Man with roughly 50-75% of his brain missing works as civil servant, lives normal life
A man with an unusually tiny brain manages to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, which was caused by a fluid build-up in his skull.
Scans of the 44-year-old man’s brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue (see image, right).
“It is hard for me [to say] exactly the percentage of reduction of the brain, since we did not use software to measure its volume. But visually, it is more than a 50% to 75% reduction,” says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University in Marseille, France.
Feuillet and his colleagues describe the case of this patient in The Lancet. He is a married father of two children, and works as a civil servant.
The man went to a hospital after he had mild weakness in his left leg. When Feuillet’s staff took his medical history, they learned that, as an infant, he had had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away hydrocephalus – water on the brain.
The shunt was removed when he was 14. But the researchers decided to check the condition of his brain using computed tomography (CT) scanning technology and another type of scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They were astonished to see “massive enlargement” of the lateral ventricles – usually tiny chambers that hold the cerebrospinal fluid that cushions the brain.
Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75, below the average score of 100 but not considered mentally retarded or disabled.
“The whole brain was reduced – frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes – on both left and right sides. These regions control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional and cognitive functions,” Feuillet told New Scientist.
The mystery of the monumental post-apocolypse stones
The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone.
Nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the “guides”, written in many different languages on each side, instruct a future society on how to conduct itself.
The story of the stones is just as strange as the monument itself. It’s since been covered in mystery and controversy. Books have been written, TV and press have swarmed to it and conspiracy theorists have pulled a mass of ideas for it’s use, from UFO landing sites to satanic cults ready to take over the world.
Wired magazine’s fascinating article writes:
The astrological specifications for the Guidestones were so complex that Fendley had to retain the services of an astronomer from the University of Georgia to help implement the design. The four outer stones were to be oriented based on the limits of the sun’s yearly migration. The center column needed two precisely calibrated features: a hole through which the North Star would be visible at all times, and a slot that was to align with the position of the rising sun during the solstices and equinoxes. The principal component of the capstone was a 7\8-inch aperture through which a beam of sunlight would pass at noon each day, shining on the center stone to indicate the day of the year.
The main feature of the monument, though, would be the 10 dictates carved into both faces of the outer stones, in eight languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, and Swahili. A mission statement of sorts (LET THESE BE GUIDESTONES TO AN AGE OF REASON) was also to be engraved on the sides of the capstone in Egyptian hieroglyphics, classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Babylonian cuneiform. The United Nations provided some of the translations (including those for the dead languages), which were stenciled onto the stones and etched with a sandblaster.
Read the full article at Weird Wired
Great white shark leaps on board research boat
According to the Cape Times, six researchers from South Africa are reflecting on what they describe as the fright of their lives after their own close encounter with a great white shark.
The research team from Oceans Research was working off Seal Island, near Mossel Bay, on South Africa’s Cape coast, when the nearly 10-foot-long creature reportedly made its move.
Team leader Dorien Schroder told the newspaper that following more than an hour of shark activity around their boat, the Cheetah, the waters at the stern fell quiet.
“Next thing, I hear a splash and see a great white breach out of the water from one side of the boat hovering, literally, over a crew member chumming on the port side,” she reportedly said.
According to Schroder, the shark landed with half its body in the boat, but in a panic, thrashed its way further onto the vessel, cutting fuel lines and damaging equipment.
As the team scampered toward a safer portion of the boat, the shark reportedly became stuck.
Full Story at MSNBC
Wild boar with bullet proof skulls invade New York, killing pets and chasing people
(Reuters) – Wild boar are invading the farms of central New York state, attacking livestock, killing family pets, chasing people and posing “devastating consequences” for the area, federal officials warn.
The feral swine are a non-native species suspected of escaping from game farms, and as many as a couple of hundred are roaming the state, said Paul Curtis, a natural resources professor at Cornell University.
While an exact picture of the wild boar population in New York State is unclear, a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the swine were successfully breeding in the three counties and producing litters averaging 4 to 6 piglets.
“We’ve shot probably 15 to 20 of them in the last three years,” said Peter Andersen, a third generation farmer in Long Eddy in Sullivan County.
Noting how difficult it is to kill the wild boar, Andersen described what sounded like a scene from a horror movie that could be called “Robo-Swine.”
“We’ve shot them right square in the head and the bullet will glance off and they’ll get up and go. Their skulls are so thick in the front, if you don’t happen to hit it at a perfect 90 degrees, with the way their heads have that kind of curved shape, the bullet will glance right off,” he said.
