Mad World: Back from the dead

Julie Poole

A psychic and spiritual empowerment coach, Julie Poole consumed painkillers and fell unconscious for three days, after which she shared her paranormal experience. Narrating her experience on the Life After Death NDE YouTube page, she journeyed through a fable of being taken into a higher realm after ‘dying', where ‘white and shimmery figures' greeted her. "I just remember saying that I'm going home, and they replied, ‘No you're not, it's not your time," recalled Julie. When it was finally time for her to return to her realm, the higher beings revealed to her that humanity would enter a ‘golden age' between 2012 and 2032.
The spiritual empowerment coach further explained, "What we mean by the golden age is that for millennia now there has been an enormous amount of power, abuse, and control… All of that has been held by the few and has controlled the masses." Julie believes that this golden age will bring equality across all walks of life and everything corrupted will fade away. Studies have found that clinical death-a phenomenon when a person's heart stops beating-can lead to people experiencing what are known as deathbed visions. These visions are the result of surging brain activity, with a lack of oxygen and glucose making the information processing our brains go into overdrive.

Calligraphy Off Pitch

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San Francisco Giants' bench coach Christenson is turning mundane lineup cards into pieces of calligraphy art. His colleagues call him an artist as the coach chooses a font and colour scheme for his lineups, often inspired by the day's opponent or special occasions. Christenson's repertoire includes around ten styles, such as the Phillies' Scriptwurst font and the Yankees' interlocking ‘NY' style. Christenson always loved to doodle and his grandmother first got him a calligraphy pen when he was little. He rekindled this passion in 2014 when he was influenced by the creative lineup cards of Jerry Narron and Don Wakamatsu, both former managers who also coached. "Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I appreciate it," Narron said. Most lineup cards Christenson makes take about 15 minutes, while intricate designs can take up to 30. "It's just a little Zen moment, kind of gets you away from the grinding-on-the-numbers part of the game," Christenson says. Majority of Christenson's lineup cards in the Giants are up for sale starting at $75 (approximately R6,200) in their store at Oracle Park.

Doctor of Litter-ature

Ever imagine a cat getting a doctorate? Vermont State University's beloved cat resident, Max has been honoured with a doctorate of Litter-ature for simply being adorable. Graduating along with the fellow 2024 batch, Max also became one of the first ones to receive a doctorate from the university, as doctorates are not even provided to students.

What's in a name?

According to new studies, elephants also call each other by individual names, a similarity uncanny to dogs and parrots. In their low rumble voices, elephants produce sounds to call each other and respond. "Just like humans, elephants also use names, but probably don't use names in the majority of utterances, so a 100 per cent result is not expected," said study author and Cornell University biologist Mickey Pardo.

No More Skin to Tattoo

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After completely inking his arms, legs and chest in black, Eli Ink, from Brighton, now plans to tattoo over them, as he is left with no more space. "I'm only running out of visible space and I've got nearly four layers of different tattoos on my body," says Ink. He has since then spent around Rs 1 crores and thousands of hours covering 98 per cent of his body in tattoos. Running his own tattoo studio, Sacred Silence Tattoo in Hove, he creates his owns designs.

Twinning with the caps

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The graduation at Cooper City High School in South Florida made headlines with fourteen sets of twins and one set of triplets graduating among their 543 fellow batchmates. "It was very special as they would come across the stage, I would shake their hand and give one a diploma, and then the second one would come over to do the same thing," says Vera Perkovic, the school's principal.

Leopard and his Spot

After two months of strenuous efforts, a Chinese Zoo named Panzhihua Park has given up on its task of helping an overweight leopard popularly known as China Officer Clawhausher, reasoning it with his advanced age and limited exercising space in the zoo.