The creeps

The creeps. Also, The willies. idiom. A sensation of horror, fear, or repugnance that suggests the feeling of insects crawling on one's skin.

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Of these two old photographs, it is the one at the top that gives you the creeps, right? But by the end of this post, they both will...

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1. The Parsons Family, murdered in Texas Co., Missouri, on October 12, 1906. Carney Parsons, his wife Minnie (nee Strange), and their 3 sons were killed by Jodie Hamilton, who worked and lived with them as sharecroppers. Minnie got pregnant and Carney sold their share to Hamilton to move closer to his wife's home. Parsons gave Hamilton a shotgun and $25 in exchange for a saddle on the day of the murder. Feeling he had been cheated, 20-year-old Hamilton ambushed the family at 2pm about 2 miles east of Success, Missouri. He shot Mr. Parsons in the leg with the shotgun, then bludgeoned him to death with its barrel. He hit the 2 older boys with the gun barrel, then cut their throats with their father's knife. Then he threw a blanket over Mrs. Parsons and killed her with an axe. Lastly, he beat the baby to death, after which he rifled Mr. Parson's pockets for the $25, a gold watch, and some spectacles. Hamilton hid the Parsons' wagon in the brush, then came back at midnight, hitched up, and drove it to the Piney River, into which he threw the bodies of all 5 of his victims. The bodies of 2 of the children were found by fishermen within an hour. Two days later, Hamilton was arrested, was nearly lynched, attempted suicide, and confessed to the murders. Jurors in his trial reached a verdict within an hour, and he was sentenced to be hanged. Hamilton took a great interest in his imminent execution and inspected the gallows. He was hanged with what was considered great composure at 11am on December 21, 1906, in Houston, Missouri. The attending crowd was afterward allowed to view his body, the rope was cut up and sold as souvenirs, and postcards were made of the hanging and the murdered Parsons family.

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2. The ripped tent of the ill-fated 9-person ski and hiking party after what became known as the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959. On January 27th of that year, a group of ten experienced Russian hikers (8 men and 2 women) set out across the Ural Mountains by foot to reach a particular slope. One man turned back early on because of health issues, but the rest followed leader Igor Dyatlov. They stored food and provisions for the return journey in a valley, but never had the opportunity to use them. The group began their climb, but lost their way in the weather and deviated west, setting up camp on a mountain prophetically called Kholat Syakhl [Mountain of the Dead]. It was there that a search party found their tent, diaries, and cameras. The tent had been ripped open from the inside and the hikers had exited of their own accord, with no signs of a struggle and no other human footprints in the snow. Two of the hikers' bodies were found 1.5km away near the remains of a fire, dressed only in their underwear (which had high doses of radioactive contamination); three more were found apparently returning to the camp and the remaining four were located further away 4 months later. Six had died of hypothermia; one had major skull damage and two had major chest fractures (requiring extreme force, but showing no external signs). One of the women was missing her tongue. The hair of each of the bodies had turned gray and their skin had taken on an orange glow. The Soviets sealed the case files until 1990 and the mystery has still not been solved.

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The catalysts for this post were two items that recently appeared in the weird news - both using the word "creepy." The first link was to a set of post-mortem photographs. I have collected such photos for years and have more than one of a deceased child in the parent's lap, but although I knew that eyes were sometimes painted on the closed lids to simulate life, I somehow missed the fact that stands were occasionally used to prop dead children and adults upright for photographs. The second link was to an account of some mysterious deaths that was written last year. And again, although I have subscribed to Fortean Times for 20 years, I had never heard of this case. When I searched for the right photo for the blog, I found this one that appears rather mundane unless you know the story. Hence, the comparison...and the conclusion that I would rather have the creeps than the vapors!

Pavlov's dog

I seem to use the phrase "Pavlov's dog" quite a bit and decided to look up the science behind it - and to see if the dog in question was immortalized in a photograph. As you can see above, the answer to that is yes. Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) used several dogs in his experiments, but one of his subjects appears in harness behind him and another, with surgically implanted saliva catch tube, was prepared and mounted as an exhibit at the Pavlov Museum in Ryazan, Russia. The expression "Pavlov's dog" describes a person who reacts reflexively rather than reflectively to a situation. It refers to the results of the conditioning that Pavlov used to cause dogs to salivate upon simply hearing a bell (or a whistle, metronome, or tuning fork), after repeatedly pairing the noise with a stimulus (food). The experiment paved the way for an objective science of behavior, but it was his other research on the digestive system that garnered Pavlov the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Pavlov has achieved immortality in behavioral science and popular parlance, but he was well aware of his own mortality. Conscious to the end, he asked one of his students to record his subjective experiences as he lay on his deathbed.

