True Tabloid Headlines -- Or Are They?

4. Math Formula Links Your Social Security Number to Your Age

Mathematicians have devised a simple formula linking your social security number's first digit and your age, and the startling connection holds only for this year. The Social Security Administration has not commented on what looks to be yet another path to identity theft.

Check it out yourself by doing the following elementary calculations. a.) What is the first digit of your social security number. b.) Multiply this number by 2. c.) Add 5. d.) Multiply it by 50. e.) If you have already had your birthday this year add 1759, and if you haven't, add 1758. f.) Now subtract the four-digit year that you were born.

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You should have a three-digit number whose first digit should be the first digit of your social security number, and whose next two digits are your age. And, as mentioned, 2009 is the only year this will ever work.

5. Roswell UFOs Foretold in Bible

Researchers have found that embedded in the Bible are equidistant letter sequences (ELSs) spelling out the words "Roswell" and "UFO." That is, within the Bible, there is a sequence of letters, each letter separated from the next letter in the sequence by a fixed number of other letters that spells out these words.

These sequences come from the second part of the following line of Genesis 31:28: "And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Thou hast now done foolishly in so doing."

For "Roswell" start with the bolded R, move ahead three letters to the O, and continue. For "UFO," start with the u and move ahead eleven letters, and continue. "daughteRs? thOu haSt noW donEfooLishLy in so doing." How unlikely is this?

Check Your Answers Against the Explanations

1. The claims in this story are entirely true, but shouldn't be surprising or alarming. Annually there are approximately 1 million heart attacks and 1 million miscarriages in this country. Let's assume there will be 100 million or more people inoculated against the H1N1 flu over a six-month period.

Then, since there are almost 3,000 heart attacks and 3,000 miscarriages daily and there will be at least 200 times that many flu shots daily, it is a certainty that there will be very many people who will have a heart attack or miscarriage shortly after receiving the shot.

How many and how soon depends on further assumptions, but nobody should attribute the medical crises to the shots unless there's real evidence.