Jump to content

weird news


Ivanhoe

Recommended Posts

(Nov. 24) - A doctor operating on a 37-year-old Phoenix woman thought to have a brain tumor found something entirely different: a parasitic worm.

 

ABC News reports that Rosemary Alvarez, who underwent the procedure last summer after experiencing difficulty swallowing and numbness in her left arm, had a tapeworm called Taenia solium inside her head.

:blink:

It turns out Alvarez likely contracted the tapeworm at some point by eating food tainted with the feces of a person infected with the parasite. "It wasn't that she had poor hygiene, she was just a victim," said neurosurgeon Peter Nakaji, who ended up extracting the worm.

With the exception of a numb feeling in the back of her head, Alvarez has recovered nicely since the operation and is back to living a normal life.

Watch the video below to find out more about Alvarez's ordeal and tell us whether you've ever had a tapeworm.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=6309464&page=1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 6.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

A new plague which jumps from rats to humans has been discovered by scientists.

 

Fears are growing that increasing numbers of brown rats - the most common kind in Europe - are carrying a strain of bacteria that can cause serious illness in humans from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.

The new strain of bacteria called Bartonella rochalimae is spread between rats by fleas, Taiwanese researchers have said.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-...ats-humans.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh.

 

This made an appearance today in Serbia’s leading daily newspaper - Slavica Đukić Dejanović (head of the republics parliament) says”Serbia’s ministers are not insane”.

 

She follows with “they are not psychotic, that is to say that, to use an ugly term, actually crazy”.

 

No irony nor any attempts at humor where used to construct the above statement.

 

I think I need to go have a little lie down somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A new plague which jumps from rats to humans has been discovered by scientists.

 

Fears are growing that increasing numbers of brown rats - the most common kind in Europe - are carrying a strain of bacteria that can cause serious illness in humans from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.

The new strain of bacteria called Bartonella rochalimae is spread between rats by fleas, Taiwanese researchers have said.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-...ats-humans.html

 

Yipee....

 

I really must get the book "Justinian's Flea."

 

Why oh why do I have a morbid fascination with virus, bacteria and biological weapons...?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11232008/news/...ncer_140297.htm

 

Biker Andrew Katzander is taking pole dancing to the streets - on the back of his pimped-out pedicab.

 

The 44-year-old, a landscaper by day, pedals his racy rickshaw while a sexy dancer shimmies up and down a shiny 8-foot metal pole on a neon-lit platform attached to the back of the bike.

 

 

I LOVE AMERICA!

 

Is there a hi-res picture? She looks cute and, uhm, flexible. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(Nov. 25) - Former U.S. Air Force pilot Milton Torres opens up to CNN about what he says was an encounter with a UFO. Torres, flying from an English air base, said he was ordered "to fire" at a target on a mission over the North Sea in May 1957.

"The target looked like an aircraft carrier" on the radar, Torres told CNN, and then was gone in an instant. Could it have been something other than a UFO? No way, Torres said. "It was some design of an aircraft by some space alien," he said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A new plague which jumps from rats to humans has been discovered by scientists.

 

Fears are growing that increasing numbers of brown rats - the most common kind in Europe - are carrying a strain of bacteria that can cause serious illness in humans from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.

The new strain of bacteria called Bartonella rochalimae is spread between rats by fleas, Taiwanese researchers have said.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-...ats-humans.html

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's all fun and games under your rabies strain mutants with something else...

 

 

Phoenix. -- As of Nov. 7, with nearly two months left in the year, the the Arizona Department of Health Services already reports a record-breaking year for rabies cases.

Since January, the state's laboratory confirmed 162 cases in animals, 38 cases in humans and 119 cases of pet exposure to rabid animals.

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veter...tCategoryId=378

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ottawa university boots cystic fibrosis from charity drive

 

'I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity'

 

Joanne Laucius, Canwest News Service

Published: Tuesday, November 25, 2008

 

OTTAWA -- The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

 

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

 

Every year near the beginning of fall classes, during university orientation for new arrivals, students fan out across the city and seek donations from passersby. According to the motion, "all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their (sic) diverse communities."

 

Nick Bergamini, a third-year journalism student on the student council, said he was the only elected councillor present to vote against the motion. The decision is an example of campus political correctness gone too far, he said.

 

"They're not doctors. They're playing politics with this," said Mr. Bergamini. "I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity. I see it as a loss for people with cystic fibrosis."

 

The Shinearama fundraiser is carried out by students at about 65 colleges and universities across Canada. It has raised money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for almost 50 years and Carleton has been participating for at least 25.

