December 18, 2008
A colorado surgeon found a tiny foot, hand, thigh, and parts of an intestine growing inside the brain of a 3-day-old baby.
DenverChannel.com has a picture of the brain-foot.
It's not clear whether this was a case of "fetus in fetu" (a fetus growing inside its twin) or fetiform teratoma (a kind of tumor).
Wikipedia has a good article on
Teratomas, noting that teratomas have been reported to contain "hair, teeth, bone and very rarely more complex organs such as eyeball, torso, and hand." There was even one case of a mature teratoma being "reported to contain a rudimentary beating heart."
For your entertainment, here's a photo (from Wikipedia) of a cystic teratoma containing hair.
December 17, 2008
The animation you are about to see was created entirely with pushpins in a board, by
Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker.
Let's let my pal,
author and art expert Luis Ortiz, explain:
During the 1930s animators Alexander Alexeieff and wife Claire Parker invented a push-screen frame, basically a board with thousands of pins embedded into it. The pins were pushed into the board at various heights, using specially shaped tools, and lighted from different angles to create shadow pictures that could be filmed one frame at a time. I saw their version of Night on Bald Mountain, which preceded Disney's, back in the 1980s at film historian Cecile Starr's home (she owned a 16mm copy) and I remember being very impressed. But this unique method was too labor intensive (even by film animation standards), and for most of their later work the Alexeieffs used object animation.
and the Morning Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Wednesday, December 17, 2008 [and it's that time of the week when your news editor gets too busy for an afternoon post!]
It was just "their time": undignified deaths
(1) A 65-yr-old woman drove up to an ATM in Port Angeles, Wash., Saturday, opened the door a bit to pick up something that had fallen to the ground, had the car inch forward on her, and the door fatally squeezed her head when it contacted a protective post.
(2) A 60-yr-old man, tossed in the air by joyous celebrants at his retirement party in Japan, was apparently abandoned in mid-air, hit the floor, and later died in the hospital.
(3) A 43-yr-old man in Benton City, Wash., apparently set fire to a motor home to hide evidence that he had burglarized it but then failed to outrun the flames.
Associated Press via Seattle Times /// Mainichi Daily News /// Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Comments 'undignified_081217'
Your Daily Loser
If you decide to stiff a cab driver for the fare, better be able to run faster than the taxi (unlike this 22-yr-old guy).
Star News (Wilmington, N.C.)
Comments 'outrun_cabbie'
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
A House of Yahweh elder, Yedidiyah Hawkins, 41, was sentenced to 30 yrs by an Abilene, Tex., judge for his freelance gynecological exam of an 11-yr-old girl, even though he used a real speculum to check for "cervical cancer." (Bonus: He already has four wives.)
Associated Press via Houston Chronicle
Comments 'yedidiyah_hawkins'
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
F State drifter Roderick Woodruff, 43, might possibly have been exposing himself on a not-clothing-optional beach.
WWSB-TV (Sarasota)
Comments 'roderick_woodruff'
More Things to Worry About on Wednesday
Puzzle solved: Why would an employer hire back a guy convicted two yrs ago of
stealing $2m from him? (Answer: It's a car dealership, and car dealerships need business types like him, with his, er, skills-set.)
Skagit Valley Herald (Mount Vernon, Wash.)
A United Airlines bartend—er, flight attendant—allegedly
overserved booze to a passenger, and the man's wife is suing because he then got drunk and roughed her up.
Chicago Tribune
Andres Cantu, 55, was arrested in Pharr, Tex., for allegedly molesting two young relatives (which came to light when one, a 9-yr-old girl, responding to a class assignment, wrote that her
"wish list" for Santa was that the guy stop fondling 'em).
The Monitor (McAllen, Tex.)
Pauline McCook of Isle of Sheppey, England, reported that someone stole her life-size
statue of Al Capone. (Buried lede: WTF is a woman in England doing with a life-size statue of Al Capone in her yard?)
BBC News
Good for them: The gov't of China, rushing to shore up its manufacturing standards, announced it was banning, effective immediately,
lye and boric acid as food additives.
