The Magnetic Boy - Paulo David Amorim
An 11-year-old boy has been attracting worldwide attention... and a load of metal implements.
Knives, forks, spoons, scissors and even large saucepans all seem to stick to Paulo David Amorim, a Brazilian boy who claims to have magnet-type qualities.
His friends have nicknamed him 'Magnet Boy,' while his astonished doctor says he has never seen anything like it in 30 years as a physician
The boy’s father told local TV station Globo that he decided to test his son after learning of a boy in Croatia with a similar ability.
Junior Amorim says he was surprised to find 'a fork and knife stuck to his body.'
Paulo seems to take his bizarre ability in his stride, letting his father load his up his front and back with metal, rather like a game of Buckaroo.
'In school, everyone asks me to put things on my body, they think it is a trick,' Paulo said.
Thankfully his magnetism is not deemed a health risk.
'We can see that there is a certain adhesiveness, that he does manage to make several objects stick to his body, some of which are pretty heavy, but it is not completely out of the ordinary,' his doctor Dix-Sept Rosado Sobrinho told TV Globo.
So are they really 'Magnetic'?
According to Radford, scientists and paranormal skeptics have often tested alleged attractors to see whether they are generating magnetic fields, and they aren't. For example, Radford said, when a compass is hung around their necks, it doesn't point toward them, as it would if they were magnetic enough to attract spoons. Instead, it points due north to the Earth's magnetic pole.
The real question, then, is why smooth objects like spoons and dishes stick to some people's skin.
Sadie Crabtree of the James Randi Education Foundation (JREF), an organization that funds the scientific investigation of paranormal claims, said the effect is actually quite simple. "Skin is naturally slightly sticky, and some types of skin are probably stickier than others," Crabtree told Life's Little Mysteries. "But this is really no different than the trick where someone hangs a spoon from the end of their nose. It's just sticking through friction."
The Science of Stickiness
To find out what's happening on the scale of atoms, Life's Little Mysteries turned to Gabor Somorjai, a leading surface scientist and chemistry professor at University of California, Berkeley. Though three physicists contacted previously had no idea what was happening, Somorjai described the effect as "very simple."
"Your skin is covered with grease and oils," he told us. "You can clean them off with soap, but within less than a minute it will again be covered with oils."
The grease on your skin has a very low surface energy, due to the fact that it is a liquid. "Its atoms are only connected with weak bonds," he said.
By contrast, metals, with their strong, hard-to-break atomic bonds, have very high surface energies. "Things that have high surface energies want to go into a lower energy state. And so they want to be covered with a low surface-energy material," he said.
And that means things like spoons stick to grease.
Furthermore, the smoother the spoon (or other object), and the larger its surface area, the more contact it will make with the skin, and so the more it will stick.
According to Elmar Kroner, a German materials scientist who has studied gecko feet, the elasticity of skin also affects its stickiness, and sweat makes it less elastic. "The sweat has a crucial function: With increasing wetness of the skin, its mechanical properties change. The skin becomes softer, and this reduces the elastically-stored energy of the skin and again leads to higher adhesion," Kroner told Life's Little Mysteries. So sweaty skin is stickier.
James Randi, the famous skeptic who founded the JREF, has in the past demonstrated that "magnetic" people's miraculous powers disperse when they are doused in talcum powder, a product that cuts grease.
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The Magnetic Boy - Paulo David Amorim
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The Magnetic Boy - Ivan Stoiljkovic
The Magnetic Boy - Ivan Stoiljkovic
The Magnetic Boy - Ivan Stoiljkovic
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The Magnetic Boy - Ivan Stoiljkovic
The 6-year-old Croatian boy named Ivan Stoiljkovic is attracting media attention for his apparent ability to attract other things: Silverware, remote controls, cell phones and even a large frying pan seem to miraculously stick to the boy's skin. Ivan's family claims he's magnetic.
There are also claims from his family in Koprivnica, in Northern Croatia, of unusual levels of strength and even healing powers.
But one thing is for certain - when Ivan takes off his shirt, he is able to stick metallic objects such as spoons, mobile phones and even frying pans to his body.
In total, his family says, he can carry up to 25kg of metal stuck to his torso
So are is he and similar others really 'Magnetic'?
If there really is some magnetic attraction, the person should be able to lean over. If a magnetic force is overcoming gravity, we should see that. That's one strong clue that what we're seeing is not any sort of magnetism."
Second, a non-metallic remote control, as well as metal objects, are shown sticking to Ivan's chest. Plastic is not magnetic, Radford pointed out, so if plastic and metal are both sticking to Ivan, "what do those have in common? A very smooth surface. Not magnetism."
That shows that quite a different physical effect is at play. "These people aren't magnetic, it's just that things that have smooth surfaces stick to skin," said Radford, adding, "Often these magnetic people have smooth skin and hairless chests."
Young Ivan is quite devoid of chest hair.
According to Radford, scientists and paranormal skeptics have often tested alleged attractors to see whether they are generating magnetic fields, and they aren't. For example, Radford said, when a compass is hung around their necks, it doesn't point toward them, as it would if they were magnetic enough to attract spoons. Instead, it points due north to the Earth's magnetic pole.
According to Elmar Kroner, a German materials scientist who has studied gecko feet, the elasticity of skin also affects its stickiness, and sweat makes it less elastic. "The sweat has a crucial function: With increasing wetness of the skin, its mechanical properties change. The skin becomes softer, and this reduces the elastically-stored energy of the skin and again leads to higher adhesion," Kroner said.
The science suggests that Ivan is not magnetic, but rather just an exceptionally smooth, particularly sticky boy.
The world's shortest living woman - Bridgette Jordan
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The world's shortest living woman - Bridgette Jordan
Bridgette Jordan has been declared the world's shortest woman by Guinness Book of World Records. Her record-setting height of 2 feet, 3 inches allowed her to beat out the previous record holder, Elif Kocaman of Kadirli, Turkey, who measured 2 feet, 4.5 inches. Jordan is a 22-year-old student at Kaskasia College in Centralia, Ill.
In addition to this title, Bridgette also holds the record for the ‘Shortest Living Siblings’ alongside her brother, 20-year-old Brad Jordan, who measures 3 ft 2 in (98 cm) tall.
While their reduced height is caused by Majewski osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II the pair live normal lives and both study at Kaskaskia College.
Bridgette’s hobbies are focused around her love of music; dancing and cheerleading while Brad says he likes to play basketball…
Bridgette breaks the record of Elif Kocaman (22), from Kadirli, Turkey, who measured 2 ft 4.58 in (72.6 cm). Jyoti Amge (17) from Nagpur, India, is currently recognised as the ‘Shortest Teenager’ standing at just 2 feet tall (61.95 cm).If she maintains that height when she turns 18, Guinness may give her the honor as the world's shortest woman.
When Bridgette -- or Bri, as she's called -- was born, she weighed 1 pound, 12 ounces, and was 12.5 inches long, while Brad weighed 2 pounds, 4 ounces, and measured 13.5 inches long, according to Fox2now.com.
In the past we did a post on "Primordal Dwarfisme"
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