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Babies
Babies
Weird Weddings
Mind you, it might be as well to get as healthy as possible before the big day, because according to recent research, marriage puts pounds on you. Lona Sandon, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, claims that newlyweds commonly gain up to 10 pounds in the months following the wedding. But before anyone assumes this is scientific proof that your partner has let himself/herself go, be advised that most often both partners gain weight together (Examiner).
Meanwhile, in Japan, most of the weight gain is starting to happen before the ceremony, as it is becoming increasingly common for the bride to be "eating for two". What was a shameful thing in Japan less than a generation ago is now being increasingly celebrated as a dekichatta kon or "double joy" wedding. According to Chika Hirotani of Watabe Wedding as many as 20% of weddings they supply are so blessed (Telegraph).
Another sort of double joy wedding also took place in Russia this week, when twin brothers married twin sisters in a twin ceremony. Alexei and Dimitry Semyonov finally tied the knot with their sweethearts Lilia and Liana after the four of them met at a dance party a year ago (MOS News). A video of the ceremony is also available (if you sit through the advertisement).
More in extended >>
Posted By: Dumbfounded - Tue Jun 30, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Addictions, Babies, Ceremonies, Weddings
Medical Weirdness
In a "stimulus package" of their own devising, Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer have announced they are going to provide 70 drugs, including Viagra, free to America's recently dis-employed. Sadly, what might have been cure for those recession blues is limited to people who had already been prescribed one of the drugs prior to being laid off (New Scientist).And ladies, with all that free Viagra about to hit the streets, now would be a good time to look your best. So what better way to rejuvenate your skin and cast off unsightly wrinkles than though injections of a compound derived from babies' foreskins. In what is, amazingly, not a joke, a British company has developed, and received UK approval for, a treatment called "Vavelta" that contains live fibroblasts harvested from the bits of baby boys left over after a circumcision. Each vial of the drug is only enough to revive less than a square inch of skin, and costs $1000. But you'll have to travel to get it, the FDA have yet to approve its use in the US (Scientific American).
Of course, it's not just your looks that needs tending as you get older, your mind needs attention too. Fortunately researchers have just announced that increased vitamin D is just the thing to keep us thinking flawlessly. Vitamin D, you will remember, comes to us mainly through eating oily fish and from exposure to the sun. So start saving for that Miami condo now (Telegraph).
Meanwhile, in a case of medical irony, one little spoken of casualty of the strategic arms treaties and test bans has been the availability of medicinal isotopes such as those used in radiography and some cancer treatments. Today, all isotopes for the Americas are supplied by just one facility, the MAPLE facility in Ontario, also the world's oldest operating nuclear reactor. Only now, it's shutting down over safety concerns, and there's no replacement ready (National Post).
Finally, as an irony supplement, researchers have discovered that Down syndrome, a genetic condition that causes a host of physical and mental problems, also protects against some forms of cancer. Down syndrome is caused by having an extra copy of one chromosome, and it is through having an additional copy of one of the genes on that chromosome, which interferes with the formation of blood vessels, that sufferers from DS are less susceptible to many 'solid tumor' cancers. It's hoped that this discovery might lead to better ways to fight cancer in the future (Science).
Posted By: Dumbfounded - Thu May 21, 2009 -
Comments (5)
Category: Babies, Health, Medicine, Brain
Your Daily Loser & Jury Duty for May 12th
Your Daily Loser - During an argument back in October of 2006, Chytoria Graham picked up her infant son and swung him like a baseball bat, hitting her boyfriend, and fracturing the baby's skull (the boy survived). She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. So why is she back in the news? Because Chytoria is appealing her sentence and claims the public defenders who represented her at trial were ineffective. She's also just been released on bail.Jury Duty - Some people just don't see the line between acceptable and not acceptable. Todd Marcum, of Salem, Oregon, is one of those people. Marcum was arrested for putting an electronic, shocking dog collar on his children. And not because they were misbehaving, but because he thought it was funny. The Story. // The Mugshot.
