34-year-old Brit mum wakes up aged 15
London: A mother-of-one living in England woke up thinking she was just 15 years old after being struck by a rare form of amnesia.
Naomi Jacobs, 34, woke up in 2008 but believed she was just about to sit her GCSE exams in the summer of 1992.
She was horrified to learn she was living in the 21st century, and was even mother to an 11-year-old boy she did not recognize, reports the Telegraph.
Doctors revealed that Naomi had been under so much stress that part of her brain had simply closed down, erasing many memories of her life.
She was left baffled by the Internet, and flummoxed by her mobile phone as she struggled to get to grips with modern life.
Today, three years after waking up in the future, Naomi has finally regained most of her memory, and has written a book about her experiences.
She said: “I fell asleep in 1992 as a bold, brassy, very confident know-it-all 15-year-old, and woke up a 32-year-old single mum living in a council house.
“The last thing I remember was falling asleep in my lower bunk bed, dreaming about a boy in my class.
“When I woke up, I looked in the mirror and had the fright of my life when I saw an old woman with wrinkles staring back at me.
“Then this little boy appeared and started calling me mum. That”s when I started to scream.
“I didn”t know who he was. I didn”t think he was much younger than I was, and I certainly didn”t remember giving birth to him,” she added. (ANI)
2,000-year-old mosaic wall depicting Apollo unearthed in Rome
London: Archaeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old mosaic near the Colosseum in Rome that depicts Greek God Apollo surrounded by muses.
The late 1st century mosaic-covered wall was unearthed during an excavation that shows a figure of Apollo, nude except for a colourful mantle over a shoulder and surrounded by muses, reports the Daily Mail.
The wall registers 16 meters (53 feet) in width and at least 2 meters (6.6 feet) in height. Officials are of the opinion that the wall continues down some 8 meters (26.5 feet) more.
According to the archaeologists, the wall might have been built in a tunnel to help support Trajan’s Baths, named after the emperor who ruled from 98 till 117.
The mosaic apparently shows a room where wealthy Romans gathered to hear music and discuss art.
Archaeologists are expecting that there might be more mosaics to be uncovered and have said they need an extra 680,000 euros to finish the excavation. (ANI)
British police kept 150 murder victims’ organs
London: Two police departments in Britain secretly kept brains and hearts of at least 150 murder victims for years and did not inform their families, an official review has found.
While the Avon and Somerset Police revealed it kept brains, hearts and tissue samples of around 110 murder victims, West Mercia Police said it kept body parts from 44 victims, the Daily Mail reported.
The organs and tissue samples were retained as evidence in cases involving suspicious or unexplained deaths.
In many cases, police kept the organs long after the case was solved and the victim buried or cremated.
The Association of Chief Police Officers asked every police department in the country to report whether it has kept any human tissue in the last 25 years and if it is still necessary to retain it.
The total number of uninformed families could rise, as only two forces have disclosed their findings.
Police have visited the families to discuss what to do with the body parts.
Some have asked for them to be buried or cremated, with the police bearing the cost.
The family of one man, who was a victim in a suspicious death case, however, reacted with fury after they learnt police kept his brain for eight years after he was buried.
Nigel Evans, 43, died in December 2003 in Bristol after he was hit during drinking. The cause of death was later given as alcohol abuse, leading his family to believe investigations were complete.
His sister, Anne Bundy, 53, said: “I am livid. They said they had the right to take any body part, but why didn’t they tell me sooner? This has opened up a lot of pain. I shouldn’t have had to go through two funerals.”
Under the Human Tissue Act of 2006 – that provides guidelines for retaining human tissue – a framework was put in place to make families aware if organs or tissue had been retained for examination. (IANS)
Beatles barber turns shop into tribute to Fab Four
BUENOS AIRES: Beatles fan Gerardo Weiss ran a typical Buenos Aires barber shop until he had a dream that the Fab Four dropped in for a haircut.
Seven years later, Weiss has made Beatles-inspired cuts his specialty.
”The dream got etched on my memory,” he said at the modest salon, the walls plastered with photos of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
”I decided to get rid of the pictures these places usually have and just put up photos of The Beatles … so people could see them and ask for their haircuts,” he said.
One picture shows Lennon cutting someone’s hair, another is of Harrison with curly locks down to his shoulders. It is the stuff of inspiration for Weiss.
”My favorite Beatles’ haircut is the one Paul McCartney had in ’74, when he was doing the Band on the Run tour … it was short on the sides and longer at the back,” said Weiss, whose eight-year-old son is called Lennon.
”When my wife got pregnant I prayed to God for a son, so I could pay homage to John,” he said as ”Hey Jude,” with Lennon strumming on a guitar, played in the background.
It was 40 years ago that the hairdresser first heard a Beatles record, a moment he recalls with almost religious fervor. It was ”Love Me Do,” the Beatles’ first single, that started his life-long love affair with the British band.
At first, the salon’s Beatles-inspired makeover was a little too radical for many locals in the working-class city neighborhood of Flores.
Weiss said it was a struggle to convince customers a Beatles’ haircut is as cool today as it was when the band from Liverpool revolutionized popular music in the 1960s.
But word spread and people from outside Buenos Aires and even abroad began trickling, joining more adventurous locals.
”I’ve told some of my friends, the ones who are Beatles fans, to come and they liked the results,” Mario Genua, a 22-year-old petrol station attendant, said as Weiss styled his hair into a ”John 1964” — fluffy on top and at the sides.
”They were very different (and) they’re still fashionable,” he said.
Weiss has no plans to move his business to bigger premises in a trendy neighborhood or to tap into the city’s booming tourist trade.
His dream is to keep Beatles’ cuts in style.
”I’ll carry The Beatles in my soul, my spirit, my blood for the rest of my life,” he said. ”They left a mark on me and I’m really happy to be able to do what I do. I even get paid for it.” (PTI)