Risky Business
retrospectacle | December 8, 2007No one could deny that Oktoberfest in Munich would be a roaring good time. However, it seems that a few in attendance occasionally have *too* good of a time and might end up in the emergency room. Now usually, those who do so likely drank too much beer, or fell down and broke an arm, etc. You know, *normal* drunken injuries. However, every now and then you get someone who swallowed a beer-filled condom.
A 31-yr-old man was admitted to the emergency unit in late September with severe abdominal
pain and vomiting for the last 2 h. A physical examination revealed predominantly right-sided…
retrospectacle | September 25, 2007
One of the more, uh, interesting culinary experiences I have had in Asia was ordering fugu (pufferfish) sushi at a Japanese restaurant in China. A few moments after my order, a plate was sat in front of me that contained lots of fresh, white sushi slices...positioned just below the still-gasping decapitated fugu head. My dad was so disturbed that he asked the waitress to take the fugu head away while I happily chomped away at the delicious sushi. Well, at least I knew it was fresh!
The fugu, or pufferfish, is a delicacy in Asia (and particularly Japan) due to the dangers inherent in…
retrospectacle | August 28, 2007
An unfortunate, but amazing case: a 25-year-old schizophrenic man shoved a 14.5-cm-long ballpoint pen through his eye socket, all the way to his cerebellum (in the rear of the brain). Hospital staff found him lying in a pool of blood, and the man told doctors he 'had torn his eyes because it tickled and that 10 years earlier he had shot himself in one eye with an airgun rifle.' His doctors were puzzled: the man slipped quickly into a coma, but there was no sign of serious trauma to the area other than a small hematoma. A CT scan (above) provided more baffling information, which the doctors…
retrospectacle | May 31, 2007By this time most people have heard about the "Monster Pig" shot by an 11-year old. Except, experts at StinkyJournalism have debunked the colossal pig as a hoax. Turns out the pig is big, but the photos were intentionally manipulated to make the hog appear much, much bigger than it actually is. Read the whole debunking here, with followups promised tomorrow.
Specifically, researchers at NYU (and others) concluded that the boy was actually standing far behind the pig in this photo (above) but the perspective created an illusion that he was actually leaning on the pig. NBC, who had flown the…
retrospectacle | April 16, 2007In response to the horrific school shooting in Virginia Tech, a commenter in this post left a link to a fascinating story from the latter part of 2006. Its a Boing Boing article, which quotes Loren Coleman, entitled School shootings: malignant, contagious social meme? and its really worth a read in light of today's scary events. It explores the incidence of school shootings 'in a row' or how the Columbine shooting is "a dark cloud" hanging over such incidences and inspiriing copy-cat crimes.
Most contemporary school shootings tend to occur primarily during two periods of the school year - at…
retrospectacle | April 16, 2007I was pretty shocked to see the headline on CNN.com right now: Gunman kills 21 on Virginia Tech campus. As someone who spends the majority of my day on a college campus, this really rattled me. Should I start worrying that this could happen at Univ. of Michigan, too?
The shootings mark the deadliest school shooting incident in U.S. history, topping attacks at Columbine High School in 1999 and at the University of Texas in 1966.
The Associated Press quoted officials saying more than 20 people were wounded. A hospital spokeswoman told AP that 17 Virginia Tech students were being treated for…
retrospectacle | February 15, 2007Wouldn't you think that NASA would use the most rigorous psychological test to screen for tough minds in potential astronauts? How then does the soap-opera-esque debacle with astronaut Lisa Nowak (you know, the one in the love triangle who's been arrested for attempted murder) even come to such a boiling point? That it *did* happen has brought into question NASA's ability to monitor the psychological state of the people who go into space. In response to increased scrutiny, NASA has promised to review its psych testing practices. The only lucky break in this situation is that Lisa Nowak "…
retrospectacle | February 1, 2007I've covered the water intoxication death of Jennifer Strange, first describing it here, with an update here. Her death was the result of a water-drinking contest organized by a radio station in Sacramento, with the prize being a Nintendo Wii. to date, the DJ's in charge of the stunt have been fired and the station was conducting an internal investigation.
A new development in the debacle is a wrongful death suit which is being brought by Strange's family, against the radio station that green-lighted the fatal stunt ("Hold your Wee for a Wii").
(Continued below.....)
....it seems that the…
retrospectacle | January 25, 2007This is just strange. How did it go on for so long?