 

During orientation week this year, Carleton students, who have raised about $1-million over the years, raised about $20,000, said foundation chief executive Cathleen Morrison, who was surprised and dismayed by the student association decision.

 

The rationale for dropping cystic fibrosis as the beneficiary is not correct, she said. CF is diagnosed just as often among girls as boys, although the health of girls deteriorates more rapidly, she said. It is commonly considered an illness that affects Caucasians, but that includes people from the Middle East, South America, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

 

" ‘Caucasian' as we understand it isn't just white people," said Ms. Morrison. "It includes people with a whole rainbow of skins."

 

Student association president Brittany Smyth said the motion came about because the association has been contemplating rotating the beneficiary of Shinearama to different charities each year instead of giving the money to a single charity.

 

"It's about people wanting to do something different," she said.

 

The motion was forwarded by Donnie Northrup, who represents science students. Mr. Northrup did not respond to a request for an interview.

 

The preamble to the motion is Mr. Northrup's explanation for why he supports the motion, based on what he learned as an orientation-week volunteer, said Ms. Smyth.

 

In making a decision, it was not the preamble but the declaration itself that matters, she said.

 

"The preliminary is the councillor's own motivations and ideas," she said. "Most discussion revolved around rotating the charity."

 

Mr. Bergamini said he doesn't believe the decision represents the opinion of most students.

 

"They're playing racial politics with something that is supposed to bring people together -- a charity," he said.

 

Ms. Morrison, who hopes to get a chance to set the record straight with the student association, said students raise a healthy chunk of the approximately $16-million raised each year to support cystic fibrosis research.

 

The median life expectancy for a person with CF in Canada is just over 37 years, about twice what it was two decades ago. The money for research has helped produce a lot of international "firsts" including isolating the CF gene and carrying out the first double-lung transplant for a CF patient.

 

Meanwhile, public reaction to the student association decision has been swift, from those who denounced the decision as political correctness to those who facetiously mused about what would qualify as an "inclusive" disease. Others wondered if the student association decision would affect alumni donations to the university.

 

"The reasoning behind this is totally ridiculous. Eventually cystic fibrosis is a fatal disease. I wouldn't wish it on anyone," said Marie Lunney, a Carleton graduate who has worked as a foundation volunteer. "If I had a choice between donating to CF or Carleton, I'd donate to CF."

 

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=992946

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Witchcraft on India's school curriculum

Primary school children in India will learn about witchcraft in the classroom as part of an effort to dispell superstitions and stop deadly witch-hunts.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...curriculum.html

I studied Miller's "The Crucible' at high school, which in its way was a comment both on Mccarthyism and the actual Salem witch hunts. There is a place for debunking superstition, both of a paranormal, and of a 'secular' nature in schools.

 

I see no problem with children learning about 'witchcraft' as a way of 'breaking its spell' in superstitious communities.

Edited by DougRichards
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see no problem with children learning about 'witchcraft' as a way of 'breaking its spell' in superstitious communities.

 

Oh, damn - here i thought it was about the children learning how to be little witches - like a curry-flavored Hogswarth. <_< What makes you think there's a problem? The thread-topical weirdness was the body count of people that have been killed because they've been accused of being witches, to the point where children have to be taught otherwise.

Edited by X-Files
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Drunk driver runs over himself

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

 

An American man accused of driving drunk led police on a wild chase that finally ended with him somehow managing to run himself over.

 

The 21-year-old man was treated for minor injuries at a Santa Fe hospital and booked in to the Sandoval County detention center on charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated, fleeing a police officer, careless driving and two other outstanding traffic warrants.

 

A tip to the state's DrunkBuster hot line on Sunday afternoon alerted authorities to a possibly drunken driver.

 

State Police Officer Grace Romero spotted the man's pickup truck swerving across both lanes of a highway, driving slowly and then fast. He refused to stop.

 

After narrowly missing other vehicles, police said the suspect drove through a ditch and a barbed-wire fence before stopping. He tried to put the truck into park, but it ended up in reverse.

 

Police said the man fell from his open door and both of his legs were run over by the front driver's side tire.

 

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?...mp;in_page_id=2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Goddamn, brilliant book - and an excellent commentary on human nature.

 

What got me was how utterly ENGLISH it was the point of missing out on the tone if you didn't speak English.

 

(Oh, and Polux and Castor dressed as priests to deliver a terrorist attack at an airport; Face/Off with Cage and Travolta sooooo ripped that off)

 

(Btw: "Besnilo" translate as Rabies in English, but also means Rage in Serbian).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man wielding candy cane lawn ornament subdues attacker

SACRAMENTO (AP) — A man using a candy cane lawn ornament fended off a knife-wielding neighbor who had been attacking holiday guests at a Sacramento home.