Associated Press via Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram
A $2 million downtown improvement project in Winters, Calif., has drawn criticism because its
pedestrian traffic barriers look way too phallic.
KOVR-TV (Sacramento)
Comments on More Things to Worry About on Wednesday?
Comments 'worry_081217'
Eyewitness News
[news videos goin' around]
This little 4-yr-old is making all the TV and Internet news for wandering around Beaumont, Tex., at 4 in the morning, and happening to find the one store in the neighborhood (a Family Dollar) where the manager forgot to lock up that night.
KFDM-TV (Beaumont)
Comments 'beaumont_4yrold'
Today's Newsrangers: Sam Gaines, Sandy Pearlman, Stephen Taylor, Nancy Hackett, Jeff Smith, Roger Meiners, Casey Burns
In 1933 Dr. W.F. Dove, a biologist at the University of Maine, conducted an experiment to find out if he could create a "unicorn bull." He removed the two knots of tissue on the side of the bull's head that would normally have developed into horns and transplanted them to the center of the forehead. The experiment was a success. A single, massive horn grew there.
The unicorn horn made the bull the unchallenged leader of its herd. But Dr. Dove observed that the unicorn bull was actually an extremely docile creature. He wrote:
Although he is an animal with the hereditary potentiality for two horns, he recognizes the power of a single horn which he uses as a prow to pass under fences and barriers in his path, or as a forward thrusting bayonet in his attacks. And, to invert the beatitude, his ability to inherit the earth gives him the virtues of meekness. Consciousness of power makes him docile.
Link:
Unicorn Garden
Cereality claims to be "an idea whose time has come." It's a cereal bar:
customers choose from their favorite brands and toppings. Pajama-clad Cereologists™ fill the orders. And customers choose and add their own milk, just the way they like it.
I'm sure there must be people who think this is a great idea, but I'm not one of them. I can't imagine ever wanting to make a special trip to get a bowl of cereal. But then, I'm not a cereal fan. Every morning it's oatmeal for me.
December 16, 2008
and the Afternoon Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Tuesday, December 16, 2008
SpiegelOnline.com continues its Weird Europe series of countries' Christmas icons with Italy's La Befana, the ugly ol' witch who keeps track of who's naughty (and in one version is rather Stephen-King-like in the way she does it).
Spiegel Online
A South Korean mother and father were fined the equivalent of $60,000 for
failing to bring up their 18-yr-old son properly, in that he's a rapist.
BBC News
Arrested in Madison, Ind., for hitting a guy with a hammer:
Mr. Jamel Nails, 29.
Madison Courier
Recurring Theme:
If ya find a bomb, ya really have to leave it where it lies and go report it (but two small-town Oregon cops thought the thing to do was bring it inside and call the bomb unit, and one of those cops is no longer with us).
Associated Press via Houston Chronicle
Police say two armed men were arrested in Plant City, Fla., after breaking into a home early Sunday morning and, when confronted, one held a knife to the resident's neck and demanded . .
an egg-beater.
[That's all. Really. Check it out.] Tampa Tribune
Gregory Pike had to go to court in San Francisco on a dope-possession charge, and since he's the guy famous
on the Internet for the
"Dog Cat and Rat" video, and since he didn't know anyone to look after his little fellas, he was allowed to bring them into the courtroom (whereupon they reflexively formed their tower right there, i.e., rat sits on the tabby, which is sitting on the Rott-Lab dog).
San Francisco Chronicle
Today's Newsrangers: Sandy Pearlman, David Melcher, Bryce Jackson, Ginger Katz, and Ed Chebret, and a thanks to a host of contributors of the Mexican kidnaping
Comments on the Afternoon Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Tuesday?
Comments 'cycle_081216'
Miroslaw Magola calls himself Magnetic Man. According to his
website:
Miroslaw Magola is a man with an unusual gift; he can lift objects off the floor, transport them through the air and force them to stick to his body - all using the power of his mind. The objects can be anything from metal pans to marble statues, and weight seems to be no problem.