The vapors

The fainting couch (a.k.a. recamier) is so named because it was an appropriate support for women who swooned. Swooning was one of the many symptoms of female hysteria, which you may read more about in my post on wandering wombs. The condition of female hysteria was identified by the ancient Greeks, but the Victorians preferred the expression "the vapors," which could consist of any combination of the following complaints: anxiety, behavioral problems, depression, digestive issues, fainting, fluid retention, insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite (for food or for sex), muscle spasm, shortness of breath, and tremors - many of which are now relieved by Pamprin. While some of these signs may indicate clinical depression or bipolar disorder to today's sufferers, "Currently, the vapors are not recognized as a medical diagnosis," advises Wisegeek.com. The modern reader may also be led to believe that the expression refers merely to flatulence, but this is refuted on Fanny & Vera's Site for New Civilians. Nevertheless, there have been several cases of "the vapors" in the weird news recently:

• Last Saturday, the wind shifted as pepper spray was released in a routing training exercise by the Mount Carmel Borough Police Deparment, provoking a severe asthma attack in a woman sitting in her backyard in Diamondtown, Pennsylvania, who required emergency services.
• On Monday, a woman in Niceville, Florida, was arrested for battery after unleashing a 9-oz. can of Glade Potpourri Air Freshener on a neighbor who repeatedly smokes cigarettes outside her door. "I will do it again, and take it all the way to the Supreme Court," said the woman, "because I have the right to breathe fresh air."
• And on Tuesday, a chlorine leak at a sewer treatment plant in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, prompted the evacuation of the sunbathers at clothing-optional Gunnison Beach, and their relocation to North Beach, which does have a dress code.

Hand me my smelling salts...

World's heaviest insects

Quigley at your service this morning to settle some contentious claims about weighty insects in the weird news. Earlier this year, the giant weta was put forth as one of the heaviest insects in the world, weighing in at more than 70 grams. Today, an article is making the rounds suggesting that the giant burrowing cockroach - as the largest cockroach and weighing only 35 grams - may be the world's heaviest insect. These are both outclassed by the goliath beetle (pictured), which can weigh up to 100 grams in the larval stage. With help from Wikipedia (and no help from the Guinness Book of World Records, which has a most confounding website), I have compiled a list of insects by weight:

• Goliath beetle (larval) Goliathus goliatus +115g
• Hercules beetle Dynastes hercules 85g
• Giant weta Deinacrida heteracantha 75g
• Stick insect Phobaeticus kirbyii 72g
• Queen Alexandra's birdwing butterfly (larval) Ornithoptera alexandrae 58g
• Atlas moth (larval) Attacus atlas 58g
• Giant burrowing cockroach Macropanesthia rhinoceros 36g

These would all lose to the goliath birdeater, at 120 grams, except that spiders are not insects! But even this pales in comparison to the 452 gram (1 lb.) dragonflies that used to take flight in the prehistoric past!

Wampum

Contrary to what you may have learned in grade school - and how the word is used in the vernacular today, wampum was not "Indian money." Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands tribes used the strings of sacred shell beads not as currency, but contracts. Wampum belts were exchanged to symbolize engagement or marriage, validate treaties, or signify war or peace. For instance, the parallel stripes on the Two Row Wampum Treaty Belt between the whites and the natives represent the paths of their vessels containing their customs and laws - the canoe and the sailing vessel - neither of which should outpace the other, and each of which should remain separate and equal forever. Wampum belts also served as memory aids in story-telling and were worn for ritual decoration. No mere money belts or fashion accessories, these. It was the European settlers who realized how much the wampum belts meant to the natives, assigned value to them, and mass-produced them. But it was their symbolism which mattered most, and still does: along with their skeletal remains, Native American tribes have requested repatriation of wampum belts. I daresay you will not use the word "wampum" the same way again...that is, if you ever use it. Like me, you may just want to say it out loud a few times.

Rene Magritte

I always got a kick out of the paintings of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte (1898-1967). I was looking over my Mom's shoulder today at a furniture catalog she was perusing and saw some styles of what I like to call "fainting couches." They immediately reminded me of Magritte's portrait of Madame Recamier (top), which parodies an unfinished portrait from 1800 by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). But to my delight, I have found that she was not the only subject to be depicted as a coffin by Magritte. Above are two similar paintings from a series called "Perspective" and the originals which they parodied: "Portrait of Madame Recamier," 1802 by Francois Gerard (1770-1837) and "The Balcony," c. 1868-1869 by Edouard Manet (1832-1883). Ironically, it is David's painting that springs to mind first, though the painter left it unfinished when he found out Gerard was painting the same subject. The surname of the woman in question, Jeanne-Francoise Julie Adelaide Recamier* (1777-1849), has become synonymous with the couch upon which she sat.

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*Unfortunately, the new version of Internet Explorer that I downloaded no longer allows me to copy diacritics to my posts, so please excuse the lack of accents in the French names.