Posted By: Nethie - Tue May 12, 2009 -
Comments (4)
Category: Babies, Crime, Domestic, Family, Your Daily Jury Duty, Your Daily Loser, Goofs and Screw-ups
Baby-Dropping Ritual
Muslims in western India have been dropping babies off the roof of a fifteen-meter-high temple for five-hundred years, and none of the babies have been hurt yet, though they look a bit dazed after landing. So the organizers of the event figure, why stop now? In fact, they claim that dropping the babies off the temple helps the kids grow up strong. Reuters has more details.
Posted By: Alex - Wed May 06, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Babies, Ceremonies, Religion
Baby Sounds For Pets
I wonder if anyone buys this product just because they like to hear baby sounds:These are the authentic recordings of infants and toddlers you often read about in magazines, but can never seem to find! Finally, they are all here on one CD - laughing, cooing, gurgling and cryng! Even the dreaded temper tantrum!
Baby Sounds For Pets is the simple way to ease your furry babies into the acceptance of change and keep them in their homes. I know several couples who have happier home with their pets after using this CD.
This is such an easy way to help the animals we love get used to their changing environment! And when pets realize that they are still loved and the new family addition isn't a threat to them, they easily accept the change.
Baby Sounds For Pets is the simple way to ease your furry babies into the acceptance of change and keep them in their homes. I know several couples who have happier home with their pets after using this CD.
This is such an easy way to help the animals we love get used to their changing environment! And when pets realize that they are still loved and the new family addition isn't a threat to them, they easily accept the change.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 06, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Babies, Pets
The Dionne Quintuplets
Today, we have the "Octo-mom."
Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 07, 2009 -
Comments (4)
Category: Babies, Body Modifications, Celebrities, Drugs, Fads, Family, Human Marvels, Obsessions, Pop Culture, Technology, 1930s
Ovary and Egg Floaty Pen
A MUST HAVE for the Floaty Pen Enthusiast! The Limited Edtion Chrissy Caviar Floaty Pen. Chrissy Conant had some of her eggs removed and put them in a floaty pen. Which means you can "Watch Chrissy's egg float back and forth between her ovary and the jar!"
Best of all, it's available on Amazon.
Apparently this was a limited edition of 1000 pens. That seems like a lot of eggs to have removed.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 02, 2009 -
Comments (11)
Category: Babies, Eggs
Caylee Sunshine Doll
Chuck has posted a couple of times about slain F state toddler Caylee Marie Anthony. Now a Jacksonville company is coming out with a Caylee tribute doll. It's called the Caylee Sunshine Doll. On sale for only $29.99. It sings the song "You Are My Sunshine" when you push her belly button.But the company doesn't want anyone to think it's trying to profit from tragedy, or that producing such a doll is kind of sick and twisted. After all, the company points out that the doll doesn't look exactly like Caylee. If it did, that would be "too morbid and difficult for the public."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 30, 2009 -
Comments (9)
Category: Babies
Foot in Brain
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.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 18, 2008 -
Comments (5)
Category: Babies, Body Modifications, Medicine
Couvade Syndrome
Wikipedia offers this definition of Couvade Syndrome:Couvade syndrome is a medical/mental condition which "involves a father experiencing some of the behavior of his wife at near the time of childbirth, including her birth pains, postpartum seclusion, food restrictions, and sex taboos".
Another term for it is a sympathetic pregnancy. But some cultures take the concept a step further. From The Art of Folly by Paul Tabori:
In Brazil the new father is deliberately made ill. They use the sharp teeth of the aguti to gash his body. Then the wounds are washed with poisonously burning tobacco juice or a liquid in which black pepper has been mixed. The "father/mother" suffers duly while playing his strange role. In some other tribes he is subjected to a strict diet, not for days, but for weeks, during which he gets so little to eat that he becomes skin-and-bone. Among the Vaga-Vaga tribe, for instance, he is forbidden to eat bananas, coconuts, mangoes, sugar cane, poultry, pork, and dog meat.
No dog meat. That's rough. But my favorite Couvade ritual comes from the Huichol Indian tribe:
During traditional childbirth, the father sits above his labouring wife on the roof of their hut. Ropes are tied around his testicles and his wife holds onto the other ends. Each time she feels a painful contraction, she tugs on the ropes so that her husband will share some of the pain of their child's entrance into the world.
The thumbnail shows a yarn drawing owned by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco that depicts this ritual.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 03, 2008 -
Comments (7)
Category: Babies, Medicine
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |