Nearly 1 per cent of young women in a U.S. study who have become pregnant claim to have done so as virgins, according to a report in the Christmas edition of Britain’s BMJ medical journal.

The authors of “Like a Virgin (Mother)” — whose prose is devoid of irony — say such scientifically impossible claims show researchers must use care in interpreting self-reported behaviour. Fallible memory, beliefs and wishes can cause people to err in what they tell scientists.

Based on interviews with 7,870 women and girls ages 15-28, 45 of the 5,340 pregnancies in this group through the years — 0.8 per cent — occurred in women who reported that they conceived independent of men. The figure does not include pregnancies that result from in vitro fertilization or other assisted reproductive technology.

Each year, the BMJ Christmas edition publishes untraditional science papers. In addition to the report on virgin pregnancies, the latest BMJ includes papers on whether there is a local baby boom nine months after home sports teams triumph (only a small one, but statistically significant) and whether an apple a day would keep the doctor away (yes, saving about 8,500 lives in the United Kingdom each year, about as many as would expanding the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs to everyone over 50)

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The researchers found that although the mothers in question were more likely to have boys than girls and to be pregnant during the weeks leading up to Christmas, neither similarity to the Virgin Mary was statistically significant.

10. The Federal Reserve Bank Theory

On June 4, 1963, President Kennedy signed an order that gave authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to issue silver certificates. The order, known as Executive Order 11110, was intended to serve as an interim measure while the government attempted to reduce the amount of silver being used to mint coins. However, conspiracy theories, like those presented in Jim Marrs’s 1989 book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, claim that this order gave power to the Treasury over the Federal Reserve.

According to the theorists, the Federal Reserve Bank was safeguarded by a shadowy group of international bankers who resented having their power curtailed. Supposedly, therefore, they used their incredible wealth and influence to have Kennedy assassinated.

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6. The George Bush Snr. Theory

According to the second theory on this list implicating an ex-US president, George Bush Snr. is alleged to have been part of a conspiracy plot to kill JFK using his connections with the CIA and the Mafia.

Supporters of this hypothesis cite George H. W. Bush’s presence in Dallas on the day Kennedy was assassinated, his long, shadowy involvement with the CIA, and his supposed family ties to organized crime. In fact, the researchers claim that there is a connection between JFK’s assassination, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra scandal, in all of which, they say, George H. W. Bush played a part. There are even some diehards who believe that Bush Snr. was responsible for John Kennedy Jnr.’s death as well! We look forward to seeing the movie.

If provincial governments grant naturopaths their wish and make them a self-regulating profession, they will be putting patients' well-being at risk.

Ontario naturopaths are pushing hard to become a self-regulating profession, with expanded rights to prescribe drugs and order tests. Thankfully, the Ontario Medical Association is pushing back.

This is not a turf war — there are more than enough patients out there. Nor is the resistance from the medical community founded on a fear of loss of professional status. This is about patient safety and, more fundamentally, the role of science in the Canadian health care system.

Naturopathic medicine, despite its claims to the contrary, is not evidence-based. Given this reality, provincial health ministries need to carefully consider the long-term implications — including the legal and ethical challenges — of formally legitimizing the pseudo-scientific.

If naturopathic medicine were governed by science, as practitioners increasingly claim, they would not provide: detoxification services, homeopathic remedies, most herbal remedies, and cosmetic facial acupuncture. But these types of services are the core of naturopathic medicine.

Figure skater Tonya Harding shot President John F. Kennedy in her previous life as Lee Harvey Oswald. That theory is the centerpiece of Tonya Harding Shot JFK: Dreams, Symbols & Synchronicity, an e-book by Vacaville, California author Robert Urbanek.

He pointed to coincidences as evidence that Oswald and Kennedy returned in this life as Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Both Tonya Harding and Lee Harvey Oswald have the letters "Har" in their names. Both victims were Irish Catholics from Massachusetts whose last names began with the letters "Ke": John F. Kennedy and Nancy Kerrigan, and both were attacked in cities beginning with the letter "D": Dallas and Detroit.

Harding and Oswald have similar facial features. Kennedy doesn't look like Nancy Kerrigan, but Kerrigan looks a bit like Jackie Kennedy, noted Urbanek, who added, “Perhaps God's joke is that JFK, the womanizer, should return in a body resembling his wife.”