Full article at Reuters
Apple holding more cash than USA
Apple now has more cash to spend than the United States government.
Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (£45.3bn).
Apple’s most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn.
The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill to raise the country’s debt ceiling, allowing it to borrow more money to cover spending commitments.
If it fails to extend the current limit of $14.3 trillion dollars, the federal government could find itself struggling to make payments, and risks the loss of its AAA credit rating.
The United States is currently spending around $200bn more than it collects in revenue every month.
Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financial results.
In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at $7.31bn.
Full Story at BBC
80 year old shot in the face with arrow calmly pulls it out, remains unharmed
An 80-year-old American woman who was enjoying a doughnut at her kitchen table was hit in the face by a stray arrow apparently shot by a neighbor honing his archery skills, police said on Wednesday.
The woman, great-grandmother Margaret Shofner, calmly pulled the arrow out of her jaw on Tuesday morning and put it on her table. She did not require hospitalization and wasn’t sure at first what hit her.
“I pulled (the arrow) out and laid it on the table. That’s when I realized what it was,” said Shofner, who lives in the state of Missouri and told her story to a local television network.
“Who would have thought an arrow was going to come into your house and hit you,” she added.
Full story at Reuters
Erik Grumpelt – the man who killed his girlfriend then lived with her corpse for 2 months
Police in suburban Phoenix say they have arrested a man suspected of killing his girlfriend and living with her body for more than two months.
Thirty-five-year-old Erik Grumpelt was charged Tuesday with one count of second-degree murder.
After receiving a tip from Grumpelt’s father, Mesa officers went to the suspect’s apartment Monday and discovered the body of 39-year-old Melinda Raya on a bedroom floor under several sheets. Investigators say the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and surrounded by air fresheners.
Full story at Washington Post
Wallmart arrests married couple then ruins their lives over $2.90 worth of chicken necks
A former Walmart employee in Alabama has filed a lawsuit against the retail behemoth, alleging that she and her husband were wrongly accused of stealing $2.90 in chicken neck bones, an accusation the plaintiff says led to her losing her job and having her husband deported.
According to the suit, the plaintiff and her then-newlywed husband, who hadn’t yet gotten his U.S. citizenship, were using the self-checkout line at a local Walmart (not the one at which she was employed). When it came time to scan the package of chicken necks, they wouldn’t register on the machine. So a store employee helped them out at the machine, told them “it’s okay,” and sent them on their way, only to be stopped by a door guard.
As a result of being in jail and being accused of being a thief, [the plaintiff] lost her home, her car, all of her personal belongings and her husband was deported. [She] seeks punitive damages for loss of income, loss of personal property, lost profits, lost time and imprisonment, libel and slander, mental anguish, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrest, malicious prosecution, slander, negligence and conversion.
Full story at The Consumerist
Dead cryonics founder is frozen as planned
Robert Ettinger, founder of the cryonics movement, has finally become a human popsicle himself after dying on 23 July from unspecified causes following weeks of declining health. The 92-year-old joins his mother, Rhea, his first wife, Elaine, and his second wife, Mae, who were all cryopreserved at the Cryonics Institute as well. The minimum price tag: $28,000.
Other organisations charge upwards of $200,000 and offer the option of “neuropreservation”: instead of freezing their whole bodies, clients freeze only their heads. The idea is that one’s personality and memories will be preserved in the brain and could be uploaded to a computer or artificial body in the future.
No one really knows whether we can ever return consciousness to frozen corpses, but cryopreservation is a genuine phenomenon in the animal kingdom and a useful technique in medicine.
Full Article at New Scientist
Dolphins demonstrate a “remarkable” ability to recover from very serious injury
Washington, DC – A Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) scientist who has previously discovered antimicrobial compounds in the skin of frogs and in the dogfish shark has now turned his attention to the remarkable wound healing abilities of dolphins.
A dolphin’s ability to heal quickly from a shark bite with apparent indifference to pain, resistance to infection, hemorrhage protection, and near-restoration of normal body contour might provide insights for the care of human injuries, says Michael Zasloff, M.D., Ph.D.
“Much about the dolphin’s healing process remains unreported and poorly documented,” says Zasloff. “How does the dolphin not bleed to death after a shark bite? How is it that dolphins appear not to suffer significant pain? What prevents infection of a significant injury? And how can a deep, gaping wound heal in such a way that the animal’s body contour is restored? Comparable injuries in humans would be fatal. ”
Full article at Eurekalert
