Beware of boulders!

On Wednesday, sales manager Ludovic Masciave, 36, was driving his car through the Arly Gorge in the French Alps. The road from Chamonix to Albertville (map here) is described by a biker as 13km of heaven despite the dangers due to motor vehicles slowing to take in the majestic views: "It runs along a twisty gorge of the Arly river, which would otherwise be quite picturesque. However, I rarely got time to look....On the face of it there's a perfect surface and some brilliant bends with good visibility. This road shouts, 'Ride me to the limit,' but the traffic is frequently going 60mph [96.5km per hour] slower than you. Long lines of cars and camper vans crawling around one brilliant bend, followed by another half dozen curves to die for. And die you may."

Masciave wa one of those drivers, proceeding at a very moderate pace: "I'd been driving slowly at between 40 and 50 km [25 to 31 miles] an hour when suddenly there was a terrible shock which brought the vehicle to a sudden halt. I immediately lost consciousness." When he revived, Masciave was pinned in his car, unable to move, and in excruciating agony. "The space was very restricted. It could be measured in centimeters. All I was thinking about was stopping the pain. When firefighters were able to open the door I was finally relieved of the huge pressure...."

Only later did Masciave learn the immensity of the boulder that rolled down the mountainside and crushed his car so badly that rescuers couldn't determine its make or model. It weighed 20 tons. Miraculously, Masciave was spared and flown to a local hospital. His injuries, which included collapsed lungs and broken ribs, require several surgeries, but he is expected to make a full recovery. Says the father of 2, “It’s a miracle I’m alive. Although I’m not a believer, I do think this was a miracle….Now I will see life differently.”

Fukushima dogs

Japanese authorities are being heavily criticized by animal welfare advocates for their actions after the March tsunami hit and crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant. They established an exclusion zone of high radiation contamination within a 12mi (20km) radius of the facility and evacuated some 78,000 people. Those residents left with the understanding that they would be able to return in a few days for their animals, but they were not allowed back in. Dogs died tied up in the backyard, cats starved in their houses, and livestock dropped dead in their pens or went on the run. "It's shameful. We kept asking the government to rescue these animals from the beginning of the disaster. There must have been a way to rescue the people and the animals at the same time following the nuclear disaster at Fukushima," says Yasunori Hoso with United Kennel Club Japan. The number of domesticated farm animals left stranded was estimated at 3,400 cows, 31,500 pigs, and 630,000 chickens, with many of them assumed dead by May and others being euthanized by the government as a safety precaution. The country's environmental agency has taken a prudent position regarding animal rescue because of the risk posed to people, but did allow members of animal rights groups like UKC Japan to enter the exclusion zone for 5 hours at a time in December and rescue any surviving animals.(The animals themselves are safe to handle as long as they are cleaned and quarantined.) Hoso's group rescued 250 dogs and 100 cats that now live in cages at their shelter near Tokyo, maintained by donations. UKC Japan has managed to track down 80% of the animals' owners but many - since they are in temporary housing themselves - are unable to reunite with their pets. The Japanese government has rounded up some of the 100s of dogs that are still alive and roaming free in the exclusion zone (examples above), but these too are being maintained in a warehouse, and the remainder are dying at an estimated rate of 20-30 per day. Animal-lovers have been moved by photos in the media to mount rescues, such as the reclamation of 20 shelties (5th image) that belong to a breeder. But other pet owners allowed into the exclusion zone briefly for their dogs have found them long-dead. "I will bury his body on my next return," vowed Shoichi Akimoto. Most recently, the surviving dogs are at the mercy of the freezing weather, and Hoso continues to hope his group can at least bring food in, if not bring the pets out. "...when it comes to dogs, all of them, without exception, become really ecstatic when they get reunited with their owners. That is what keeps me going, what makes me determined that I have to push ahead until the last one goes back to its owner."

When is chocolate a hazardous material?

