The Hercules Beetle is highly famed for its strength, able to lift weight 850 times more than its own. Aside from this, another startling capability of this creature is that it changes its shell color whenever the humidity in its surrounding changes as well.

Researchers are now conducting studies to be able to harness it and be put to practical use. The full story after the jump!

Several decades ago, a Chinese concert pianist was imprisoned as a political dissident for seventeen years, without access to music or a piano. Upon his release, when he resumed concerts, he astounded people by performing nearly as well as he had before his incarceration. When asked how he managed it, he replied, "I practiced every day in my mind."

If this performer's experience is any indication, a woman in England who has been diagnosed as being in a "persistent vegetative state" may one day be able to resume playing tennis one day - if she comes out of it and is able to recover from her physical injuries.
 
The woman, who was not identified, has been in her vegetative state for five months has the result of head injuries sustained in an auto accident. Nonetheless, she  appears to imagine playing tennis and to respond to commands in brain scans, according to researchers.

It should be noted that a "persistent vegetative state" is not necessarily the same as a "coma," although the two share things in common. In a coma, a patient cannot be awakened, respond normally to pain or light, experience sleep-wake cycles, nor take voluntary actions.

The full article awaits after the jump!