CURIOUS TIMES: Boy meets meteor, boy cheats death

A weekly roundup of newsbites from the Truth is Stranger than Fiction department.

By Andreas Ohrt

THE SKY IS FALLING: A 14-year-old boy in Germany won a cosmic lottery of sorts last week when he was hit by a meteorite and lived to tell the tale. A pea-sized chunk of space debris sliced open the boy’s hand as it crashed to Earth at 30,000 miles per hour, leaving a three-inch-long scar on his hand and a foot-long crater in the ground. “At first I just saw a large ball of light and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand,” recalled Gerrit Blank. “The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me, it knocked me flying, and then was still going fast enough to bury itself in the road.” Scientists calculate that the chance of being struck by a meteorite is about one in 100 million. The only other recorded instance of a person surviving a meteor hit happened in 1954, when a chunk crashed through the roof of a house in Alabama, bouncing off the furniture and hitting a sleeping woman. (Yahoo! News)

BALLING FOR CHANGE: While professional athletes continue to tarnish the thrill of competitive sports, there’s still a chance to witness competition in its purest form at the Football World Cup for the Homeless, taking place in Milan, Italy, next September. The tournament pits 500 homeless players from 48 nations against each other to see who will reign supreme as the World Football champions. Last year Afghanistan defeated Russia to take the glory, but this year they’ll face a stiff challenge from reportedly strong teams out of Brazil, France, Japan, and the U.S. (who will likely be surprised to find that “football” is played with a soccer ball!). Organizer Berhard Wolf says the tournament has been designed both to highlight the problem of homelessness and to help the homeless overcome their problems. He claims the tournament has proven a huge success, with 77 per cent of players experiencing a “significant life change” after participating in the event. “It is... pure therapy for those taking part,” says Wolf, “because football has a magic effect.” Get all the vitals at HomelessWorldCup.org

HEALTH TIPS FOR SLACKERS, PART 1: Feeling drowsy? Take a nap. Need an excuse? Help yourself to several in an article titled “19 Reasons to Take a Nap,” which claims that sleeping between 20 and 90 minutes before 4 p.m. each afternoon will increase your alertness at work (just not while you’re sleeping, obviously), regenerate your skin cells so you look younger, increase your sex drive, help you lose weight, reduce your risk of a heart attack, lift your mood, improve your accuracy, make you more creative, lower your cravings for coffee and alcohol, relieve migraines, and improve your nighttime sleep. (BestHealthMag.ca)

HEALTH TIPS FOR SLACKERS, PART 2: And still more good news, as it turns out there is no need to make your bed after a nap, either. The BBC reports that not bothering to make the bed in the morning might be healthier for us. Research done at Kingston University in England found that dust mites are less likely to live through the day in the warm, dry conditions of an unmade made, but thrive in the cool moistness underneath the sheets and blankets of a properly made bed. And less mites in your bed reduces the chance of developing or aggravating asthma and other respiratory illnesses. The doctor who led this research claimed that “something as simple as leaving a bed unmade during the day can remove moisture from the sheets and mattress, so the mites will dehydrate and eventually die.” (BBC)

THE REASON STAKEOUTS ARE SO IMPORTANT: Police in Salt Lake City are on the lookout for a man who tried to rob a shop called Black Diamond. He entered the store brandishing an ice pick, and demanded the staff hand over precious metals and money. The only problem was Black Diamond deals in skiwear and mountaineering gear. The staff let the man take off with some computers and climbing equipment instead. (KSL.com)

SO THAT’S WHY THE ALL-SUSHI DIET WORKS SO WELL: Sashimi lovers, beware! A new report from the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases claims there has been a huge rise in what they call the “urban tapeworm,” thanks to the increasing popularity of raw fish. The main culprit is the Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense, a critter that lives inside salmon and can grow up to 39 feet in length. The report suggests eating only fully-cooked fish or only eating sushi from fish that don’t spend time in rivers, such as tuna. (Scientific American)

I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK: The average person spends three years of their life sitting on the toilet.

Get way more bizarro news at CuriousTimes.com