Check out the videos of Miroslaw sticking pots to his forehead. They're comedy classics. I'm more inclined to attribute his ability to sticky skin than to magnetism. A bit of glue might also help.
and the Morning Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The other major multiple-false-confession case
Two weeks ago we reported the new U.S. one-case record for multiple false confessions (6), but there's still this one going on from Norfolk, Va. The parents of the murder victim listened to at least one direct, personal, unequivocal admission and understandingly can't get beyond that. On the other hand, there's only DNA from one of the five confessors, and he said he did it alone, and the "Norfolk 4" have become
Hurricane-Carter-type celebrities. Anyone can understand a guy weary of police questioning who just, exasperated, says, Yeah, OK, I did it, Whatever, but then there are these four guys, who tell how they "did" it. Except that they probably didn't do it.
Washington Post
Comments 'norfolk_confessions'
Nikki Ebben is a handful
She's 31, kinda cute, husband stands by her even though she's maxed out 15 credit cards totaling $80k causing her parents not to speak to her for a while because she owed them so much money. Her story's the lede in the
Wall Street Journal illustration of compulsive shopping in this time of steep retailer discounting. "I loved the high I got when I clicked the 'submit' button" when ordering clothes online (e.g., 17 pairs of $400 designer jeans). Big unopened inventory of stuff at home. Another victim of the disorder had 220 pairs of shoes. It's a coke habit sanctioned by the entire global economy.
Wall Street Journal
Comments 'nikki_ebben'
Can't possibly be true: underappreciated poets?
Twelve Seattle poets went for a polar-bear dip in Green Lake for the sole purpose of calling to public attention the fact that poets don't get no respect, y'know?
Seattle Times
Comments 'poets_swim'
Last 9-11 lawsuit holdouts may get the go-ahead today
Of the nearly infinite ways in which there can be "two kinds of people in the world": Some people grieve their loss of loved one on 9-11 over months or years, accept the generous gov't compensation, and move on. Some, like these three, won't give it up, creating a perpetuating, life-consuming level of grieving that also offers no guarantee that they'll ever learn anything useful that they didn't know seven Decembers ago. This week, a judge in New York may set a trial date.
Boston Herald
Comments '911_lawsuits'
A cyanide-spewing millipede, a spider bigger than a dinner plate
About 600 sq. km of land around the Mekong River that runs from through Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam has at least 1,000 species of plant and animal that no scientist had ever seen before. Rabbits with stripes, Laotian rock rat . . . mmmm, good eatin'.
The Times (London) via The Australian
Comments 'mekong_species'
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Buying real estate is stressful, which might be why this client, doing a home walk-through with his broker, felt that he had to make himself feel good as he was talking to her.
Fond du Lac (Wis.) Reporter
Comments 'masturbating_client'
Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Jon Solnicka, 41, who might have done nothing more than invite some neighborhood girls to swim in his pool.
KTAR Radio (Phoenix)
Comments 'jon_solnicka'
More Things to Worry About on Tuesday
The sour economy hits
Las Vegas hookers, but only the mid-rangers (not streetwalkers or top-shelvers) because, in economists' lingo, the business is a "Giffen good," and if you lower price, you bring on sleazier clients.
Las Vegas Sun
Mayor Blanca Figueroa of South El Monte (a Los Angeles suburb) prefers the quiet of late night to get her office work done, but she's feuding with the city council, which has just retaliated by
locking city hall at 11 p.m. and taking the mayor's key away. Seriously.
New York Times
Kidnaped (probably for ransom) in Saltillo, Mex.: Felix Batista, 55, one of Latin America's foremost consultants on how to deal with kidnaping for ransom.
New York Times
Sonia Ringoir, 31, was charged with
selling her newborn twins to get money for liposuction, but she indignantly denied it, pointing out that she actually gave the babies away for free.
The Sunday Times (London) via Fox News
Comments on More Things to Worry About on Tuesday?
Comments 'worry_081216'
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Category: Babies, Body Modifications, Medicine