Meet the lady with the beard

Twenty-three- year old Harnaam Kaur of Slough, Berkshire, UK, is a courageous woman who is growing a beard like a man.

Suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause excessive hair growth, Harnaam was just 11 years when a beard started to appear on her face and the hair quickly spread to her chest and arms.

The condition made her the victim of cruel taunts at school and on the street.

She even received death threats from strangers over the internet. After being baptised as a Sikh - a religion where it is forbidden to cut body hair, she said: "I would never ever go back now and remove my facial hair because it's the way God made me and I'm happy with the way I am. "I feel more feminine, more sexy and I think I look it too.

"I've learned to love myself for who I am, nothing can shake me now."

During her early teens, Harnaam was so ashamed of her beard that she resorted to waxing twice a week. She also tried bleaching and shaving.

At her lowest points she began self-harming and she even considered taking her own life. She said: "I got bullied badly - at school I was called a 'beardo' and things like 'shemale' and 'sheman.'

Despite often being mistaken for a man, Harnaam says she feels more feminine than ever - choosing girly tops over baggy, high-necked jumpers.

She said: "I'm able to go out and shop in the women's section without feeling I shouldn't be there.

"I wear skirts, dresses and jewellery and I like to get my nails done like every other girl."

Today Harnaam hopes her story will help other women find self-confidence. She is also confident that someone would accept her truly.

"I understand certain people won't be attracted to me but there are so many people in the world and I hope there's someone out there who will accept me."
 

Indian artist uses tongue in over 1,000 paintings

When you work on a painting you normally use a paintbrush to mix colours and also use it the appropriate place in your creation.

But can you imagine a painter using his own tongue to mix the paint and apply in the correct place!

For 35-year-old Kerala-based school teacher, Ani K it is his own tongue which is used as the paint brush for his over 1,000 paintings. He also claims to use non-toxic watercolours.

Included in Ani K's roster of art: an eight-foot version of the Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, and portrait of Jesus Christ created entirely using the swirling and persistent strokes of his tongue.

"I wanted to be a different kind of artist," he says by way of explanation in the above video.

But he didn't jump straight to the tongue.

"I have tried painting with my nose, tried painting with my chin, my elbows and feet," the 35-year-old said. "I also tried drawing with both hands simultaneously, and also while riding on a moving bike."

The tongue, in the end, would serve Ani K, though not without a price. "After painting with my tongue, I experience pain in my jaws, headaches, slight loss of vision and dip in memory power," he says. "The side effects stay around for two week.

With a slip of his tongue, Ani K has painted more than 1,000 works - including an eight-foot da Vinci and a portrait of Jesus Christ. Keeping it classic in some ways at least.

If the tongue won't lead Ani K to stardom, there are other ways. "For the Guinness Records," he says, "I am going to paint four portraits using both hands and both feet at the same time."

Beware of tree-climbing crocodiles

If you want to take a dip in a river the first thing you must check is whether there are crocodiles roaming around in the water. There have been many incidents where men, women and children have been dragged into the water and killed by these silent killers.

Crocodiles are usually considered ground-dwellers and sometimes wade in the water.

But now it has been discovered four species of crocodiles are able to climb trees. According to Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee. Knoxville, there are four species of tree climbing crocodiles on three continents - Australia, Africa and North America.

Dinets and colleagues decided to pin the phenomenon down. In the course of conducting their crocodile research, the scientists kept sharp eyes out and recorded their observations of climbing crocs.

Examining previous studies and anecdotal observations they found that these crocodiles climbed trees - usually above water - but how far they ventured upward and outward varied by their size.

In Australia, they observed freshwater crocodiles basking on low-hanging branches day and night. When approached by boats, the crocs splashed into the water below to escape. Climbing Aussie crocodiles were more likely to be small or juvenile; hatchlings are sometimes able to cling to brickwork and escape crocodile farms.

In the Americas, Dinets observed crocs as long as three feet (1 m) sunning themselves on mangrove roots and branches. Most of the time, the creatures were found no more than three feet (1 m) up. Dinets never saw any crocs in the process of climbing, just at their destinations, and when approached, the animals in trees always jumped or fell into the water.

"This shyness might explain why tree-climbing behaviour in crocodiles remains relatively little known despite being relatively common," the researchers explained. Dinets said crocodiles lack the toe and foot structure that would be expected of a climber. However, smaller and juvenile crocodiles in particular were observed climbing vertically while larger ones tended to climb angled trunks and branches, all of which is a measure of the reptiles' spectacular agility, he said.

"They just go slowly," he said. "Eventually they get there."

The researchers believe the crocodiles climb to keep a lookout on their territory and to warm themselves in the sun.

"The most frequent observations of tree-basking were in areas where there were few places to bask on the ground, implying that the individuals needed alternatives for regulating their body temperature," the authors wrote.

The champion climbers of the crocodiles seem to be Central Africa's slender-snouted species, which regularly bask up high, the researchers found.

One of these crocs, 4.5 feet (1.4 m) long, was seen roosting at the end of a fallen tree.

To get there, it would have had to scale a 13-foot-tall (4 m) vertical bank and then crawl 13 feet (4 m) out on a sloping branch.

The largest tree-climber observed was a Nile crocodile 6.5 feet (2 m) seen basking a foot and a half (0.5 m) above water on a fallen branch in Botswana.

We Sri Lankans are not threatened yet, but if one of the tree climbing crocs decide to "immigrate" to Sri Lanka we too will have to look up while bathing in rivers.