacteria and in public health. Flies and cockroaches may be more than just a nuisance and insect pest management should be a part of pre-harvest food safety and security programs,” Zurek said.
He said that further studies in this area will depend on available funding.
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Scariest Fish in the World
green-buzz - You may have been under the impression that, where freshwater fish are concerned, the one you would least like to encounter would be the Piranha, famous flesh-eater from the Amazon river, but you might need to think again. Recently, another kind of fish, so savage that it makes the terrifying t piranha seem tame, was recently caught in an English river, for the first time ever, setting off alarm bells.
Commonly found in South-east Asian waters, this vicious predator fish, called the giant snakehead, is repotedly completely unfussy when it comes to food, with a shark-like attitude to eating any and everything it encounters, even to humans, if the rumors are to be believed, which say that people have died from getting too close to these fish in the water.
A wide mouth, full of flesh-tearing, fearsome teeth is the first thing you notice about this monster, which can grow to three feet in length, weighing up to fifty pounds, though the one caught in the UK was smaller. These amazing fish can also survive for up to four days out of water, because in normal habitats they may need to “crawl” between available pools.
Snakeheads are thought, perhaps justifiably, to be the ultimate in invasive species, rapidly going through all other wildlife in the river, so if breeding were to start in any UK river, the results would be catastrophic, which is why this danger fish is among those species that cannot be imported. The one caught had almost certainly been ex-aquarium, illegally released. Do not, for one second think that the case is being over-stated here. Your everyday fish is nothing like the snakehead, females having attacked, and sometimes killed humans that came too close to the juvenile fish the females were guarding.
An infestation of these horrors, near any bodies of water in close proximity, is dreadful environmentally, because their ability to travel overland means that they will completely empty on pool of prey fish, then move on.
An unexpected invasion of snakeheads in the USA was combated with real zeal, even to the extent that sharpshooters were positioned round affected pools, shooting the fish dead on catching sight of them. Lakes had to be poisoned, at the cost of killing many other fish, just to prevent the spread of snakeheads, in the process, though wether or not they were wiped out remains debatable.
The only bright spot, and possible cause for optimism here is that the fresh water habitats of the UK and USA are almost certainly too cold for snakeheads, which prefer warmer waters, to survive in the long term. Remember though, what that character played by Richard Attenborough, in the film Jurassic Park, was heard to say. Life will always find a way. Take note, and be warned.