Charles Jones

English gardener Charles Jones (1866-1959) worked on several private estates, including Ote Hall in Sussex. He had a hobby which not even his family knew about: photographing the fruits (and vegetables) of his labors. It wasn't until 1981 at an antique market that his beautiful work came to light: several hundred gelatin silver prints in a trunk, most of them vegetables, a quarter of them fruits and flowers. All had been exposed on glass negatives, each noted the name of the plant and were inscribed with the photographer's name or initials, and few were duplicates. Never shown during his lifetime, they have now been exhibited in London, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Lausanne, Switzerland, and are the subject of a book, Plant Kingdoms: The Photographs of Charles Jones, published in 1998 by Sean Sexton - the man who accidentally found the photos. About the image at the top, the Victoria and Albert Museum writes, "His photographs of apples, photographed against a neutral background to capture each specimen's individuality, show his deep understanding of their plain beauty, brought about by tending them daily." The same can be said of his beets (above), beans, plums, onions, and mangel-wurzels. Charles Jones left no notes or diaries, so the photographs have to speak for themselves.

Messel Pit

A fossilized jewel beetle, which still shows the color of the exoskeleton.
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Palaeochiropteryx, which resembles today's horseshoe bats and Old World leaf-nosed bats.
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Alleochelys, a transitional form between pond turtles and soft-shell turtles.
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Eopelobates, probably an ancestor of the European spadefoot toad.
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Messelornis, a relative of the crane, well-adapted to running.
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Messelophis, a small (50cm) terrestrial snake that belongs to the family of dwarf boas.
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A venomous lizard that was an ancient relative to the Gila monster.
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Today, a tour of the Messel Pit in Germany by way of a look at some of the incredible fossils it has produced. I only recently learned of this amazing cache of Eocene creatures from the program "The Link," which I mentioned in an earlier post. Then this morning I watched a National Geographic slideshow of some new finds, which prompted a search of the older finds. Until now, I had never seen a fossil of a bat, or a toad, or a snake - although I have held a turtle fossil in my hand at the Fossil and Gem Show I used to attend each year at George Mason University. I have posted some images of the Messel Pit finds above, but am delighted to share the link to the treasure trove: complete crocodiles and alligators, pangolins , ostriches, lemurs, horses - almost all collected by one man, Otto Feist, between 1972 and 1974! Finding the photographs was fun, but imagine the discovery of the actual fossils....with scales, feathers, fur and skin outlines, and in some cases color. Thrilling!

More mystery

As a teenager, I was an avid reader of the mysteries of Agatha Christie (1890-1976). I read as many of her 70+ novels and short story collections as I could get my hands on. Guess what? There are two more Hercule Poirot stories! "The Capture of Cerberus" and "The Mystery of the Dog's Ball" were deciphered (apparently her handwriting was terrible) by John Curran after he found them in a mass of family papers at one of her former homes. They have been published in a book due out next month, Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making, but one of them is being serialized in the Daily Mail.

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Christie was born Agatha Miller in Torquay, Devon, England. She married aviator Archibald Christie in 1914 and had a daughter in 1918, but her life was a mystery itself for 11 days in 1926, after Archie - who was having an affair with another woman - asked her for a divorce. Already upset by the death of her mother, the missing writer was found suffering from amnesia in a hotel room. Her 2nd marriage to prominent British archaeologist Max Malloran in 1930 was a success. He was later knighted and she was honored as Dame of the British Empire. She died of natural causes in Cholsey, Oxfordshire, and is buried in the local churchyard. She published her first novel in 1920 and her books - outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare - have sold 4 billion copies and have been translated into 100 languages.

Human hybrids

It was pointed out again in the weird news that the photo at the top - which has been circulating on the Internet for several years now - is not an actual dog-human hybrid. It is a sculpture by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, who explains in this video what her motivations were and why we find her work (made with, among other things, leather and human hair) so disturbing. You can see it here from other angles and navigate to her other installations by clicking on the images. The human-animal hybrid goes by many names: chimera (referring to the mythological creature made from parts of several animals), transgenic species or cybrid (scientific terms), and parahuman (a word often used to sensationalize the science). Humans and animals have been physically fused in many ways. Xenografts (transplantation of animal organs into humans) have been performed for many years. Since human skin cells and rabbit eggs were first grafted in 2003, 32-cell human-cow embryos have been engineered and a human ear has been grown from cartilage scaffolding on the back of a mouse (another photograph that got wide exposure on the web). Scientists have created pigs with human blood flowing through their veins, mice with a partially human brain, rats with human kidney tissue, and sheep with a largely human liver. Most of this experimentation is to research disease and to achieve living factories for customized lab-grown biopharmaceuticals, tissues, and organs. One of the points that Piccinini makes with her artwork is that it is no longer possible to distinguish between the natural and the artificial. But with this boundary blurred, the task is to set up ethical guidelines and draft legislation as science fiction becomes science fact.