When it melts in mass quantities, like it did early Friday morning at Sarris Candies in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (videos here, photos here). "The amount of chocolate that had melted and was on the floor -- it was hard to move around in there. We had guys covered in chocolate. Hazmat was called in to help scrub it off," said fire chief Tom Lawrence. Owner Bill Sarris would normally have been at work when his employees smelled smoke and saw flames in the ceiling. When he rushed to the scene, worker Kevin Wittik had evacuated the rest of the staff and called 911. Responding to the 2-alarm call, firefighters tried not to slip and fall in the slippery substance as they navigated the local landmark building, maneuvering around bins and racks of candy. The specialty chocolate and candies factory has been family-owned and operated since it was established in 1960 by Bill Sarris's dad Frank (d. 2010). Additions since then included a retail candy shop and ice cream parlor, and Sarris now employs 200 people. None of them was hurt during Friday's fire and they are all committed to getting the company back on its feet. As employee Sherri Bell says, "We're a big family. We'll get it together and we'll hook it up and make sure it all gets back together and gets running again." The building had minimal structure damage, with most of it in the packaging area, so they hope to resume chocolate production within a few days. If they aren't up and ready in time for Valentine's Day, they will surely have time to replace the significant amount of Easter candy that was lost.*

*I have shown my support by placing a small order. Yum!

Flotsam and jetsam

There once were 2 men off Nantucket
Who fished from a 26' bucket
Till the wind blew up,
The boat threw up,
And sent them to shore saying, "F**k it."

The following story appealed to me because I could showcase my limerick-writing skills, because the image at the top looks so strangely abstract, and because it gives me a vehicle to discuss the difference between 2 seemingly indistinguishable nautical terms.

Aug. 25, 2008
New Jersey resident Scott Douglas and his brother-in-law Rich St. Pierre were fishing off Nantucket, Massachusetts in Douglas's boat, the "Queen Bee." The weather had gotten worse and the seas were dangerously high, with 6'-8' waves. Both men were thrown from the boat and were unable to get back aboard, although they were able to retrieve the personal flotation device that had also ended up in the water. Forced to swim to Esther Island on the west side of Nantucket, the challenge took them 2 hours. “There were times when both of us didn’t think we were going to make it. Everything had to go our way. It was a miracle,” said Douglas, happy to have lost only the boat rather than their lives.

Jan. 17, 2012
Flotsam* was found 20 miles off the coast of Spain in the form of a rusted and barnacle-covered boat (pictured above). The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Madrid contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, which linked the vessel to the 2008 search and rescue near Nantucket. It was indeed the same boat lost by Douglas and St. Pierre, several years and 3,500 nautical miles away. “The Coast Guard’s opinion is it went up north the coast of New England, Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, across the northern Atlantic, Greenland and then eventually getting to Ireland and making a right going down the European coast. It took 3 1/2 years to do that,” explained Douglas, who has no legal right to the boat anymore after having settled with his insurance company. "We were lucky enough to be saved, and the heck with the boat, but the boat - being a well-made boat - decided that she wanted to be okay too.” The Queen Bee - a little worse for wear - is now the property of the Spanish Government.

*To paraphrase Michael Quinion, flotsam (from Anglo-Norman floteson, connected to float and to late Latin flottare, to float) is goods from a ship that has sunk which can be recovered because they remain afloat, while jetsam (a variant form of English jettison formed by association with the slightly older flotsam) is goods that have been deliberately thrown overboard in an emergency to lighten and thereby save a ship from wrecking.

Train in a tornado

I received the following video in an e-mail last week. The very spare accompanying text explained that the view is out the back window of a locomotive, noting that today's trains are equipped - like police cars - with forward- and rear-facing cameras. The video was said to have been disseminated by the railroad's dispatcher. The e-mail encourages watching until the end, as do I before you read on:

Typically, the e-mail contained no identifying information, though it was surely authentic. Since I was on the theme of tornadoes yesterday, I took it as a personal challenge to find out where this occurred and am pleased to report my success. Here are the circumstances:

The tornado touched down northeast of Harvard, Illinois, on January 7, 2008. The dated image below is a still from this stormchaser video, and the other photograph was reposted with comments by a northwestern Illinois resident. The funnel was 100yds wide and took off roofs, uprooted trees, and leveled a 2-story farmhouse in its 20 minutes on the ground. The force of the winds, determined to be F3, blew 12 cars of the Union Pacific train over. The momentum of the still-moving train caused several more cars to derail, including a tanker that leaked its hazardous contents for hours before it was contained and prompted evacuations in nearby Lawrence. The tornado continued to move to the east with estimated winds around 100 mph. The force snapped a hardwood tree at its base, knocked over an old barn, and headed across the farm fields. As it crossed highway 14 (misidentified as highway 23 in this video - caution: language), it flipped a semi-trailer and injured the driver at a truck stop weigh station.

