Scrimshaw crimpers

"Seeing his appendage, I held out my ivory arm, and he his ivory leg, and it was as good a handshake between comrades as flesh itself ever pressed," recounts the one-armed Captain Boomer upon meeting the one-legget Captain Ahab in the historical novel I am reading, which is based on the classic Moby Dick. I wondered whether maimed whalers ever did carve prosthetic limbs from the bones of their prey. But a web search and an image search indicated that this idea is fictional. Instead, I found that 19th c. American whalemen spent their idle hours carving a myriad of pie crimpers to present to their mothers, wives, and sweethearts after their long sea voyages. As the examples above from the New Bedford Whaling Museum show, they are as fancy as the designs and edgings on the pies they were used to create. Scrimshaw crimpers. Say that 5 times real fast!

Posted with Blogsy

Right and wrong

On Monday, I underwent the 1st step of having a tooth crowned. Right before the dentist began, his assistant read from my chart, "Today, we are preparing a crown for #31 on the lower left - I mean lower right..." My immediate response: "Don't take off the wrong leg!" We all laughed, but it's not a joke for those to whom it's actually happened:

Tampa, Florida, U.S. / March 1995
Willie King, a 51-year-old diabetic, was told in the recovery room at University Community Hospital that instead of removing his gangrenous right foot, surgeons had mistakenly amputated his left leg below the knee. King's brother commented, "Now he'll be without any legs at all. He's very depressed about it."

Callao, Peru / January 2010
Doctors at the Alberto Sabogal Hospital amputated the healthy leg of an 86-year-old man before realizing their mistake. "I was shocked when I lifted the sheets and saw they had taken his left leg. The ulcer was on his right leg and they had to amputate that one too to keep the infection from spreading," said his daughter.

Sankt Johann, Austria / June 2010
Surgeons removed the wrong leg of a 91-year-old woman. She was suffering from vascular disease, so they were forced to amputate the correct leg below the hip as planned a few days later.

These are a few examples of a much larger issue. According  to estimates, wrong-site surgery occurs 40 times a week in U.S. hospitals and clinics. In the U.K., lungs were transplanted into a patient of the wrong blood type, healthy kidneys were removed, an unnecessary hysterectomy was performed, the wrong leg was amputated, and holes were drilled on the wrong side of a neurosurgery patient's head. Mistakes have multiple causes, including mixing up left and right, operating on a patient who was accidentally given someone else's test results, marking the incorrect site, or failing to mark the site at all. In addition, surgeons may not be open to a pre-surgery checklist and members of the surgical team may be reluctant to speak up if they think something might be wrong. John Clarke, surgeon and clinical director of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, asks, “If you can’t solve the wrong-site-surgery problem, what can you solve?”

__________

Auto-appendectomy

Drill surgery

Ben Carson

Less brain, more heart

Elephantine eye surgery

Butterfly surgery

Viable

Internal cacophany

Breastless chest

Checking on Charla

Time to check in on Charla Nash, who has undergone numerous surgeries since the pet chimpanzee of a friend attacked her in February 2009, leaving her without her nose, an eyelid, her lips, and both hands. Doctors took out her eyes when they became infected. She received a double-hand transplant, but they had to be removed when she contracted pneumonia, which affected her circulation. Surgeons have had more luck with her face, though it's required numerous operations. Nash, now 58, can speak, smell, and she can eat (a good thing, because doctors want her to gain weight). She is in physical rehabilitation (video here) and has someone with her when she walks. She will require long-term care and will take medication for the rest of her life. She is building up her strength to sustain the weight of new hands, but also to express her emotions. "Every day my muscles get better. I can smile,"she says. The June 2011 photograph above shows her exercising, and the series below documents her progress from the initial injuries to the remarkable improvements leading up to and following her 4th face transplant last year.