Follow-ups

Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin wearing one of his designer prostheses.

I want to follow up on my posts, but the news items and comments are coming so fast and furious that I have opted to discontinue my time-consuming practice of many small illustrations in favor of the one I consider the best, so be sure to check all the links for associated photographs. Enjoy!

The narwhal 8/19/09 Here are some extraordinary images of an ocean photographer's encounter with a 50' humpback whale in the South Pacific.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 Relating to my post about Leonardo da Vinci's inventions is this Smithsonian slideshow of the instruments of discovery used and improved upon by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), including another of my favorite words to say - the astrolabe.

Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Among these replications of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting, I forgot to include the work of Scott Wade - Mona Lisa's image on a dirty window.

Victor Noir 8/10/09 Speaking of sex symbols, Marilyn Monroe can be your postmortem bunkmate. The woman whose husband's body is entombed above hers at Westwood Village Memorial Park in L.A. is moving his body and auctioning off the crypt on e-bay to settle her Beverly Hills mortgage. (Thanks to reader Elena for the link!)

Jaws in 1916 8/8/08 Thanks to reader Michael Keighery for this link to an Australian mystery from 1935. The Shark Arm Case followed 3 shark deaths off the coast of New South Wales. A 3.5M tiger shark was caught and put on live display at the Coogee Aquarium Baths. The visitors who flocked to see the man-killer were not disappointed - it disgorged a tattooed human arm. But the owner of the arm was the victim of a murder rather than the shark...

Eunuchs 8/7/09 In India, thousands of male members of a cult devoted to Radha dress as this female lover of Krishna, baffling religious leaders.

Stain 8/6/09 My former boss Jim Schaefer sent me this link to an incredible story and slideshow of photographs of Hiroshima taken by the Physical Damage Division of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and accidentally rediscovered in a pile of junk on a Watertown, Massachusetts, street. On this year's anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, a piano that had survived Hiroshima was played at a performance in Tokyo.

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Death worm and bloodworm 8/5/09 Follower Kent Schnake liked the worm post and recommended the film Dune. He also points out that the guinea worm and similar parasites common in Africa are - even though they don't spit acid and shoot lightning out of their ass - horrible in their own way.

Weird watercolors 8/1/09 This post mentions the painting Rembrandt did as a child. Here you can listen to a piece of music written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) at the age of 7 or 8.

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Hummingbirds 7/28/09 Follower Megan McCabe said this post reminded her to tell me about the work of graffiti artist Dan Witz, who paints lifelike hummingbirds in public spaces.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 I heard from a reader who offers another creative alternative to stashing ashes in a columbarium - adhering a small portion of them to a photograph - an "ashprint," as she calls it on her blog Final Photograph. In other ashen news: Earlier this month, a man in Vershire, Vermont, borrowed a wheelbarrow, disinterred the cremated remains of his father, and brought them - along with the man's headstone - home with him, a crime punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Happy Father's Day! 6/21/09 In a follow-up to my Father's Day post, I referenced this story about fighting finches. I just learned that partridge-fighting is a popular gambling sport in Afghanistan.

Placing of rocks 6/20/09 I had not heard of the Durdle Door in Dorset, England, until I researched this post, but once seen, it is most recognizable. It has been used, however, to lure tourists to a resort in Dubai.

Bog bodies 6/19/09 Workers at Gilltown bog in Co. Kildare, Ireland, uncovered a 3,000-year-old oak barrel of butter. Museum director Padraig Clancy calls the Iron Age practice of sinking the butter in the bog "piseogary."

Obama likeness 6/5/09 A similarity to Michael Jackson is seen in this Egyptian statue at Chicago's Field Museum.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Researchers have just discovered that the Tasman booby is not extinct after all - it has been masquerading as the masked booby for years!

Barnacle geese 5/30/09 A sea monster with writhing tentacles that washed up on shore in Wales turned out to be a seething mass of goose barnacles attached to a log!

Cave paintings at Lascaux 5/25/09 Archaeologists believe they have identified the earliest map - a 14,000-year-old representation of the area landscape found on a tablet in a Spanish cave.

Birds! 5/21/09 Like the goose flying upside-down in this post, here is a remarkable photo of an eagle (unsuccessfully) attacking a goose larger than itself in mid-air.

Mortsafes 5/20/09 My friends Valerie and Roger were vacationing in Scotland recently and send me this snapshot from one of the graveyards indicating how the caretakers have responded to a gravestone that apparently fell over on someone.

