Vilma Santos's Urban Legends, Part 1: "The Mysterious Hanky"

Vilma Santos's Urban Legends Part 2
In 1963, a nine-year-old girl from Trozo, Manila, went to Sampaguita Studios for a movie assignment that her cameraman uncle got her. She was supposed to star in a movie with then big-name actresses Gloria Romero and Rita Gomez. 
But along the way to the set, she and her mother stopped by an ongoing audition for kid actresses for a new movie. Star-maker and Sampaguita Studios owner Dr. Jose "Doc" Perez saw her and asked her to join the audition. Hesitant at first because she had already committed herself to another movie, she later gave in to Doc Perez's request. He was the movie company's owner, after all.

When her turn to act with veteran character actress Bella Flores came, everyone was impressed, including Doc Perez himself. She did not only pass the audition, she also got the lead role.
The movie was titled Trudis Liit (the first of her 196 movies), and the little girl who got the lead role and later got an acting award (the first of her 75 awards) for her performance was Vilma Santos.
Fittingly dubbed as "The Star for All Seasons," she has maintained her luster despite the years and changes in show business; despite the challenges brought about by the coming of younger stars; despite the intrigues, challenges and personal problems that threatened to rid her of her throne as a queen in Philippine movies.
Vilma Santos maintained her status as a bankable movie star and as a critically-acclaimed actress over the four decades (and still counting) that she has been in show business. Vilma won not only numerous top acting awards, but also the love and loyalty of movie fans who call themselves "Vilmanians."
This five-foot-flat Scorpio-born also gave a new meaning to the term "versatility." Adding to her roster of abilities and talents—acting, singing, dancing, producing and hosting—she entered politics and governed first, Lipa City, and eventually the whole province of Batangas, famous for its machismo or "pagiging barako."
Victorious Vi transformed from an award-winning box-office actress to a well-loved, highly respected public servant—Batangas Governor Vilma Santos-Recto.
URBAN LEGEND: THE "MYSTERIOUS HANKY." But a legendary star like her is not without naughty rumors, tall tales, or urban legends. Vilma had her share of stories bordering on exaggeration and fallacy.
One such story is the urban legend of Vilma Santos's "mysterious hanky."
One tale has it that she always carries a hanky to hide the bulging veins on her left hand. Mischievous rumormongers have another version that says Vilma has very sweaty hands, that's why she always has this handy hanky—to wipe her hands first before shaking a person's hand or touching another person.

The Dead Roommate

Another grim college legend, which is repeated across many dorm rooms, is the one about the dead roommate. No one knows where it started or whether it has any basis in true events, but rumour has it that if a student’s roommate in college dies by accident, 

Illness or suicide, s/he will get only straight As until the end of the year. This, of course, is complete fabrication. Those students might receive some consideration for the stressful circumstances, but they will most definitely not automatically get only excellent grades. (So don’t start getting any murderous ideas!) One of the US colleges where this belief is particularly popular is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Source: https://www.topuniversities.com/

The Halloween massacre

The Halloween massacre is one of the most famous college myths of all time. It is not certain how and when it actually started, but it has made its way into most American universities. 

For decades now, it has created panic and fear among thousands of students (and possibly even a few professors as well). The legend goes that a popular psychic has made a prediction that on a Halloween night a masked man (in some variations, he is dressed as Little Bo Peep) will enter the campus of a university that starts with the letter 'M' or 'W' and is located near a pond/lake/river, railroad track, or cemetery. 
He will then kill everybody there. This story has existed for many years now, but no massacre has happened yet. However, students from all around the country still fear it, especially at colleges such as the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin.
Source: https://www.topuniversities.com/

B1 Floor - Parking Lot

It was my 3rd year in college, I am living in province and need to travel to city where my school was for about 1 or 2 hours due to traffic.

I always join in extracurricular activities in my university and I was a member of different organizations. When the day came that we need to prepare a lot of things for our big event.

My classes end at 6 o'clock in the evening, after that I went straight up to the other building where my organization is located. We are so busy that day and I haven't noticed the time and it was passed 9 pm already!? So, I had to say goodbye to my seniors since I need to catch the last bus.

I was walking in the hallway and directing through the elevator, I pressed the down button and while waiting for the elevator, I just feel silenced and I liked it. Then I look at the scenery outside the glass window, the field is full of darkness because the lights are already out.

Suddenly, the elevator door opens, I went inside and push the ground button. I certainly remember that I pushed only 1 button and its located in ground floor.

Then this is when my experience happened.

While I was texting my mom that I am on my way home. I got goosebumps and shocked when the elevator stopped on the B1 floor where the parking lot is located, I cannot see anything because the whole floor is filled with darkness there is no light at all on that parking lot and I do not why they do not have lights there.

I keep on clicking the close door but it won't work. While looking straight I have this feeling that there is someone running towards me and because of the fear I felt, I closed my eyes while trying to push many times the close button and saying " please please please close the door please" and then the door closes but there is something weird that I am feeling, I felt cold in my body that makes me get nervous even more. I was only looking down at the buttons because I feel like someone is watching me on my left side.

I also noticed that the ground button is only light up means it's only the floor that I have pushed on.

And I thank God, finally the elevator went up again to ground floor, as soon as the door opens I rushed out, not looking back and went out to the gate of our university.

Hope you like my 2nd creepy stories. More real life experience to come:) Thank you for reading.

Read more at www.yourghoststories.com/

Aswang sa Lapuz, Iloilo?

Is it real?

Covid-19 | The coronavirus isn’t alive. That’s why it’s so hard to kill.

SPECIAL POST:

The coronavirus isn’t alive. That’s why it’s so hard to kill.

Viruses have spent billions of years perfecting the art of surviving without living — a frighteningly effective strategy that makes them a potent threat in today’s world.

That’s especially true of the deadly new coronavirus that has brought global society to a screeching halt. It’s little more than a packet of genetic material surrounded by a spiky protein shell one-thousandth the width of an eyelash, and leads such a zombielike existence that it’s barely considered a living organism.

But as soon as it gets into a human airway, the virus hijacks our cells to create millions more versions of itself.

There is a certain evil genius to how this coronavirus pathogen works: It finds easy purchase in humans without them knowing. Before its first host even develops symptoms, it is already spreading its replicas everywhere, moving onto its next victim. It is powerfully deadly in some but mild enough in others to escape containment. And, for now, we have no way of stopping it.

As researchers race to develop drugs and vaccines for the disease that has already sickened 350,000 and killed more than 15,000 people, and counting, this is a scientific portrait of what they are up against. 

‘Between chemistry and biology’

Respiratory viruses tend to infect and replicate in two places: In the nose and throat, where they are highly contagious, or lower in the lungs, where they spread less easily but are much more deadly.

This new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, adeptly cuts the difference. It dwells in the upper respiratory tract, where it is easily sneezed or coughed onto its next victim. But in some patients, it can lodge itself deep within the lungs, where the disease can kill. That combination gives it the contagiousness of some colds, along with some of the lethality of its close molecular cousin SARS, which caused a 2002-2003 outbreak in Asia.

Another insidious characteristic of this virus: By giving up that bit of lethality, its symptoms emerge less readily than SARS, which means people often pass it to others before they even know they have it.

It is, in other words, just sneaky enough to wreak worldwide havoc.

Viruses much like this one have been responsible for many of the most destructive outbreaks of the past 100 years: the flus of 1918, 1957 and 1968; and SARS, MERS and Ebola. Like the coronavirus, all these diseases are zoonotic — they jumped from an animal population into humans. And all are caused by viruses that encode their genetic material in RNA. 

That’s no coincidence, scientists say. The zombielike existence of RNA viruses makes them easy to catch and hard to kill. 

Outside a host, viruses are dormant. They have none of the traditional trappings of life: metabolism, motion, the ability to reproduce.

And they can last this way for quite a long time. Recent laboratory research showed that, although SARS-CoV-2 typically degrades in minutes or a few hours outside a host, some particles can remain viable — potentially infectious — on cardboard for up to 24 hours and on plastic and stainless steel for up to three days. In 2014, a virus frozen in permafrost for 30,000 years that scientists retrieved was able to infect an amoeba after being revived in the lab.

When viruses encounter a host, they use proteins on their surfaces to unlock and invade its unsuspecting cells. Then they take control of those cells’ own molecular machinery to produce and assemble the materials needed for more viruses.

“It’s switching between alive and not alive,” said Gary Whittaker, a Cornell University professor of virology. He described a virus as being somewhere “between chemistry and biology.”
Read more at ▶▶ https://www.washingtonpost.com/