FEBRUARY 2009

MARCH 2010

AUGUST 2011

NOVEMBER 2011

FEBRUARY 2012

MARCH 2012

___________

Previous posts about animal attacks:

Bear bites butt

Suicide by animal

Leopard lynching

Zookeeper deaths

Killer squid

Harar hyenas

Of two minds about wolves

Fatal coyote attack

Jaws in 1916

Fatal tiger maulings

Robo-animal round-up

 

 

I've been following and following up on animals that have been outfitted with prosthetic limbs since my 1st post on April 9, 2009, about a turtle with a rudder, the dolphin with the neoprene fluke, and a crocodile whose jaw was repaired with a plate and screws. The latest is a lovely llama named Bella (photos above, video here), one of 40 llamas on a ranch in California who injured her leg when she accidentally stepped into a gopher hole 2 years ago. After she experienced a serious infection and mobility issues, owners Chuck and Trish Brandt-Robuck made the decision to amputate to save the animal's life. Prosthetist Michael Carlson of the Hanger Clinic, who helped repair Winter's tail, designed and fitted the llama with a rear leg that allows her to walk and run. "She was a pleasure to work with. No bites and no spits." Bella - now 13 and expected to live another 10 years - will even be able to breed.

Here are the stories about other bionic animals I have linked to: 

Eagle, stork, and toucan with repaired beaks

Cat with artificial knee

Border collie, Belgian shepherd with wheels

Pony with prosthetic leg

Miniature horse with artificial limb

Calf with prosthetic lower back legs

Asian elephant with prosthetic leg (video here)

Elephant calf with false foot

Turtle on furniture sliders

Tortoise with swivel wheel

Tortoise on Tonka truck chassis

Penguin in a wetsuit

Here are some robo-animals I missed:

Cat with implanted paw

Dog on wheels

Sheep with prosthetic leg

Goat with prosthetic leg

Fawn with prosthetic limbs

Parrot with an artificial leg (scroll down)

Sandhill crane with prosthetic leg (scroll down)

Kangaroo with artificial limb (scroll down)

There are now many veterinarians and prosthetists who are designing artificial limbs and body parts for injured animals. The domestic and wild animals benefit from the latest developments in human prosthetics, but humans also benefit from outfitting amputee animals. Working with their variety, but unrestrained by the necessity of the clinical trials required for humans, is called "a recipe for innovation." Another benefit of working with animals is their lack of vanity: "Indeed, the de facto response for many animals fitted with prosthetics is to parade around as though nothing about their bodies is unusual. They are indifferent about the appearance of their new appendages and seem to live free from the social pressures that so often affect humans aided by similar devices."

Arm upgrade

Trevor Prideaux (pictured), a 50-year-old catering manager from Somerset, U.K., has made international news for the modification he has made to his prosthesis (more photo here). Prideaux was born without a left forearm and has worn a prosthetic limb since the age of 3. When updating from a regular cellphone to a smartphone, the disadvantage of his disability sparked an idea. "[I]t became clear that this piece of technology was not ideally suited to be used with only one hand. When testing an iPhone, with the thoughts of purchase, I had to balance it on my prosthetic limb to text. I wondered whether it was possible to have a mobile phone built into my limb, to aid usage." He worked with Nokia and his local Exeter Mobility Centre to embed a phone dock right in his fibreglass and laminate limb. It took just 5 weeks for prosthethist Steve Gallichan, technician Les Street, and undergraduate worker Sarah Bennett to create a prototype. With his Nokia C7 stable, he has an easier time with the voice and keyboard capabilities. "Now when I get a call I can either hold my arm up to my ear or put it on speaker phone. I can also take it out if I need to. Texting is also much easier and a lot safer." Prideaux hopes the arm-dock idea will catch on. "I think this would help a lot of people with prosthetic arms—especially those who were not born with the disability." But I hope that this postmodern adaptation will become an option in the more futuristic prostheses - like the I-Limb hand, the Luke arm, and the Immaculate - in addition to the classic Hosmer hook that he prefers. "My Nokia C7 sits within my forearm, between my stump socket and the single knob rotary that holds my limb attachments in place."

She's 90 and she's on the mend...