Species named after Stephen Colbert 5/8/09 Related to this post only because it's about a bug, here's a story about the discovery of the rarest insect on earth, not seen in 70 years - the 6" Lord Howe Island stick insect, also known as the "land lobster." The article was written by fan Dylan Thuras of Curious Expeditions and Atlas Obscura.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 There have been numerous stories in the news of bears being struck and killed by cars, but here is a more uplifting item (with video) of a bear that took a swim in a residential pool in San Dimas, California.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 A duck with a fractured leg that healed badly has been outfitted with a sandal. A Thai elephant that stepped on a landmine 10 years ago now has a prosthetic; here's another article about "Motola" with a few more photos. An elephant suffering from abscesses in an English zoo has received a pair of slippers. And a wetsuit has been tailored for a featherless penguin.

Flannery O'Connor 4/9/09 After roaming free for 6 weeks in the town in which I grew up - Springfield, Illinois - 2 peacocks have been reunited with their owner.

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Taxidermy art 4/6/09 I recently made the on-line acquaintance of artist Lisa Wood - check out her wonderful website here.

Poisonous plants 3/30/09 A German supermarket has removed all bags of mixed salad after a customer found a poisonous weed called groundsel in with the greens.

Rosamond Purcell 3/22/09 I have attached this story to my post about Rosamond Purcell because she photographs such collections. Almost 300 rare tropical birds have been stolen from cabinets in the Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertsfordshire, England. Police believe the irreplaceable specimens may be ripped apart so their colorful feathers can be used to make jewelry and fishing lures.

Designer legs 3/15/09 Like amputee Aimee Mullins, who owns several pairs of designer legs, Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin has more than a dozen attachments for his prosthetic arm.

Seahorses and sea dragons 3/14/09 Researchers at the University of Zurich found that male seahorses choose the largest females as mates, which contradicts earlier assumptions that the females do the choosing.

Footprints 2/28/09 Paleontologists from the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland, have discovered - halfway up a mountain in the Alps - the largest dinosaur footprints to be found to date in Europe. My Dad and stepmother Sarah recently happened on a dinosaur museum while traveling through Blanding, Utah, so I have uploaded them here.

Preserved in amber 2/24/09 A new species of an ancient gecko was found in the forest of Myanmar (Burma) preserved in amber in 2008. The amber preserved its toes, with their characteristic sticky hairs, and part of its tail. Here is another article about all of the new species discovered in the Himilayas.

Man on Wire 2/23/09 A priest dressed in traditional garb took part in a daredevil stunt in East Sussex, England, to raise money for charity - he walked a tightrope 80' in the air with no net and no training.

Corpse flower 1/30/09 I haven't specifically blogged about carnivorous plants, but here's a story too good to pass up: a newly discovered species of pitcher plant large enough to eat a rat!

Ancient animals 1/19/09 "Billy," a 110-year-old Galapagos tortoise, has finally mated with 47-year-old "Tammy" after spurning her advances for 15 years! Their 7 eggs are due to hatch in 8 to 12 weeks.

Follow-ups and followers 1/9/09 In the follow-up to my frozen reindeer post, I added the photo of the moose that got strung up on a telephone pole. In the weird news recently was the story of a live ram that was rescued from a telephone pole in Norway when his horn got caught and he abseiled down the wire!

Internal decapitation 12/28/08 Chris Stewart, a 14-year-old boy from Hampshire, England, is the first person to completely recover from (and only the 6th to survive) having his skull separated from his spine, and is back on the track - but in a go-kart rather than a racecar.

Albinos 11/18/08 More albino animals: A porcupine named "Blondie" lives with her sister at the London Zoo. A rare albino swallow made an appearance in Aberdeenshire, England.

Fatal tiger maulings 11/10/08 The 2 brothers who survived the Christmas Day 2007 tiger attack described in this post were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and giving false identification to police after they were stopped when swerving on the highway and found with an open bottle of vodka in the car.

Zeppelin 10/26/09 Here is a great slideshow of the construction and destruction of the dirigible Hindenburg.

Amputation 10/19/08 Riam Dean of London has won an employment suit against Abercrombie & Fitch. The 22-year-old amputee had been taken off the sales floor and made to work in the stockroom because her prosthetic arm did not meet with the store's image.

Alive! 9/25/09 The survivors of the plane crash in the Andes, whose survival cannibalism was documented in books and films, are urging fellow Uruguayans to sign up for a government-run organ donation program.

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Phew, I've got to do my follow-ups more often...

Squid ink

Another incredible fossil find, this time by the British Geological Survey at a site in Wiltshire, England, that produced vast quantities of well-preserved specimens during the Victorian era. They discovered the 150 million-year-old fossil of a squid with a perfectly preserved ink sac! Astonished paleontologists attribute this to the "Medusa Effect," an extremely quick process of fossilization. To mark the discovery, they reliquified some of the ink with an ammonia solution and used it to draw the specimen and write its Latin name, Belemnotheutis antiquus, beneath it. Some of the ink has been sent to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, for chemical analysis, and lead researcher Dr. Phil Wilby explains, "It's very valuable material so we won't be using up any more of it now we've done the first test." Contemporary squid ink, on the other hand, is pricey, but available on-line. Or if you are more adventurous, you may choose to harvest it yourself, as demonstrated here. I was familiar with the use of squid ink for cooking, but not for printing, and when I looked it up, I found this video - hilariously well-done, no?! Here's how the stuff is produced in the wild. I also wondered if tattoo artists used squid ink, but its seems that the answer is no, despite the number of studios called "Squid Ink Tattoo." Time to try some squid ink pasta...