Thanks, Barbara!

Surviving two tornadoes

There are plenty of dramatic and heart-wrenching stories to come out of the record-breaking spate of tornadoes that swept through parts of the U.S. in April and May. But only a small subset of the victims survived one tornado only to be savaged by a 2nd one...

• An 11-year-old Iowa boy was home alone when 2 tornadoes tracked through his town of Lenox in mid-May. Instructed by phone, Austin Miller was told by his frantic mother to take shelter in their laundry room. He climbed inside the dryer and reported the damage around him from inside. "Mommy, there's glass breaking, it's loud crackling. It's loud and I think the house is going." She arrived home to find that the roof had been torn off, but her son had survived both twisters unscathed.
• When the University of Alabama ended the semester early because of the tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa, 20-year-old student Emily Fuller (3rd image) returned home to Joplin, Missouri. At school, she had lost one of her sorority sisters; at home, she was luckier. Taking refuge in a basement closet, Emily and her parents were uninjured and their house (2nd image, in a photo she took after the storm) - less than a mile from the town's most ravaged neighborhood (1st image, bird's eye view from 10,000') - was untouched.
• Mother and daughter Joyce and Janet Woods survived the April tornado in Alabama by sheltering in separate closets in their home as the walls came down around them. “I felt like I knew what to expect. So I just held on,” said Joyce. It wasn’t the 1st time they experienced the force of a tornado. They had both been present on March 27, 1994, when a tornado struck, killing more than 20 people inside Goshen United Methodist Church.
• After 2-year-old Ann Marie Garcia-Anara survived the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, during a visit with her grandparents, her mother Crystal picked her up to drive her back home to New Mexico. In Oklahoma, they were rattled by a 2nd twister. "We got on the road and not even 5 minutes [later] we heard, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown and it was the 5 tornadoes and we were surrounded by at least 4 of them. We felt our truck pulled back and be lifted, and our driver was flooring the vehicle and it was only going 3 miles per hour. Looking behind me...all I saw was pitch black and swirls and I said just floor it, just get us out of here. I just know I want to live each day as best as I can with her and do as much as I can to teach her everything I can in the short time that I have with her, because I don't know the next day she's not going to be here."
• Tom Cook and his daughter rode out the Joplin twister inside a tornado safe located inside their garage. Three years earlier on May 11th, they lost Tom's wife of 19 years to the tornado that destroyed their home near Racine, Wisconsin. He says, "...if you get through it once, you don't want to give it a chance again to get you. Although you just can't believe that this powerful of a storm can do this to you twice in three years."
• On April 27th, Kara Bovia survived a direct hit by the Tuscaloosa tornado that destroyed her apartment complex (video here) and killed several of its residents. It's the 2nd time the 26-year-old has lost her home. She survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “My goal in life is not to live through every kind of natural disaster. The 3rd time will not be a charm.”

Metaphor

"When he looked out the window he now saw just the faintest splice of light, like a seam coming undone at the horizon..."

This beautiful metaphor is in a book I am reading, so I thought I would find the perfect photograph to illustrate it. Since our thoughts are with those devastated by yesterday's earthquake in Japan, I chose the image above of dawn breaking over Tokyo (taken by Rob Sheridan on August 8, 2009).

Worldwide floods

There are massive floods occurring worldwide, and they make for some dramatic animal photos. As moving as they are, they shouldn't overshadow the human casualties:

Sri Lanka
The sight of a young elephant in a tree will be a defining image of the country's recent heavy flooding. "I have been working as a journalist for the last 10 years but this is likely to be one of the strangest photos I will ever take in my career," said journalist Kanchana Kumara Ariyadasa. While 50 elephants, 48,679 cows, 22,279 goats, and 172,884 chickens have died in the floods, they have also killed 27, displaced 325,000, and affected millions of people.

Australia
The strangest story to come out of the flooding in Queensland is a frog riding out of the storm waters on the back of a snake. The sight (2nd image) was captured by computer technician Armin Gerlach, who said, "I felt amazement, I just couldn't believe it." The effect of the flood on abandoned pets and isolated livestock won't be known for weeks. Meanwhile, 25 Queensland residents have been killed and 3,000 have had to seek refuge at evacuation centers.

Brazil
A dog makes its way through the devastating floodwaters in Brazil (3rd image). "We're just digging around, there is no way of knowing where to look. There are 3 more bodies under the rubble over there. One seems to be a girl, no more than 16, dead, buried under that mud," said Nilson Martins as he held a pet rabbit, the only thing pulled out alive since dawn that morning. The human death toll there has reached 420 and continues to climb.

The floods in Oregon have not taken any lives. "This was not one of the most significant floods that we've had, but slightly above what we'd classify as a nuisance flood," said Gordon McCraw, Tillamook County Emergency Management director. However, the Oregon Community Health Division has posted instructions for disposing of dead livestock if necessary.

In Pompeii...

...stands a pile of rubble where the House of the Gladiators stood for 2,000 years. The frescoed building fell on November 6th, providing urgent evidence that the ancient city - a World Heritage site and major tourist destination - has been allowed to fall into disrepair.

Professor Christopher Smith, director of the British School in Rome which has excavated at the much better preserved and maintained town of Herculaneum, said: "It's extremely sad to see what has happened at Pompeii, which is clearly suffering problems from its maintenance....Archeological sites are always at risk when they are open to the elements but the problems at Pompeii have been going back for decades and our experience is that you need a good plan for maintenance and administration....Unless there is a proper plan put into action I'm very sad to say that we will see this sort of thing happen again – buildings that are at risk must be secured or they will collapse."

Luisa Bossa, Italian Democratic Party (PD) deputy, accused, “I’ve been sounding the alarm about Pompeii for months. This very serious collapse is proof that the government and Minister Bondi have underestimated the problem and talked a whole load of rubbish....At the site this summer, there were bulldozers, diggers, cement mixers and pneumatic drills. Not even the slightest regulations for the stability of the archaeological site were respected.”

Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore wrote, "Precisely because it belongs to all humanity, its management should be taken away from a state that has shown itself incapable of protecting it."

Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome and former leader of the opposition Democratic Party commented, "This is the latest sign that this government is not interested in culture."

The stone house, known as Schola Armaturarum, was the barracks for gladiators in Pompeii. They trained in a specially built gymnasium and climbed these stairs to enter the amphitheater where they fought animals and men to the death.

Volcanic ash

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 1st c. Italy, Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was killed. His nephew, who lived with him in Misenum and did survive, described the experience: "...darkness came on once more and ashes began to fall again, this time in heavy showers. We rose from time to time and shook them off, otherwise we should have been buried and crushed beneath their weight. I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, but I admit that I derived some poor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying with me and I with it." The eruption caused mass casualties from the pyroclastic flow, superheated air, and rain of pumice as residents fled the towns at the base of the volcano - which had lain dormant for 800 years. This included Pompeii, covered with 4-6m of ash and pumice, and Herculaneum, buried under pyroclastic rock and ash that solidified into volcanic tuff.

The current continuing eruption of Mount Merapi on the border between Central Java and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has been called "Pompeii-like" by National Geographic. The volcano has so far killed 38, a fraction of the number killed by Sumatra's recent tsunami. Airports east and south of Merapi rerouted planes for fear that the dust, which was spewed several kilometers into the air and fell like rain, would clog the engines. About 69,000 people have been evacuated from the area around Merapi that is now blanketed by gray ash. A dog sits at an abandoned village in Kepuharjo, Indonesia (1st image); furniture and an abandoned moped lie under a thick layer of ash (2nd image); and a worker cleans ash from part of Java's Borobudar temple complex (3rd image).

Follow-ups

I have friends in town the next few days and plan to get caught up on my follow-ups as I have time. I will be adding to this post, so please keep checking back! Happy 4th!

Oil and turtles 6/30/10 A New York reporter nearly loses his nose when a snapping turtle does just that.

White elephants 6/29/10 An elephant given by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to Yugoslavia has died and been recycled.

Weightless Hawking 6/28/10 A reader passed along this link about a series of anti-gravity monuments on East Coast college campuses.

Faux fur 6/14/10 The San Diego Zoo and the Scripps Research Institute have a plan to bring back endangered animals from near-extinction.

Fireflies 6/6/10 These photos reminded my former boss about the photos of Picasso drawing with light.

Freediver 6/4/10 My Mom thought this guy and this woman would make a good couple!

Swimming the English Channel 6/2/10 An armless woman in China is highly skilled at embroidering with her feet. The TSA is slammed for their shameful treatment of amputees. Police in Jacksonville, Florida, were looking for the owner of a prosthetic leg that washed up on the beach, and were successful at finding him. A motorcyclist lost his prosthetic leg while traveling a New Hampshire highway. Doctors replace a woman's missing thumb with her big toe.

Geronimo 5/16/10 I was contacted by the makers of this film who are fundraising to get the true story of the Trail of Tears told. A reader informed me of the story of Hannah Dustin, who was captured by Indians and is commemorated with a statue showing her with a tomahawk and a fistful of scalps.

Environmental disaster 4/20/10 Video footage of oil and gas leaks from cracks in the sea floor, which may affect BP's attempts to cap the gushing oil well. BP is also responsible for polluting the atmosphere this spring. Rachel Maddow has refuted this video from Louisiana by confirming with scientists that oil cannot fall as rain. However, this video shows that BP has purported covered up oil on the beach with sand they have trucked in. The New York Times points out that the Niger Delta has been spoiled by repeated massive oil spills.

We lost another munchkin 4/11/10 A tornado ripped through New York's Oz-Stravaganza, forcing the cancellation of many events.

Stomach growls 4/6/10 I recently learned that the origins of ventriloquism lie with the ancient Greek method of divination called gastromancy, in which the sounds emanating from the diviner's stomach were believed to be caused by the undead and could be interpreted to communicate with them and forecast the future.

Dwarfs on display 3/26/10 Little people have an issue with the use of the word "midget" in the new wrestling show "Half-Pint Brawlers." The world's smallest mother shows off her 3 children.

Napoleon's hair 3/5/10 A lock of Napoleon's hair has sold at auction for $13,000.

Jacques Cousteau 2/28/10 A compilation of some of his most memorable clips on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. A Russian man has taught his dachshund to scuba dive.

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 A man in India died of a heart attack after receiving a bill for his own cremation, which supposedly had occurred the week before. A singer in Mexico was killed hours after denying reports that he had been murdered. A woman was attacked by macaques when she went to a Thai island to confront her fear of monkeys.

Ancient Egyptian finds 1/30/10 A lost tomb has been rediscovered in Memphis.

Natural arch collapse 1/26/10 An arch in a national park in Nevada has collapsed.

Vivisection 1/22/10 A cannibal in the Ukraine did unspeakable things to his living victim (caution).

Gatorland! 1/21/10 Crocodiles body surf. A 9-year-old Colorado girl wrestles alligators.

Kite-fighting 1/19/10 A man in Oregon fell off a cliff and died chasing his kite.

Sinkholes 1/12/10 A deadly tropical storm in May opened a giant sinkhole in Guatemala that swallowed a 3-story hotel -although Discovery says technically it is not a sinkhole - and prompted National Geographic to do a slideshow of the most dramatic sinkholes. Meanwhile, a 5M-wide chasm opened up in Malaysia just last night.

Recent feral children 1/10/10 The Cambodian "jungle woman" has fled back into the forest.

Anatomy art 1/8/10 Lady Gaga is working with Gunther von Hagens to display some of his plastinates on stage during her next tour.

Snakes to the rescue 1/4/10 A flythrough of a python digesting a rat. A global study has found that 8 species of snakes are in decline.

Bushmeat 12/27/09 A Mesa, Arizona, restaurant owner has outraged many (including me) by serving burgers that include real lion meat, as confirmed by a reporter who did a little more fact-finding.

Secret rooms 12/25/09 New homeowners discover a secret room only to find it is filled with moldy garbage. Here is a very clever apartment in Hong Kong.

Octopus achievement 12/15/09 Octopuses can make their boneless arms rigid to form an "elbow" to get food to their mouths.

Aquaria 11/23/09 A beluga at the Vancouver Aquarium died after its airway became blocked by a penny.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 The 1959 kidnapping of a chimpanzee from the St. Louis zoo's "Monkey Show." A man is caught attempting to smuggle 8 live foxes and 50 chameleons out of Cairo in a suitcase. A tiger and 2 camels went missing when a Canadian zoo's truck was stolen, and were later found safe and sound.

Birds in fable and fact 1o/22/09 The brighter a bird's feathers, the poorer its flying abilities. Songbirds learn while they are asleep. A grebe in Madagascar has been declared extinct.

The Mary Rose 10/15/09 A harsh winter has exposed the oldest shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina.

Glasswing butterflies 10/13/09 This is a microscopic image of a butterfly wing!

Anne Frank 10/7/09 A fictional diary of the boy who lived in the same building as Frank has been published.

Dinosaur eggs 10/3/09 Fossil beds in western Canada have been identified as evidence of a mass die-off. A Tennessee couple excavating their yard for a pool found a mastodon.

WWII photographs of "The Kiss" 9/13/09 Edith Shain has died at the age of 91.

Collyer brothers 9/9/09 A woman in Atlanta has been rescued from her trash-filled house, which has been condemned. The body of a Florida woman was recovered from beneath trash in the house she shared with her daughter. A California woman was found to have 100 dead cats in her freezer.

World's heaviest insects 8/28/09 My Mom and I get a big kick out of these Orkin commercials: "Broken down," "Hot Tub," and "Delivery."

Jaws in 1916 8/8/09 Recent findings indicate that as many as half of all shark species can emit a luminescence from their bodies (pictured) that can confuse both prey and predators. On the 35th anniversary of "Jaws," an NPR reporter tracked down the mechanical shark used in the movie.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 The ashes of a Florida man will be scattered over Lake Disston by way of Sunday's fireworks display. Human ashes formed into 3D printed sculptures.

Death masks 7/19/09 A list of 20 famous death masks. An improperly labeled and packed shipment of human heads was opened by a Southwest Airlines employee in Arkansas.

Follow-ups 6/27/09 In this set of follow-ups is an 800-year-old shoe to compare to this discovery of the world's oldest shoe.

Hazards of hail 6/16/09 An article about hailstones of various sizes.

Burial shoes 5/31/09 A blogger complimented me on this post, which informed her very amusing write-up about the subject.

Vultures 5/4/09 Rare vultures in South Africa are being killed to predict the results of the World Cup. I had a Marlin Perkins moment on Thursday watching a vulture tear up and feast on a fish carcass in our front yard here in Florida. A dive-bombing buzzard is terrorizing residents of the Isle of Mull in the U.K. A vulture is spotted in Wales - thousands of miles from its natural habitat.

Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 A California woman credits her chihuahua for saving her children from attack by 2 pit bulls.

Emmett Kelly 4/25/09 A photograph confirms that a newly married couple were at Disney World at the same time as children.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 A motorcyclist and bear have collided in New Jersey with neither seriously injured. A North Carolina man who was struck by lightning a few years ago has now been attacked by a bear.

Robo-aanimals 4/9/09 A cat receives 2 remarkable bionic feet. A bionic fish has been accepted - and can be used to lead - a school of shoal.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 Jacksonville, Florida cuts off power and water to the home of a 102-year-old woman.

Bird girl 3/3/09 I was contacted about this post by a woman who has photographed and blogged about Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, where the statue originally stood.

Taxidermy 1/24/09 A collection featuring a number of trophy heads and other mounted specimens amassed by property developer Warren Anderson were auctioned in Sydney, Australia. A Florida man called 911 when a water buffalo head fell off the wall and trapped him in his recliner. A friend pointed out this article about art from things that were once alive.

Natural mummification 1/23/09 Rather than being neglected after death, this woman was embalmed and stored at the funeral home for 10 years so that her daughters could pay her a visit every weekend. A woman in Pennsylvania was living with the exhumed bodies of her husband and twin sister. A Dutch man's mummified body has been found 4 years after retiring to his bedroom and asking not to be disturbed. A mummified man has been found in a Finnish chimney. A mummified body spotted on an abandoned boat in the Florida Keys turned out to be a mannequin.

Progeria 12/24/08 This woman does not have anorexia, but a rare form of progeria that requires her to eat up to 8,000 calories a day to maintain her body weight.

Conjoined twins 11/29/08 A twin-faced kitten born alive in West Virginia.

Oil and turtles

1st image) A Hawksbill turtle coated with oil is removed from a transport crate at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in Algiers, Louisiana; 2nd image) One of dozens of Kemp's Ridley sea turtles rescued in late May/early June; 3rd image) A sea turtle covered in oil swims off Grand Terre Island, Louisiana, on June 8; 4th image) A dead sea turtle on the beach in Waveland, Mississippi, on May 5th; 5th image) A nest of loggerhead turtle eggs in Sarasota, Florida.

On day 71 of the unabated BP oil spill that has so far spewed as much as 137 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, my thoughts are with the turtles. Since the blow-out of the Deepwater Horizon rig, 156 Kemp’s ridley sea turtles have been found dead, and although not all of the deaths may be attributed to the oil, not all of the dead turtles may have surfaced. Says Barbara Schroeder of NOAA, “It is very complex. Most of the impacts occurring to turtles are out of sight. Most turtles never wash ashore.” These turtles were hovering near extinction when their nests on the beaches of Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, were threatened by the 1979 blow-out of the Ixtoc 1 rig, which dumped 5 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. The eggs were airlifted to South Padre Island, Texas, where the turtles' nesting area is again threatened. To save sea turtles from the BP disaster, federal and state agencies will be digging up 700 nests - containing some 50,000 eggs of loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and leatherback, and green sea turtles - and moving them from beaches in Alabama and on the Florida panhandle to Florida's Atlantic coast. "[T]he continuing environmental disaster occurring in the Gulf of Mexico requires that we take extraordinary measures to prevent the loss of the entire 2010 cohort of hatchlings produced on Northern Gulf beaches," reads the plan.

Sea turtles are among the animals biologists are most concerned about in the Gulf because they are among the most likely to see long-term population loss and because the oil spill threatens their population at every stage of life. Oil threatens the turtle hatchlings, which can be poisoned by ingesting the oil, can have their mouths sealed shut by it, or can choke on tiny tar balls. Among mature females, oil can cause deformities in their offspring and affect hatching success rates. Even if turtles survive their initial exposure to oil, studies have found that long-term and chronic exposure can result in damage to the respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, and brain. Externally, chemical burns can cause the skin of turtles to slough off. About the images of the oil-covered turtles, marine scientist Elizabeth Griffin Wilson explains, " That's just the tip of the iceberg."Still, we are compelled to scoop up and scrub off as many turtles as we can, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that BP is frustrating rescue efforts and incinerating alive any that are corralled in the oil burn-offs.

Here is a petition by MoveOn.org Political Action that states, "'BP: Stop blocking the rescue of endangered sea turtles before you burn them alive in your 'controlled burns,'" if you care to sign.

Bouler's birds

If you watched the CBS Evening News last night, you were introduced to a passionate and empathetic 11-year-old. Olivia Bouler is turning her talent for drawing to funding relief efforts for the birds of the Gulf, where she vacations every year. "It wasn't fair for them. They didn't do anything wrong," she says. The future ornithologist was devastated by the news of the oil spill and motivated to raise awareness and money. Olivia is sending one of her drawings to each of the donors to the National Audubon Society. The first 500 will be original drawings, after which she will send limited edition prints. Examples above are from her Facebook page, which now has more than 18,000 fans, and donations total more than $100,000. The funds will be used for animal rescue and to establish a new bird habitat in the Gulf. I made a donation last night. If you would like to contribute, too, donate here and then forward the receipt to Olivia at oliviasbirds@aol.com.

Cuyahoga River

Kent left a hopeful comment on my Body Burden post noting that sometimes we have to know how bad something is before we feel the urgency to fix it. Case in point, Ohio's Cuyahoga River, which caught on fire when he lived next to it in 1968 and is now greatly improved. The river had actually caught fire 12 times before! Here are some details:

• 1868 The Cuyahoga was only one of many rivers - in Baltimore, Dearborn, and Schuykill - subject to industrial fires during this era. Glowing coals shoveled overboard from steamships were enough to set oil on the surface on fire.
• 1912 This fire killed 5 people.
• 1936 Oil scum on the river caught fire as a workman (who sustained 3rd degree burns) was cutting a freighter up for scrap with an acetylene torch. The blaze, which did $10,000 worth of damage, was extinguished 5 days later, but luckily before it could ignite millions of gallons of gasoline stored across and down the river.
• 1952 The river caught fire and burned for 3 days, causing $1.5 million worth of damage. The spectacular photos, including the one above, were taken during this blaze.
• 1969 Molten metal or sparks from the wheel of a passing railcar set fire to oil- and chemical-soaked debris floating in the river. The resulting fire made national news, although it only burned for 25 minutes. The $50,000 in damage was mainly to the railroad bridge.