“I always tell her not to do that, but that’s like telling a bird not to sing,” said a relative of Margaret Webb (1st image, inset), describing how she enjoyed picking mangoes from a tree near the water's edge of her Copeland, Florida, yard. She may have been doing just that on Wednesday when an 8' alligator lunged out out of the canal and grabbed her by the ankle. Her friend Dwain Daniels III (2nd image, inset) happened to be driving by as Margaret was being dragged into the water. Without missing a beat, he grabbed his .22 rifle, ran to the scene, and shot the animal in the eye. He summoned Margaret's son, they called 911, and together they pulled her from the canal - minus her lower leg. Police and paramedics responded, and Margaret was flown to nearby Lee Memorial Hospital (slideshow here). Daniels' quick thinking probably saved Margaret's life, but he was shaken by the event and deflected any congratulations. “She’s the sweetest, strong-willed Christian woman there is. She’s as nice as the day is long. Everglades is like family, and it’s nothing I did that anybody else wouldn’t have done.” Wranglers were unable to locate the alligator, but expected it to rise to the surface of the canal within a few days if it was fatally shot. Meanwhile, surgeons had to amputate Margaret's left leg below the knee. She also had bite wounds on her right leg and a broken arm and toe. She was placed in an induced coma to help avoid infection, but her condition has since been upgraded from critical to serious. “She’s a resilient lady....You don’t get to be 90 and not be.”

Amputation kits

Surgeon's kits for the amputation of limbs - which received plenty of use during the American Civil War - do not seem to have changed much to the eye of the lay observer (compare this kit from the Revolutionary War). But the professional can easily spot the nuances (here's a set with ivory handles) and improvements over the years. Nevertheless, they did not need to be altered for use in different professions (here are kits used on sailors and coal miners). The standard 19th c. kits included a useful selection of the following instruments (see labeled images here and here):

• bone saw - used to quickly cut through bone
• capital saw - for resection of large bones of the arm or leg
• bone chain saw - for cutting bone in tight spaces
• hey saw - to cut into the skull
• metacarpal saw - used to cut fingers and tendons
• amputation knives - often double-edged and sometimes folding, concave were for used for circular amputation, straight-edge for tissue separation
• catlin knife - a thin double-sided blade for cutting in both directions for instance when dividing flesh and vessels
• liston knife - for cutting through flesh and muscle
• scalpel - a straight blade for tissue incision
• bistoury - a curved scalpel for dissecting ligaments and tissue
• trephine or terebrum - for drilling a core of bone
• bone chisel and hammer - to trim bone
• tenaculum - for hooking arteries to pull them out enough to tie them off
• ronguer - for trimming bone fragments or finishing cuts
• forceps - for removing bullets, holding an artery while tying it off
• scissors
• tourniquet - to compress arteries above the cut during amputation
• Bone brush - to remove bone sawdust from the cutting site

These antique amputation kits are not in short supply, and many are curated by museums (such as the Rose Melnick Medical Museum and the Civil War Museum at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield). If you want to add one to your own collection, you just have to be prepared to shell out a few hundred bucks at an auction (Cowan's, WorthPoint) or antique store.

Thanks to Yvonne for the idea!

Service animals

There has been controversy brewing about what constitutes a legal service animal. New federal guidelines issued just last month by the U.S. Department of Justice for the Americans with Disabilities Act limit service animals to dogs and housebroken miniature horses, but the recommendations are not binding to states and municipalities.

Rats? A Hesperia, California, woman has lobbied the city council to allow her to continue using her rat (1st image), which alerts her to spasms she can't feel because of spinal nerve injuries.

Lizards? A disabled veteran has been allowed to keep his service lizards - an iguana (2nd image), a skink, and a bearded dragon - in his San Francisco apartment.

Monkeys? New Orleans police confiscated 4 monkeys from a Florida tourist and her caretaker that they said provide her comfort and emotional support for her autism. She and the monkeys were dressed as pirates at the time and posing for photos in the French Quarter. A Missouri woman sued Walmart (and lost) for the right to shop with a monkey that helps her with social anxiety disorder.

Ferrets? A couple in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was kicked out of a local mall for carrying a ferret (3rd image) that alerts the woman when her husband is about to have a siezure.

Snakes? A man from Shelton, Washington, lobbied the state not to narrow the definition of service animals and thereby prevent him from carrying a snake that hugs him when he is about to have an epileptic seizure.

Birds? A St. Louis man carries a service parrot on his shoulder to help control his psychotic tendencies.

Pigs? The pot-bellied pig used as a service animal by a North Carolina family with a daughter who has seizures and a son with Down's Syndrome was accidentally shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy who mistook it for a wild boar.

When the Transportation Department liberalized its definition of service animals in 2003, it created problems for the airlines - and a backlash from other travelers, on of whom commented on-line, “I kinda feel I have the right not to have a goat in the seat next to me, no matter how comforting its presence is to the third person in the row.” But sometimes it's not the species that is called into question, it's the legitimacy of traditional animals. Service animals are intended to guide the blind, signal the hearing-impaired, and assist persons with other disabilities. But some dog owners just want to be able to bring their animals with them into stores and restaurants, so their pets become impostors, wearing "therapy dog" vests and bearing service animal credentials - both of which can be purchased on-line. They get away with fraud because their would-be accusers are afraid to ask any questions other than the legally-sanctioned "Is this a service dog for disabilities?" and "What tasks or assistance does the dog provide you with?"

Zsa Zsa

The husband of Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (b. 1917) has been criticized recently for staging publicity stunts as the aging star (pictured in her prime and last year) fights for her life. German socialite Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (b. 1943), whom she married in 1986, has most recently revealed that he wants the 94-year-old to become a mother again! Back in September, he told a German newspaper that he wants to have his wife's body plastinated by Gunther von Hagens when she dies and then put her on show. He says, "My wife has always dreamt that her beauty would be immortal. I would like to show the plastinated body of Zsa Zsa Gabor in the context of a scene in one of her films." Having studied the plastinates in graduate school, I can shed some light on that:

1. Gunther von Hagens intends his plastinates to be anatomical entities, hence they are displayed without skin to reveal their underlying organs, vessels, and musculature. He follows aesthetic principles to render them visually pleasing so that we are not put off by the confrontation with our own corporeality and mortality. This would make Gabor's body, now missing a limb, ineligible. As he explains, "The aesthetic pose, which is occasionaly criticized, is what helps dispel revulsion; because it is so powerful, it also promotes emotional awareness.”
2. To achieve his goal of using an individual body to represent a universal anatomy, von Hagens strips plastinates of their individual identities (even though he reinvests them with a generic postmortem identity, such as a swimmer or a dancer). In his own words, "Anonymity neutralizes the individual, emotional bonds to the deceased and underscores the change in meaning of a corpse from an object of mourning to one of study."
3. For these reasons, I believe von Hagens would find it inappropriate to plastinate the body of a known celebrity. Besides which, although he gratefully accepts body donations, he does not - as far as I know - take on commissions.

Devin and Viktoria

Viktoria Modesta (1st image)
Age: 23, Height: 5' 7", Weight: 122 lbs, Hips: 36" Cup: B, Hair: Shoulder-length black, Eyes: Green Ethnicity: Caucasian, Skin color: White
Modeling genres: Editorial, fashion, hair/makeup
Viktoria is a model, musician, and performance artist living in London. She is also a below-the-knee amputee. About her prosthetic limbs, she says: “They enable me to do exactly what I want to do. I can move with them in ways I never could with my old leg.”

Devin Coffin (2nd image)
Age: 19, Height: 5' 8", Weight: 127 lbs, Hips: 37", Cup: C, Hair: Very Long black, Eyes: Green
Ethnicity: Caucasian, Skin color: White
Genres: Art, bodypaint, editorial, erotic, fashion, fetish, glamor, hair/makeup, lifestyle, lingerie, promotional, runway, swimwear
About her modeling she says: "I want to show the world that women with limb deficiencies can still be beautiful."

Which is more difficult?

Taking care of 1,500 dogs? Chinese businesswoman Ha Wenjin (1st image) gave up her career and sold her house, her car, and her jewelry to adopt more than 1,500 stray dogs. "At first I did this in my spare time, but as I gathered more and more abandoned pets, I had to work full time for them," she explains. She was not an animal hoarder, but was in fact committed to establishing a dog rescue center in Tangquan County, Nanjing. A staff of 10 volunteers helped her look after the dogs and others donated hundreds of pork buns to keep them fed. Unfortunately, the local government reclaimed the land on which the unofficial shelter was located. "I had to find a new place which was deserted [and very cheap to rent] and not close to any human habitat, as 1,500 dogs are not quiet." Nor are they clean. Ha has found a series of sites, but relocating the dogs requires the use of 4 buses and the help of many pooper scoopers to clean the vehicles up after the move. Most recently, the stray animal shelter - called Ping'an Afu, which means safety and happiness - relocated to a mountain village on the outskirts of Nanjing. The volunteer pool has grown to 300, but donations barely sustain the place.

or

Caring for 1/10th as many children without legs? The children aren't amputees, she is. Chinese woman Xu Yuehua (2nd image) lost both legs at the age of 12 when she was hit by a train while gathering coal by the tracks. She lost both parents 5 years later and was taken in by the Xiangtan Orphan's House in Hunan Province. After teaching herself to walk using stools, Xu began helping out with the other children, washing, feeding, changing, clothing, and cleaning them. After 37 years, she has worn out more than 40 stools, and helped raise more than 130 orphans. One of them - Sheng Li, who was born with a harelip and abandoned as a baby, credits Xu with saving her life and remembers, "Her stool walking was the most beautiful sound to me then."

Follow-ups

A generous helping of vegetables 9/23/10 Schools in Ohio and New York introduce carrot vending machines.

Killer squid 8/31/10 A truck hauling squid crashed in a California broccoli field.

Microhylids 8/28/10 Conservation International's search for lost amphibians has revealed another frog. An Australian lizard is evolving fromy laying eggs to giving live birth.

Audubon ate 'em 8/27/10 A rare copy of Birds of America, valued at $6 to $9 million, will be auctioned.

Frank Buck 8/16/10 A train kills a herd of elephants in India.

Ancient spirits 8/19/10 American researchers find that ancient beer was used as medicine.

Churchill's choppers 7/16/10 George Washington's dentures are on display in a traveling exhibit.

Fatal lightning 7/12/10 Earlier in the month, Hong Kong was hit by the record number of 13,000 lightning strikes in one hour. Meanwhile, rare fire tornadoes were observed in Brazil and Hawaii.

White elephants 6/29/10 Ceremony is held for a white elephant in Burma.

Swimming the English Channel 6/2/10 After successfully swimming the English Channel, quadruple amputee plans to swim the Strait of Gibraltar from Europe to Africa.

Crafty bees 5/14/10 Dog that ate a beehive wins award. Honeybees are "morning people," and like a warm drink on a chilly morning. A swarm of bees traps a North Carolina deputy in his car for 3 hours. A Texas man is stung by 1,200 bees. A Massachusetts woman is stung 500 times by wasps. A Florida treetrimmer was stung by at least 500 Africanized bees.

Environmental disaster 4/30/10 The government denies a connection between the BP oil spill and a massive fish kill in Louisiana. A total of 3,634 dead birds have been collected from th Gulf.

Xenoglossia 4/17/10 A British grandmother developed Foreign Accent Syndrome. Another woman with a rare neurological disorder has been nicknamed the "Flamingo Lady."

Corpses in strange places 4/6/10 A French chef in the freezer. A British soldier at his wedding (in spirit). A Pennsylvanian at the mall. A Japanese mother in the closet. British babies in a wardrobe. A North Carolina woman in a hearse (for 9 days). A California doctor in her boyfriend's chimney. A burial at sea failed in Florida when the body surfaced. And human remains are found in a mass grave as a result of a ghost story.

Dwarfs on display 3/26/10 World's shortest man is now 27" Colombian.

Evelyn McHale 3/2/10 A comment on this post by a reader who has researched McHale adds details about her life: "Evelyn Francis McHale was born in Berkeley California Sept. 20, 1923. She was the sixth of seven children....Around 1930, they moved to Washington, D.C., where her father became an examiner for the Federal Land Bank. Also at this time her mother left, moving to an apartment in another part of Washington. The father retained custody of all seven children. Evelyn was 6....After high school, in 1943, Evelyn became a WAC and was stationed in Jefferson Missouri. Friends say that when she was discharged, she burned her uniform. At some point, she moved to New York City to work, living with her brother and sister in law. She met and became engaged to a young man named Barry Rhodes, a 24-year-old who was just out of the Air Force and attending Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. They were to be married at his brother's house in Troy, New York. A year before her death, Evelyn had been a bridesmaid at Barry's younger brother's wedding. After the wedding, she removed her bridesmaid gown, said, 'I never want to see this again,' and burned it. On the day she jumped, Barry said, she seemed happy and looking forward to the marriage as she boarded the train home. There was a security guard less than twelve feet from where she jumped. In her suicide note, she wrote, 'My fiance asked me to marry him in June, but I don't think I would make a good wife for anyone. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother's tendencies. I don't want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family - don't have any service or remembrance for me.' She was cremated per her request." Here is a description of a tour of a secret observation deck above the 102nd floor.