The narwhal

A watercolor of a narwhal from a series of whales painted by Scottish naturalist Sir William Jardine and published in his 4-volume The Naturalist's Library, 2nd Ed. (1845-1864).

A pod of narwhals surfacing for air.

A pod of narwhals swimming through Baffin Bay, between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

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A narwhal tusk, which is an extension of the left tooth in males.

What a magical creature is the narwhal! Originally described by Swedish zoologist and father of modern taxonomy Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), its scientific name Monodon monoceros means "one tooth, one horn." That horn is a hollow tusk that extends as a left-handed helix from the incisor in the left upper jaw. It grows to a length of 7' to 10' in males, 1 in 500 of which grow a second tusk out of the right incisor, and is a rarity among females. English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) suggested that the tusk helped maintain social rank and modern biologists compare it to the peacock's tail or the antlers of a stag, since narwhals are rarely observed fighting or breaking ice with it. Instead, they engage in "tusking," which is to rub their tusks together as if they are sword-fighting, while emitting a strange and sad whistle (listen here). The population of narwhals is estimated to be about 75,000 and holding, although their specialized Arctic range and diet make them vulnerable to climate change. They are being studied in Qaanaaq, Greenland, by American researcher Kristin Laidre with the help of 5 local Inuit hunters. According to Inuit legend, the tusk was formed when a narwhal was harpooned by a woman who was dragged into the sea and became a narwhal herself - it was her hair that twisted into the characteristic spiral shape. In medieval Europe, the tusks were thought to belong to the unicorn and believed to have magical properties. They were a staple in the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities. The word "narwhal" comes from Old Norse and means "corpse whale," referring to their mottled coloring (black and white on top and white underneath), which was thought to resemble a drowned sailor. But this morbid detail is only one of the reasons the unicorn of the sea belongs in Quigley's Cabinet!

Surviving rabies

The best way to survive rabies - which kills 55,000 people a year worldwide - is, of course, to avoid it. The zoonotic disease is transmitted from rabid animals - most often dogs and bats - through their saliva via a bite or scratch. Jeanna Giese (pictured at age 19), is the first person known to have survived rabies without receiving vaccine beforehand (pre-exposure immunization) or afterward (post-exposure prophylaxis). She was bitten by a rabid bat in Wisconsin in 2004 and since then, two others have been saved using the same treatment involving a medically-induced coma, now known as the "Milwaukee protocol": a 15-year-old boy in Brazil, who was also bitten by a bat, and an 8-year-old Colombian girl, who had been bitten by an infected cat (and later died of unrelated causes).
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The first symptoms of rabies are flu-like (fever, headache, and fatigue), followed by respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neurological signs. The disease quickly progresses to either "furious rabies," characterized by hyperactivity, or "dumb rabies," characterized by partial paralysis. In both forms, the victim becomes completely paralyzed, lapses into a coma, and dies from respiratory failure within 7 days. An unattributed video of a victim of rabies is here (caution). Some of the stranger symptoms exhibited by a 13-year-old Connecticut girl who died in 1995 are as follows: deviation of her uvula and later her tongue to the left, pharyngeal spasms, and tactile hallucinations (she complained of a sensation of insects in her mouth). In 2005, 4 transplant recipients in Texas contracted rabies from a single organ donor who had developed rapid neurological deterioration and died of a clinically unsuspected case; after the donor's kidneys, liver, and vascular tissue were transplanted, all four died within 48 hours. But the report of the case states that the estimated risk of rabies infection from solid organ transplantation is less than 1:1,000,000,000,000.

Leonardo's lion

A mechanical lion invented by Leonardo da Vinci to entertain French king Francois I (1494-1597) has just been recreated at the Chateau de Clos Luce in Ambroise. "We loved the idea that Leonardo was not only an artist and an engineer, but also a fabulous stage director, a master of special effects," said the president of the private museum. "He knew how to satisfy an audience with amazing creations. He was the George Lucas of his time." The lion is wound up by hand, then takes about 10 steps forward, shaking its head from side to side, wagging its tail, and opening and closing its mouth (click on photo for video). Da Vinci was a master of automata, some of which he built and others of which exist only as descriptions or drawings in his many notebooks. Models of his inventions have been replicated as hobbies (flying machine, mechanical hammer), class projects (crankshaft, mill), and museum pieces (tank, automobile). Here are images of more machines and here are descriptions of some of the inventions featured in a traveling exhibit. If you are interested in reading more, here is an interview about the proto-car and a book about da Vinci's robots. Now my imagined dinner table includes Robert Ripley, Leonardo da Vinci, and an Italian translator!

