Blog Posts by Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News

A guest on Tuesday’s edition of “Fox and Friends” claims she smelled God during a recent near-death experience.

“I saw an immense brightness. A brightness I could feel, touch, taste, hear, smell that infused me.” Not like I had five senses but more like I had 500 senses,” Crystal McVea, author of a new e-book, “Waking Up in Heaven: A True Story of Brokenness, Heaven, and Life Again,” told Fox host Gretchen Carlson.

A recent university study found that people who recount their near-death experiences (NDE) have more vivid memories of the events, whether they be the imagined events that take place during the NDE or the real ones from earlier in life.

In 2009, McVea was being treated for pancreatitis. After having an adverse reaction to pain medication, her heart stopped for nine minutes before doctors were able to revive her.

“The moment I closed my eyes in that hospital room, I immediately opened them and was standing in heaven,” McVea said. “I fail to find human words to described what

Just as the name of his new video states, Jumpy is one “badass dog,” performing 20 incredible stunts in this 1-minute clip.

The Australian border collie walks through a series of traffic cones on his front paws, leaps through the air into his trainer’s arms and even a number of stunts on a skateboard that most humans would find beyond their ability.

His owner, Omar Von Muller, has a long-history of training exceptional dogs. He's best known for training “Uggie” from the Academy Award winning film, “The Artist.” In a 2012 interview, Von Muller said there is no magic to his incredible dog training results, that it simply comes down to finding the right dog and putting in the hours. Still, that's easier said than done for most dog owners.

“My advice would be train and make sure you practice consistency,” he said. “I’ve been training for about 30 plus years myself.”

Though, let's give credit where credit is due. Mainly, to Jumpy himself. Or, as Linnet1936 commented on YouTube, “You're an

Fallen trees have long been a risk but trees themselves rarely return gunfire (AP)Using a tree for target practice sounds harmless enough, right? That wasn't the case for an Iowa man who is recovering at a hospital after the tree he aimed his gun at fired back.

No, this isn’t an April Fools’ Day prank playing on the much-maligned M. Night Shyamalan film “The Happening.”

An Iowa man is expected to survive but will have one heck of a story to tell after he fired his pistol at a tree only to have the shot ricochet and impact upon himself.

27-year-old Logan Bunn transported himself to a nearby hospital in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The Allamakee County Sheriff’s Office says the incident happened at about 4:30am on Sunday morning.

In the ongoing war between man and nature, many more trees have fallen at the feet of their human counterparts. But there have been notable exceptions. Last month, an Illinois man was killed when a tree he was attempting to cut down fell upon him.

And on Christmas Day 2012, a Houston man was killed when he was attempting to clear a fallen tree from

YouTube trends expert Kevin Allocca, who keeps track of what’s clicking on YouTube over at 4 at 4AM posts, chatted with Yahoo News today, about how the ever-growing and evolving online video community has transformed April Fools’ Day.

“I’m a big comedy fan. April Fools’ Day is especially nice in the tech world where people get to do these fun things,” Allocca said. “YouTube has become a purveyor and piece of pop culture. It’s fun to watch how it plays out and see people react.”

To help mark the occasion, YouTube has compiled a list of its Top 10 Prankster channels (list is at the bottom of story) and provided Yahoo with a list of the top-viewed April Fools' videos from those channels:

The 5 most-viewed new videos from the top 1o prankster channels:

From March 18—April 1, 2013. Video views are accurate as of April 1, 2013, 10 a.m. PT

1) “Imaginary Friend Photo Prank” from Magic of Rahat (2,802,475 views)

2) “Little Buzz Prank” from Roman Atwood (1,695,134 views)

3) “St. Patrick’s Day”

The annual Wondercon convention brings out thousands of comic, movie and TV fans of sci-fi and fantasy (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo)ANAHEIM, Calif. - The last weekend in March marked the 28th annual Wondercon. The convention is best known as Comic-Con's smaller sibling. And while Wondercon doesn't bring out the same barrage of Hollywood stars or the ensuing tidal wave of attendees, it has become a large and important setting for diehard fans of fantasy and science fiction across a number of platforms, including comics, games, TV and film.

Part of Wondercon's charm in being the slightly smaller version of Comic Con is that grassroots fans have a greater opportunity to stretch their legs and show off their costume work. In advance of the annual Masquerade Ball, hundreds of attendees wandered around the Anaheim Convention Center to show off their best outfits. Here is a sampling of some of our favorite sights from the weekend.

(Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo)These two guys dressed as X-Men rivals Deadpool and Wolverine. didn't come to Wondercon together. But when they crossed paths outside the convention center, attendees begged insisted that the

Some cops in Connecticut are more bark than bite. But their animal instincts were exactly what was called for in order to bring down a pair of suspected criminals.

WFSB reports on a pair of masked burglary suspects who had holed up inside a home in Connecticut and were refusing to cooperate with authorities. So, the cops decided the next logical move was issuing a threat to release dogs from their K-9 unit.

However, there was just one problem: None of the dogs were actually on the scene or available to be dispatched in the effort.

So, the New Have Police Department made due with their resources on hand; enlisting several of the dozen officers on site who barked like dogs in an effort to convince the two suspects that a pack of vicious dogs were chomping at the bit, just waiting to be unleashed.

And, in a surprising development, it actually worked. After the men heard the cops barking, they emerged from the home and surrendered to police.

Needless to say, McGruff the Crime Dog would be

In 2009, “The Hangover” dominated the summer box office on its way to becoming the most profitable “R” rated comedy ever. But the film, and its sequel, are certainly not without their critics.

Regardless of where you stand, you’ll probably enjoy this hilariously edited movie trailer for the film, which re-imagines The Hangover as a horror movie.

Warning, there are two spots of foul language in the trailer, so don’t this one in front of your kids.

Film student Richard W. Scott edited the footage as part of his college dissertation in order to, in Scott’s words, serve as, “part of an experimental investigation into the power of post-production techniques on a movie's genre.”

Scott employs several editing techniques that are common in today’s horror films. For examples, the color-coding of the trailer has been saturated into sepia tones, as opposed to the actual film’s bright and welcoming colors. And the music has been replaced with sharp and harsh sound cues which put the viewer on

R2D2 greets the crowd at this year's Wondercon (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo)ANAHEIM, Calif. - The power of the Force may be elusive outside the fictional Star Wars universe but fans of R2D2 can take home their very own astromech droid if they have the time and money to build it.

Inside the halls of Wondercon 2013, hundreds of potential droid crafters waited in line to hear from a panel belonging to the R2D2 Builders Club, a group of hobbyists who have been assembling their own functional Star Wars robots out of aluminum, plastic and even wood since 1999.

But how much time and money does it take to build a bleeping and whirling R2 lookalike?

"That's the magic question," said Victor Franco, who has been building his own droids for over a decade. "It's the one question you don't want your spouse to know the answer to."

And the answer varies, depending on just how detailed and capable you want your droid to be, with the final price ranging from as little as $500 up to $10,000.

"The average cost is a little over $5,000," Franco said. "A single small aluminum part