 

Police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong says the man used the two-foot-tall plastic ornament to subdue the attacker until officers arrived.

 

He says the 49-year-old suspect became intoxicated, went over to a neighbor's home on Thanksgiving and began waving a kitchen knife at people gathered on the lawn.

 

He cut several peoples' clothing before one of them decided to fight back.

 

Police say the man with the knife was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The guest who took up the candy cane was not arrested because police determined he acted in self-defense.

 

*

 

http://news.aol.com/article/rogue-wave-dro...ia-coast/262115

 

 

POINT MUGU, Calif. (Nov. 27) - Three men have drowned after being swept out to sea by a rogue wave while watching the surf from a rocky outcrop along Southern California's coast.

Authorities say two other men were pulled from the water Thursday afternoon and survived.

 

*

The real question is, are the two survivors gibbering, mindless wrecks, doomed to live out their lives in institutions, or merely wander the streets until they, too, are taken?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24723591-23109,00.html

 

Drug-smeared boobs knock out robbed men

 

UGANDA'S police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their breasts to knock their victims unconscious.

"They apply this chemical to their chest. We have found victims in an unconscious state," Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) spokesman Fred Enanga said.

 

"You find the person stripped totally naked and everything is taken from him," he said.

 

"And the victim doesn't remember anything. He just remembers being in the act of romancing."

 

Mr Enanga, who explained that several types of heavy sedatives had been used, said he first came across the practice last year when an apprehended thief named Juliana Mukasa made a clean breast of the matter.

 

"She is a very dangerous lady," he said.

 

While early investigations suggest that the gang may consist of dozens of members, the source of the sedatives remains unknown.

 

"We don't know exactly how they get these materials," Mr Enanga said. "That is something that our investigations must crack."

 

 

He called on men, particularly travelling businessmen who tend to carry a lot of cash, to take caution.

 

"It's a serious situation and people have to be aware."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

France: Court Rejects Lawsuit Over Voodoo Doll

By KATRIN BENNHOLD

NYT

October 30, 2008

 

The French are literally poking fun at President Nicolas Sarkozy, but he is not amused. On Wednesday, a court threw out a lawsuit that the president filed last week seeking to prevent a voodoo doll made in his image from remaining on sale. Mr. Sarkozy decided to appeal the decision, drawing ridicule from his critics on Thursday. It is his sixth lawsuit this year. The doll, which went on sale on Oct. 9, became a best-selling cult item as soon as the president tried to have it banned; it comes with 12 pins and a manual explaining how to put a curse on him.

 

 

PARIS: Amid deepening economic gloom, the tale of the voodoo doll of Nicolas Sarkozy has provided some needed light relief for the French.

 

Twice, the French president asked the courts to ban the sale of a figurine made in his image. On Friday, an appeals court dealt him the latest rebuff: not only can the doll remain on sale, but the judges ordered that it be sold with a bright-red banner on the packaging entitled "Judicial Injunction" and a warning that sticking needles into the doll affronts Sarkozy's dignity.

 

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/28/africa/sarko.php

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr Enanga, who explained that several types of heavy sedatives had been used, said he first came across the practice last year when an apprehended thief named Juliana Mukasa made a clean breast of the matter.

 

 

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24723591-23109,00.html

 

I missed this the first time around.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/pages...mp;pageId=3.2.1

 

http://www.carrollspaper.com/print.asp?Sec...amp;TM=49195.99

 

MINNEAPOLIS—According to Des Moines Register.com, the Carroll, Iowa woman who was caught having sex in the Metrodome bathroom on Saturday, says she’s had so much wine, that she does not remember walking into the men’s restroom.

 

Lois Feldman, 38, also claims not to have remembered the man she had sex with in the stall or when the police opened the door.

 

The incident

 

According to a police report, a Metrodome security officer saw two people having sex in a handicapped stall after noticing two sets of feet with underwear dropped to the ground.

 

A group of 15 onlookers were gawking at the scene by the time officers broke the couple up and wrote them misdemeanor citations.

 

Feldman, was turned over to her husband. Ross Walsh, 26, of Linden, Iowa was turned over to his girlfriend.

 

A cheap gallon jug of wine, $10.

Panties that hit the floor of a stadium men's room, $5.

Having your arrest for public fornication, complete with name, age, and husband's name, on the Internet, priceless.

 

Odds are 3:2 that Ms. Feldman was a cheerleader in high school. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...