Human Enigmas

Marina Chapman spent five years of her childhood being raised in the jungle by a colony of monkeys.Marina had been abandoned in the jungles of Colombia by kidnappers and ended up learning how to catch rabbits and birds with her bare hands in order to survive. Eventually she was discovered by hunters who sold her to a brothel from which she later escaped. She spent several years on the streets beforebeing finally taken in to work as a maid for a family in her mid-teens.Marina"s remarkable story is being published for the first time in the form of a new book and later a television documentary aimed at highlighting the plight of those caught up in the horror of human trafficking in South America.

The story of a Yorkshire housewife who spent five years in her childhood living with a colony of capuchin monkeys in Colombia is to be told for thefirst time in a book and planned television documentary.  

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Base jumper Richard Henriksen was caught on camera when a daredevil stunt went horribly wrong.Henrikson"s latest stunt involving the use of gymnastics equipment to swing out over the edge of a cliff before letting go was being filmed as part of a TV series in Norway. A high-bar was set up and he had started to swing on it when the apparatus broke and collapsed, sending him hurtling over the edge in mid-swing. The horrifiedcamera crew could do nothing but look on in horror.Fortunately for Henrikson his head missed the rock face as he flew past and he managed to open his parachute in time to make a safe landing.

"When this happened, I thought, he is going to die," said presenter Arde Sende Osen. "It"s the worst (event) I"ve experienced at work." Surgeon Richard Henriksen"s penchant for performing gymnastics before BASE jumping from cliffs in western Norway made him the ideal candidate forNorwegian state broadcaster NRK"s television show "Normal Madness".  

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Ramajit Raghav has fathered his second child in two years despite being in his late nineties.A resident of India"s Kharkhoda village, the 96-year-old attributes his remarkable virility to being a non-drinker and to a long-term diet rich in fruit and dairy products. The news came on the heels of concerns by politicians over a reduction in fertility in the region as a result ofexcessive alcohol consumption and drug use."We had planned for another baby after my first son was born in 2010," said Raghav.

"It"s a blessing to have a baby now and I am enjoying fatherhood at this age. I didn"t marry for long and followed a strict diet. I"ve taken milk, butter and fruits everyday since my childhood." Ramajit Raghav of Kharkhoda village, near Sonepat, Haryana, close to India"s capital New Delhi, became afather for the first time in 2010 when he was 94.  

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In a few very rare cases individuals have demonstrated sudden and inexplicable super-human talents.Some people find that they are born with an innate talent in areas such as art, music and mathematics that puts them above and beyond everyone else. In a few very rare cases however such a talent has been found to unlock in an individual who had at some point suffered a severe head trauma. In one well known case, surgeon Tony Cicoria had expressed little interest inclassical music until he was struck by lightning one day while talking to his wife in a phone booth.

Soon afterwards he developed an obsession with playing the piano and a few years later became a master pianist and composer.Another case involved 44-year-old Orlando Serrell who developed incredible mathematical and memory capabilities after being hit on the head by a baseball as a child. Known as "sudden savant syndrome" it is believed there are only 30 known cases in the world today. "What appears to happen," saysDarold Treffert, a consultant psychiatrist from Wisconsin who has studied such cases for 40 years, "is that after severe trauma the brain rewires itself. "  

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