Animal clarity

Ages ago, I remember seeing a nature program about animal intelligence. Researchers had put a banana in the center of a clear tube, open at both ends, that was just past the reach of a monkey's arm. The aim was to see if the animal would use a tool to push or pull the fruit out. The monkeys wanted that banana, but none thought to use a stick to extend their reach. But one of them did have a bright idea. He snatched up a baby monkey, shoved it in the tube and pulled it back out, and then stole the banana that the little guy had retrieved! I couldn't find a clip of this, but did find mention of such an experiment and similar animal cognitive studies of monkeys.
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My memory had been sparked by a story in the scientific weird news about hermit crabs moving into hand-blown glass shells, which allows researchers at New Zealand's Marine Science Centre to visualize how they get in and out of their adopted homes and what they do in there, including aerate their eggs. I went in search of other animals in clear housing for purposes of scientific observation and found this National Geographic video of my old friend the octopus, demonstrating the flexibility it has without any bones or air bladders. This 600-pounder squeezes through a passageway the diameter of a quarter! The narrator asks, "Can you imagine how fun it would be to be an octopus?" Only on Halloween, my friend, only on Halloween...

Four films

This 1975 documentary follows Jacqueline Kennedy's relatives Edith Bouvier Beale (1895-1977) and her daughter "Little Edie" (1917-2002), who were eccentric and co-dependent hoarders. It is one of the few films that my friend Chris walked out on, imagining the stench of so many cats in their decaying mansion in East Hampton, New York. My Mom and I watched this on dvd a few years ago, and watched the 2009 TV movie of the same title recently. We enjoyed both films immensely and thought Drew Barrymore did a remarkable job portraying "Little Edie."
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I had seen this documentary and heard the director speak at the 2006 Silverdocs Festival. The movie captured all the emotion surrounding the suicide jumpers who leap from the Golden Gate Bridge - the number one spot from which to do so. They filmed almost every daylight hour for a year, and from several angles, and were criticized for it, but they did intervene if they spotted a likely jumper. The film brought attention to the fact that the bridge has no barricades to prevent jumping, and I just saw in the weird news that a permanent net is finally being installed.
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We saw this 2009 film at the theater yesterday. We both enjoyed it and neither of us found any fault with it. The biographical bits rounded out my picture of Julia Child (1912-2004) and a truer image - not Dan Ackroyd's spoof, which is featured in the film - appears in my mind's eye when I think of her. She was cremated, by the way, and her ashes were scattered, but not in her beloved Paris.
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We watched this 2007 dark comedy the other night and I enjoyed it, even though I see that it rates only 33% on the tomatometer. The basic plot line is the inheritance of a funeral home and the antics involved to make it profitable again. One review states that any episode of Six Feet Under had "more sharp, mordant wit and freewheeling derangement" than this film, but I quite liked it - it made me both laugh and wince.

Ripley's Seeing is Believing

One day on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia, a couple of years ago, my Dad, stepmother, and I went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum, followed by a visit to the Yankee Candle Outlet. My sister and family spent the day at the nearby waterpark and when they arrived back at the house, they commented on my purchase - a plush two-headed snake. "What a great souvenir from Ripley's!" "No," I replied, "I got it at Yankee Candle!"
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That is my lead-in to a description of the 6th Believe It or Not! annual published by Ripley's, Seeing Is Believing, which I just received yesterday. It begins by commenting that if you want the meal to be a lively and interesting one, you would do well to answer "Robert Ripley" to the question of which famous figure you would like to have dinner with. While that question is rhetorical, you can dine with Ripley in the form of this book. You'll only have to have a strong stomach for parts of it, like the snake eating a wallaby and the heron eating a rabbit (which reminded me of this video of a pelican eating a pigeon); seahorse kebabs and fried spiders; and the man who had a tooth implanted in his eye. The book is bursting with full-color photos, some of which are identified by a special symbol corresponding to further information on the website. It's got recent examples of Ripley's mainstays like the biggest ball of string (in this case, a rubber band ball), things built out of matchsticks, lots of two-headed animals, long fingernails (note that Lee Redmond no longer holds the record), and the perennial gross-out of a man with a snake going in his nose and coming out his mouth. Complementing the museum exhibit of Mike the headless chicken is an account of hen hypnosis. This year's annual features extreme Scrabble, a man doing a "William Tell" with a watermelon on his head, submersion in a crocodile cage rather than a shark cage, and competitive eating.
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I have blogged about some of the book's subjects myself: amputees (here the double-arm transplant, a dentist with no arms, and the first armless pilot), roadkill, strange trees, robo-animals (repair of a crocodile's broken jaw, penguin with a wetsuit, chihuahuas with wheels), Chinese footbinding, giant Bao Xishun, and polydactyly. Most of the tidbits in the book are contemporary rather than historical - which my blog posts tend to favor, but there is a spread on Houdini and a fold-out of Barnum attractions. Seeing Is Believing also include things I have yet to blog about, namely feral children, the rat king, and primordial dwarves. And it covers stories that benefit by having your ear to the ground. For instance, it includes the news that a 70-year-old has become a mother, but does not mention that the oldest mother of twins died in July at the age of 69. This hardcover book may not compete as well with the weird news on the web, except for the fact that it has a thorough index. So if you are a Fortean and need something to keep yourself occupied when you're away from the computer, you can get one for under $20 from Amazon - and if you are willing to decide by the end of the day on August 15th, you can get a copy from Ripley's for only $15.

