In South Korea People Check into Prison to Reduce Stress
Prison would probably be the last place I’d think of checking into to relieve stress, but that’s exactly what hundreds of South Koreans are doing these days.‘Prison Inside Me’ is a stress-reduction center with a penal theme, located on the outskirts of Hongcheon, about 58 miles northeast of Seoul. Prison Inside Me is the brainchild […]
Araras, the Brazilian Village Where People Melt Away under the Sun
The village of Araras, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, has the world’s largest population of people suffering from a rare skin disease known as xeroderma pigmentosum (XP). The condition is hereditary and makes its victims extremely sensitive to the sun’s ultraviolet rays. People suffering from XP become highly susceptible to skin cancer and […]
Rare Skin Disease Hasn’t Stopped This Beautiful Girl from Becoming a Successful Model
19-year-old Chantelle Brown-Young is perhaps the world’s first and only model with vitiligo, a condition that causes depigmentation of the skin. Vitiligo is the result of a malfunctioning immune system, has no cure and affects less than one percent of the world’s population. It’s the same disorder that pop icon Michael Jackson suffered from. In […]
Chinese Man Has Horn Growing Out of His Neck
For over 30 years, a man in China has been living with a horn growing out of his neck. 62-year-old Li Zhibing, from Shiyan in Hubei Province, said that the unusual growth first appeared on his neck in 1980. Since then, the horn has been growing at an alarming pace so Li’s friends actually help […]
Rare Condition Causes Woman to Smell Like Rotten Fish
For 14 years, company director Ellie James has been receiving the same Secret Santa presents at Christmas – bottles of perfume and bars of soap. And when she opens them, she is met with roaring laughter from her colleagues. The presents are mortifying, they break her heart every time because they are a subtle reminder […]
The Human Brewery – Man’s Stomach Turns Starchy and Sugary Foods into Alcohol
34-year-old Matthew Hogg has a rare condition – auto-brewery syndrome. Every time he eats starchy or sugary foods, his body converts the food into alcohol that is released into his blood stream. This alcohol is so strong that he ends up intoxicated without even touching a single drink. While this might sound like an alcoholic’s […]
Meet James Harrison, the Man Whose Extremely Rare Blood Has Saved Millions of Babies’ Lives
74-year-old James Harrison is a superhero in his own right. Granted, he doesn’t wear a cape or spin webs, but he has saved over two million babies’ lives in the past 54 years. And in real life, it doesn’t get cooler than that. Australian-born James has a very special type of blood – the plasma […]
Woman Who Has Never Eaten Solid Food Lives off Milk, Tea and Water
Manju Dharra, a 25-year-old Indian woman, hasn’t had a bite to eat since she was born. For the past two-and-a-half decades she has been surviving on a liquid diet consisting of milk, tea, buttermilk and water. Manju is from a small town called Sonipat, located near India’s capital, New Delhi. She suffers from a rare […]
Yemeni Girl Cries Stone Tears, Baffles Scientists
We’ve seen people shedding tears of blood before, but this 12-year-old Yemeni girl’s problem is truly baffling. When Saadiya Saleh cries, her eyes release small, hard stones. They form under her eyelids and get pushed to the front of her eyes, emerging as tears. Doctors are unable to explain the strange phenomenon because Saadiya isn’t […]
Inspiring Doctor Dresses as Homeless and Makes House Calls to People without Homes
Dr. Jim Withers, from Pittsburgh, Pa., has dedicated the past 20 years of his life to treating the city’s homeless. He is known as the ‘street doctor’ because he dresses up like a homeless person and goes out at night to provide medical care to the real needy. The extraordinary doctor started his unusual practice […]
Woman Shares Her Body with 15 Different Personalities Who Can Each Take Control at Any Time
Kimi Sands suffers from a very strange condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), otherwise known as multiple personality disorder. The 23-year-old, from Cardiff, Wales, shares her body with 15 different personalities any one of which can take control at any time. In the movies, people suffering from DID are often portrayed as dangerous criminals or serial […]
Rosemary Jacobs, the Woman Whose Skin Turned Silver after Using Nose Drops
71-year-old Rosemary Jacobs has had silver-colored skin for the past 60 years. At age 11, she developed a rare condition called argyria – caused by exposure to chemical forms of the element silver that makes the skin turn blue or bluish-grey. For Rosemary, the exposure occurred from nasal drops containing colloidal silver. Rosemary’s story is […]
Scientists Create Candy That Doesn’t Cause Cavities
Dentists have always warned us that too much candy will cause cavities. But all that could be a thing of the past, thanks to a new experiment by scientists from the Berlin biotechnology firm, OrganoBalance. It turns out that candy doesn’t cause cavities at all. The bad guys are actually the bacteria that remain on […]
Rare Condition Causes Woman to Cry and Sweat Blood
19-year-old Delfina Cedeno has been suffering from a rare disorder for the past four years – she has been crying and sweating blood. Occasionally, blood also seeps out of her fingernails, belly button and nostrils. Doctors at Delfina’s home town of Vernon, in the Dominican Republic, were baffled for a long time. Even after hundreds […]
The Inspirational Story of a Paralyzed Surgeon who Continues to Operate
Dr. Ted Rummel thought his life was pretty much over when he was left paralyzed from the waist-down in 2010. The exceptional surgeon had been diagnosed with a cavernous hemangioma – a blood filled cyst – in the middle of his spinal cord a year earlier. Neurologists told him the cyst couldn’t be surgically removed, […]