Treasure trove 3/1/10 A Roman helmet has been found in England and a rare coin has been found in Israel.

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 A man in Nebraska pretended to be drowning - and succeeded. A South African poacher on an illegal fishing trip is killed and eaten by a great white shark. A Green Party candidate riding her bicycle was struck and killed by an SUV. A Minnesota man who founded a DWI Ride Home program was not wearing his seatbelt when he was killed in a crash. A North Carolina man listening for the sounds of a ghost train is struck and killed by a real train. A total of 18 people died in Italy picking wild mushrooms, but from falls not poisoning. A British teen is stabbed to death trying out a knife-proof vest.

Natural arch collapse 1/26/10 I'm glad I didn't blog about the rediscovered Ansel Adams negatives, because the story is almost certainly a hoax.

Gulp! 1/16/10 Doctors compare stories about unusual foreign bodies they have removed from their patients.

Scapegoats and sineaters 1/13/10 The grave of the last sin-eater in England has been restored.

Sinkholes 1/12/10 A family in New York was swimming when the water suddenly got sucked out of their pool.

Supper clubs and speakeasies 1/3/10 A Prohibition-era beer tunnel has been discovered in Ohio. Italian castle on the market has a dungeon.

Child heroes 12/23/09 California toddler saves her Dad. Canadian boy holds yard sale to buy a gravestone for Dad.

Nero's dining room 12/19/09 Greeks find Odysseus' palace, suggesting Homer's tale was factual. Archaeologists discover the oldest house in Britain.

Otis elevator, part 2 12/13/09 St. Louis's Gateway Arch - which I have been to the top of - is in need of repair.

Alligator urban legends 11/14/09 A flurry of alligator sightings, including swimming in the Chicago River, stuck in a Florida storm drain, under a car in Queens, on a New Jersey nature walk. A Massachusetts woman bags a 1,025lb. alligator in South Carolina.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 Zoo Atlanta was missing a rattlesnake. Between 280 and 400 endangered crocodiles have escaped from a reserve in Mexico. A honey badger escaped from the zoo in Prague. The escape of a gibbon at Miami's Jungle Island triggered the escape of a 500lb tiger. A llama was also on the loose in Florida. A camel had to be rescued from a sinkhole on his owner's Oregon property. A ram broke though a window and ran wild in a house in England. Drunk baboons have taken over the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa, but a loose baboon in Missouri was apparently a hoax.

Humpback whales 11/10/09 A total of 73 pilot whales strand themselves on a New Zealand beach. A photographer has a close encounter with pilot whales.

Odd animals 11/4/09 A hairless chimpanzee.

Docking cow tails 10/27/09 After her trailer crashed in Michigan, Bella lived for a month in the woods. A wild cow was captured in a residential neighborhood of Arizona. World's smallest cow. Raising cows for Kobe beef. Glowing eyes may be a sign of mad cow disease.

Birds in fable and fact 10/22/09 British scientists observe that crows derive much of their most nutritious food by using sticks as tools.

Maldives 10/18/09 A hotel in Maldives offers an underwater bridal suite. Kiribati, which will be swamped by higher sea levels, closes off 150,000 sq. mi. of its territory to fishing to preserve it as a Marine Heritage Site.

Golf course oddities 10/14/09 A golf ball knocks out a kestrel in Sussex, U.K. A California golfer's ball sparks a 12-acre fire. A Massachusetts teenager dies mowing a golf course. A badly burned body with a severed foot was found near the 18th hole of a British golf course.

Snails 10/5/09 The sound of a snail eating gets a hospitalized woman through her darkest hour.

Gossamer 9/27/09 A deadly funnel web spider has been spotted in England.

Three clocks 9/20/09 The world's oldest working mechanical clock has been outfitted with an electric motor.

Pig butchering 9/1/09 A Florida animal control officer resigns after outrage about his slaughter and consumption of an adoptable pig.

Surviving rabies 8/18/09 Of the 3,500 Peruvians bitten by vampire bats recently, 20 have died of rabies. Bats are also terrorizing students at an Australian school. California woman attacked by 3 raccoons.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 A doctoral student in Canada has finally made a successful ornithopter!

Creative cremains 7/24/09 Cremation urns for trekkies. A U.K. company will press your ashes and the sound of your voice into a vinyl record. Artistic funeral urns.