Lefties

Happy International Lefthanders Day to all readers of the sinistral persuasion (including my sister)! If you are curious to know who else was or is left-handed, there is a comprehensive list here or videos with the highlights: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Speaking of handwriting, I wondered last week about the origin of the phrase "round robin," which is one of my favorites. As it turns out, it refers to a petition signed in a circle (pictured) so that the order of the signers was disguised and the ringleaders could not be identified - it originated in the 18th c. with sailors, who sent such a list of grievances to the captain.

Mona Lisa(s)

"La Giocanda" has been in the news again. Better known as the "Mona Lisa," the painting by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was undamaged on Sunday when a Russian tourist threw a cup of English breakfast tea at the Italian icon in her French home. The Louvre now protects this most-famous-painting-in-the-world from vandalism and camera flashes with 2cm bulletproof glass (although the guards still complain about the stress). Apart from the 6 million visitors who view her annually, "Mona Lisa" has been scrutinized by artists and scientists and the findings reported in the news - most recently, in June of this year, when a similar nude painting surfaced and a film was released documenting the virtual unraveling of the canvas; in 2007, when digital scans revealed that her smile was once larger and more expressive; in 2004, when it was announced that the wood panel on which she was painted has warped...and so on.
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She has been copied and caricatured by many famous artists, including Marcel Duchamp in 1919, Salvador Dali in 1954, and Andy Warhol in 1963. But her ever so recognizable image has also been reproduced in many media, and the results reported in the weird news - earlier this month, when it was composed of 3,604 cups of coffee; in April 2009, when her image was used to demonstrate how much grease there is in hamburgers; in March 2009, when her image was recreated using sheep outfitted with LED lights; in 2008, when the world record for the smallest "Mona Lisa" was broken, one of many Etch-a-Sketch versions was uploaded, and the "Mythbuster" team recreated her in 80 milliseconds using a programmed paintball machine; in 2005, when Rolf Harris assembled a patchwork of pieces by 120 different amateur and professional artists; and when American artist Jean Zaun began crafting the image in chocolate, Japanese artist Tadhiko Okawa rendered her from 1,426 pieces of toast, and Mexican artist Enrique Ramos painted her on a bean.
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Clearly, the "Funeral of Mona Lisa," created by Chinese artist Mei-Ping and displayed in the Louvre in February 2009, has not sounded a death knell. If you're still eager for more, check out this blog post.

Dionne Quintuplets

Now that the publicity surrounding the Octomom has died down, let us return to the quintessential story of childhood exploitation: the Dionne Quintuplets. Born 3 months premature in Canada in 1934, they were the first quintuplets known to survive infancy - and they were identical. After spending only 4 months with their family (mother, father, and 5 siblings), the girls were removed from their home and became wards of the Ontario government under the guardianship of Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, who had delivered them. A nursery was set up across the street from their home, and the outdoor playground was designed to be an observation area - for the 6,000 tourists a day who came to see them at what became known as Quintland! The attraction drew more visitors than the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, provided income to the Dionne family and other locals who sold souvenirs, and put the quintuplets' photos on any number of commercial products. In 1943, the parents regained custody of the girls, but they compelled them to perform and dress identically, and treated them differently than their other children. The girls later revealed that they were also sexually abused by their father at this time. The Dionne sisters left home at 18 and had little contact with their parents afterward. Emilie became a nun, but had an epileptic seizure at her convent and died of suffocation in 1954 (age 20). In 1964, they cowrote an often bitter autobiography. Marie married, but died of an apparent blood clot in the brain in 1970 (age 35). The Dionnes had starred in 4 films as children, but it was when the 3 surviving quints were interviewed during the making of a 1994 TV drama about their lives called "Million Dollar Babies" that they fully realized how strange and sad their own story is. In 1998 they reached a settlement of $4 million with the Ontario government. Yvonne died of cancer in 2001 (age 67), but Annette and Cecile had each married, had children, and divorced, and now live together (age 75) in Montreal. Be sure to watch the clips here.