Story of a 'She Tarzan'

A child abandoned in the jungle and cared for and looked after by monkeys. This is a familiar story "brought to life" by Edgar Rice Burroughs "Tarzan of the Apes" though it was a mythological character Tarzan, - the jungle hero still stays with us.

Now we hear of a "She - Tarzan" But her story was not a creation of anyone. It is a true story! In her new book, "The Girl with no name", Maria Chapman, now a Yorkshire housewife, married to a church organist, mother and grandmother, reveals her bizarre story of how as a child of five she lived with monkeys for about five years. The mythological Tarzan was orphaned because his parents were killed by a leopard and was abandoned in the jungle. But the "She-Tarzan" was a kidnap victim.

Marina had been abducted as a small child then left to die in the jungle where she lived alongside colonies of monkeys, foraging for food and sheltering in trees.

The prestigious British newspaper, The Telegraph breaking out this weird but true story describes how a Colombian woman living in the border city of Cucuta first met this child.

According to The Telegraph, Nancy Forero Fusse's first memory of the little girl was seeing her perched on top of a mango tree near her home.

"It was such a curious thing, "She told the newspaper adding, "She would hang out in that tree. Not just in the branches, but high up, right at the top".

It is an inspiring life story. But one that Mrs Chapman has long been reluctant to share beyond her closest family, says The Telegraph. But now she has decided to go public with a memoir to be published in 2013.

This is a true story of a victim of kidnapping! She managed to escape from the clutches of the kidnappers and the jungle she learnt how to catch rabbits and birds with her bare hands. She reveals how as a child she lived and was taken care by a colony of Capuchine monkeys.

When she was discovered by hunters after five years in the jungle things actually got worse.

The hunters sold her to a brothel in Cucuta, Colombia. She escaped and lived in the streets and later was taken by a family and worked as a maid and was named Marina Luz. Later during her mid-twenties she travelled with a neighbouring family who went to stay in Bradford, England on business for six months and stayed after she met John Chapman, then a 29-year-old bacteriologist and church organist at a church meeting. They married in 1977.

She and her family have now decided to tell her story to help highlight the horrors of human trafficking in South America. Chapman believes she was born in about 1950. Her daughter Vanessa James who is helping with the book says she grew up hearing of her mom's wild upbringing. "I got bedtime stories about the jungle, as did my sister. We did think it odd but it was just mum revealing her life story. So, in a way it was nothing special having a mother like that".

Wedding stops after bestman drops ring

A British couple put their wedding on hold briefly after the groom's bestman dropped - and lost - the bride's wedding ring.

Elizabeth Gray and Lewis Aubrey were in the middle of their ceremony at St. John's Church in Surrey when everyone heard a distinctive "plink."

The pastor stopped the ceremony while the wedding party, and eventually some of the guests, got on their hands and knees to search for the missing ring.

"There were ushers on the floor, people lifting up carpets," bridesmaid Kelly Love said. We had all the grates of the church floor up."

The bride's mother finally offered her ring as a stand-in so the couple could complete their vows.

But even after the wedding, Re. Nicholas Calver wouldn't give up. He brought in a shovel to dig his way to the foundation if necessary.

Finally, he discovered the ring had fallen in a crack between the floor and the raised dais.

Triumphantly, he arrived at the couple's reception with the prize in hand, where guests cheered loudly.

The pastor repeated the "with this ring" part of the ceremony at the reception - this time, with the bride's actual ring.

Venus, the two-faced cat, a mystery

Venus the two-faced cat is currently the most famous feline on the planet. A cat with one half solid black with a green eye - the other half typical orange tabby stripes and a blue eye!

What a sight! But Venus, the mysterious looking cat has all these features.The three-year-old tortoiseshell has her own Facebook page and a YouTube video that's been viewed over a million times, and appeared on the Today Show recently.

Famous feline may have different DNA on each side of her body.

How does a cat end up looking like that? Leslie Lyons, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies the genetics of domestic cats said she's never seen a cat exactly like Venus."She is extremely, extremely rare," Lyons said.

"But you can explain it and you can understand it." Many reports about Venus refer to the cat as a "chimera." In mythology, a chimera is a mishmash monster made up of parts of different animals. A feline chimera is a cat whose cells contain two types of DNA, caused when two embryos fuse together. Among cats, "chimeras are really not all that rare," Lyons said. In fact, most male tortoiseshell cats are chimeras. The distinctively mottled orange and black coat is a sign that the cat has an extra X chromosome.

But female cats, said Lyons, already have two X chromosomes so they can sport that coat without the extra X. That means Venus is not necessarily a chimera.

To find out would require genetic testing, said Lyons. With samples of skin from each side of the cat, "we can do a DNA fingerprint - just like on CSI - and the DNA from one side of the body should be different than the other." If Venus isn't actually a chimera, then what would explain her amazing face?

"Absolute luck," Lyons said. One theory: perhaps the black coloration was randomly activated in all the cells on one side of her face, while the orange coloration was activated on the other, and the two patches met at the midline of her body as she developed. Cat fanciers who are transfixed by Venus's split face may be missing the real story: her single blue eye. Cat eyes are typically green or yellow, not blue.

A blue-eyed cat is typically a Siamese or else a cat with "a lot of white on them," she explained. Venus appears to have only a white patch on her chest, which to Lyons is not enough to explain the blue eye.

"She is a bit of a mystery."