X-raying fossils 7/5/10 An American team has determined that fossils of sponges 650myo may be the earliest animal life forms on earth.

Multi-purpose cemeteries 6/26/09 A pub is opening in a Rhode Island funeral home.

Birthing and hoarding bunnies 6/18/09 A Nevada man finds the body of his wife, who was missing for a month, in the clutter of their own home. New York officials rescue 80 cats from the home of an animal hoarder. A Georgia woman was living with 113 cats and 14 dogs in her house.

Vultures 5/4/09 A vulture strikes a medical helicopter in Arizona. Pilots in the U.K. warned to steer clear of stray vulture. A Native American tribe hopes to reintroduce the California condor. An Englishman can continue to take his pet owls for a walk. The fossilized bones of a bird with a wingspan of 17' have been found in Chile.

Rossetti's menagerie 5/1/09 An American millionaire leaves his fortune to Australia's Wombat Awareness Organization.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 A man in Canada fends off a polar bear with a punch in the nose, while a woman in Montana uses a zucchini. A bear in Nevada has reached legendary status. Three bears broke into a Colorado home. A Florida bear is freed from the jar on its head, while 3 others were killed by 2 vehicles in a single night.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 Burma claims to have found the world's oldest woman, aged 118. The oldest person in Britain died at 111. A Kansas judge is still on the bench at 103. A 101-year-old Nebraskan is also still on the job. An Englishman lives to 100 doing what he wants to do. A Scottish woman doesn't do it for 106 years. A Florida woman is still patronizing tattoo artists at the age of 101. Pension fraud is behind some of the 230,000 missing Japanese elderly. A 99-year-old New Hampshire woman received a letter from beyond the grave. A mysterious New York heiress is still alive at 104. A Florida man who died at 98 left 398 descendants.

Iceman 3/16/09 "Oetzi" may have been deliberately buried. Meanwhile, the body of an American climber has melted out of a Canadian glacier after 21 years.

Designer legs 3/15/09 Vintage prostheses, including the Victorian hand (pictured above). An Oklahoma man and a New Jersey woman receive double hand transplants. A Florida student's hand was yanked off by a horse. An Australian teenager loses his leg after being deliberately run down by the cab driver he stiffed. A Swedish man saves his father's life by cutting off his arm to free him from forest machinery. A Scottish teenager is getting accustomed to his high-tech prosthetic arm. Amputees gather in Texas for an annual hunting event. American soldiers are accused of taking fingers as trophies. A California woman's severed fingertip regenerates. CNN offers advice on what to do if body parts fall off.

Spider prey 3/7/09 Deadly funnel web spider found in Britain.

Crop circles 3/1/09 Why people are drawn to them.

White Bengal tiger 2/29/09 The MGM Grand in Las Vegas is under scrutiny after a lion attacked its trainer.

Footprints 2/28/09 A California scientist finds that ancient humans used stone tools even earlier than thought. Evidence from Spain suggests that early humans practiced cannibalism regularly.

Snake handlers 2/21/09 Photos from a West Virginia church. Polish newlyweds find 7' python in their toilet and an elderly Polish woman finds a 6' anaconda in hers. Wisconsin woman kills rattlesnake on her porch with an ice chopper. Guam is dealing with its brown tree snake problem by dropping poisoned mice from the sky.

Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 The Connecticut woman who owned the chimp that ripped up and nearly killed Charla Nash died back in May. A New York woman was attacked by a monkey in July while staying at a bed and breakfast. Meanwhile, a new monkey species is discovered in the Amazon.

Disturbingly young parents 2/14/09 An 11-year-old rape victim gives birth in Mexico.

Polydactyly 2/3/09 Thanks to Chase for this link to photos of the Ernest Hemingway Home, including one of the many polydactyl cats.

Speaking of taxidermy 2/1/09 Exotic animal mounts in Maine are looking for a good home.

Corpse flower 1/30/09 One of the rarest flowers in the world blooms for the 1st time in 200 years.

Animal accidents 1/16/09 University of Virginia researcher is studying bird vomit. British workers stripe a road right over a dead hedgehog.

More mammoths 1/6/09 British researchers confirm that mammoths were not hunted to extinction.

Rats! 12/20/08 Hundreds of frozen rats were stolen in Pennsylvania.

Alive! 9/25/08 Survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash lend their support to the miners trapped in Chile.