An investigation of suspected brain harvesting within Maine's medical examiner's office has ended without any criminal charges, state and federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
At least 99 brains were sent from the medical examiner's office to the Stanley Institute, which uses its brain bank for research on the causes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, from 1999 to 2003. More than a dozen families have sued, alleging the brains were removed without their consent.
The lawsuits in Maine target the Stanley Institute; Dr. E. Fuller Torrey,…
retrospectacle | January 17, 2007Earlier this week, a woman who was a contestant (for a Nintendo Wii) in a water-drinking contest died, ostensibly of water intoxication. There has been a lot of debate in the comments as to whether the radio station was culpuable and should be sued.
Well, as reported today on Yahoo, the radio station fired the three disc jockeys as well as seven other employees who took part in the contest.The radio show was suspended, and the station has announced an investigation into the exact circumstances of Jennifer Strange's death. It was also revealed that the amount of water that she drank was in…
retrospectacle | January 14, 2007A stupid radio stunt, where contestants had to keep drinking water and were not allowed to urinate, has resulted in the water intoxification death of one of the participants.
A woman who competed in a radio station's contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner's office said Saturday.
Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.
"She said to one…
retrospectacle | January 9, 2007Watching the movie "The Good Shepherd" got me thinking about something: are truth serums real? And if so, has any been proven to work? There was a scene in TGS where a prisoner who was believed to be lying was administered LSD. Now obviously THAT wasn't a real truth serum (unless you want to hear about the innate truth of teacups or something), but if the CIA was using LSD they were likely using other candidates as well.
Lets just assume for a moment that there existed some potion that extracted the truth from people, rendered them unable to lie when questioned. Wouldn't that negate free…
retrospectacle | December 7, 2006Go check out this post over at OmniBRAIN about ...er....illustrative warnings against smoking the ye old cancer stick. Then, riddle me this? Is the tumor scarier, or the mustache?
Either way, nightmares are in my near future.
retrospectacle | December 5, 2006My oh my oh my, parrots really are the cause of so much human suffering aren't they? I couldn't wait to post this until Friday Grey Matters, well, because Irene Pepperberg's interview will be featured this week (a long time coming, but we finally had a little chat Sunday night). So stay tuned for that, good stuff from an exceptionally smart and kind person.
Anyway, back to parrot-induced bank robberies:
A Murfreesboro [Tennessee] man told authorities he robbed MidSouth Bank on East College Street Monday because he "lost his job, tried for another and didn't get it, and his dog ate his parrot…
retrospectacle | August 18, 2006At 16 years old, kids can drive a car, but can they make decisions regarding their health? This is a topic which interests me---a month ago I blogged about the topic in reference to a child whose parents had involved him in a circumcision lawsuit. When exactly are children old enough to determine what happens to their bodies?
This issue has once again received press, this time in the case of a 16-year old cancer patient who wishes to refuse chemotherapy after the first round make him sick. Instead, he wants to try an herbal cure championed by a clinic south of the border, the Hoxsey method.…
retrospectacle | August 14, 2006Note: ScienceBlogs has been following the 16th Annual AIDS Conference, with a special temporary blog reporting on the goings-on. I encourage you to all check it out.
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As more and more women are acquiring AIDS in South Africa, a new trend is emerging: in order to not look HIV positive, women are becoming obese in large numbers. According to the Independent Online, half of all women in South Africa are overweight, and almost one-third are severely overweight. More than 5 million of South Africa's 45 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, and the cultural perception is that if a…
retrospectacle | July 27, 2006The 18-year-old French woman was hospitalized with scaly skin on her legs and hands, appearing unsteady and mentally sluggish, doctors said.
They found the condition puzzling, especially since the woman's twin sister displayed similar, but less severe, symptoms and there was no family history of the problem, the doctors reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.
Then they found a bag of mothballs statshed in her hospital room.
The two teenagers had been using the mothballs to get high. They been inhaling the air in the bag for about 10 minutes a day, at the advice of their…
retrospectacle | July 16, 2006I received my PADI certification when i was 14, although I haven't had much oppertunity to use it. I've dived a little off the coast of South Carolina and in the Florida Keys, and it was fantastic! Although, I've always wondered whether the repeated use of pressurized artificial air was a risk factor for increased lung disfunction.
But, a study by the German Naval Insitute has concluded that scuba divers, who breathe a mix of "artificial air" while underwater, do not have increased lung deterioation. Changes in lung function had been previously reported with repeated scuba diving, but…