This last fire was the catalyst for a number of pollution controls, including the passage of the Clean Water Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Cuyahoga River, which was once one of the most polluted rivers in the U.S. and considered "biologically dead," now meets federal standards. Although there are still issues like urban runoff and stagnation, the river previously devoid of fish now supports 44 species. The EPA calls the turnaround "amazing" and "dramatic," but the river remains notorious for having burned. "We can't go back in time and make it not happen, so let's use it to show how far we've come," said a local politician as Cuyahoga celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1969 fire.

Great Molasses Flood

On a warm day in January 1919, a storage tank burst and molasses flowed down the streets of Boston, Massachusetts, in a wave 8' to 15' high. The wave, travelling at 35mph, overtook dozens of people, killing 21 and injuring 150 of them in addition to countless dogs and horses. The molasses lifted buildings off their foundations, overturned motorcars, and tossed an elevated train off its rails. The 2,300,000 gallons of syrup evened out to a knee-deep sticky mess in the North End. It took days to find all the victims, months to clean up the mess, and years to settle the lawsuits. Although the distillery tried to blame the explosion of the 6-story tank on saboteurs, it was known to have leaks and was believed to have failed from its own defects, combined with the warm weather.

Molasses was the standard sweetener at the time, and was also used to make alcohol and munitions. It arrived in a "triangular trade" route that involved exporting crops from New England to England, slaves from West Africa to the West Indies, and molasses from the West Indies to New England. Among other things, the molasses was used to flavor the baked beans Boston is known for (and the reason it is known as "Beantown"). If you have suddenly developed a craving and want to make them from scratch, here's an official recipe for Boston baked beans.

The devastation of St. Pierre

At 7:50am on May 8, 1902, Mt. Pelée on the French-Caribbean island of Martinique roared to life. In a single minute, the deafening blast sent a superheated cloud of gas, ash, and rock (2nd image) down the south slope of the volcano, killing the 28,000 residents of St. Pierre, the "Paris of the West Indies." The crews and passengers of 18 ships were also killed. There were, at most, 2 survivors.

One of these was Léon Compere-Léandre, a young shoemaker, who described the disaster that struck as he was sitting on his doorstep on the outskirts of the city:

"I felt a terrible wind blowing, the earth began to tremble, and the sky suddenly became dark. I turned to go into the house, with great difficultuy climbed the three or four steps that separated me from my room, and felt my arms and legs burning, also my body. I dropped upon a table. At this moment four others sought refuge in my room, crying and writhing with pain, although their garmets showed no sign of having been touched by flame. At the end of 10 minutes one of these, the young Delavaud girl, aged about 10 years, fell dead; the others left. I got up and went to another room, where I found the father Delavaud, still clothed and lying on the bed, dead. He was purple and inflated, but the clothing was intact. Crazed and almost overcome, I threw myself on a bed, inert and awaiting death. My senses returned to me in perhaps an hour, when I beheld the roof burning. With sufficient strength left, my legs bleeding and covered with burns, I ran to Fonds-Sait-Denis, six kilometers from St. Pierre."

The other man to survive had a prison cell to thank for his protection - a cell which still exists (3rd image). Louis-Auguste Cyparis a.k.a. Ludger Sylbarus (c. 1875-c. 1929) was a 25-year-old imprisoned for wounding a friend with a cutlass. Four days after the eruption, he was found, and received a pardon after he recovered from his burns. Cyparis joined the Barnum & Bailey Circus and was billed as "The Lone Survivor of St. Pierre" (1st image). He showed his burns and toured with a replica of his cell.

A 3rd apocryphal witness to the events narrowly escaped being killed by them. A young girl named Havivra Da Ifrile was on an errand halfway up the flank of Mt. Pelée on her way to church services in St. Pierre when she saw smoke emerge from the crater and engulf residents of the city. She ran to her brother's boat on the show and rowed to refuge in a cave. "But before I got there I looked back -- and the whole side of the mountain which was near the town seemed to open and boil down on the screaming people. I was burned a good deal by the stones and ashes that came flying about the boat, but I got to the cave," she remembered. She lost consciousness and was found drifting 2 miles out to sea.

After the eruption, a lava dome rose 1,000' out of the crater of the volcano, finally collapsing 11 months later. Coincidentally (because it was not the catalyst for this post), Mt. Pelée's dome partially collapsed in February of this year and heavy rains triggered a series of small to moderate pyroclastic flows.

Follow-ups

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 A woman who fell from her high-rise apartment in Hong Kong died - along with the woman she fell on. British researchers find that people really can be bored to death. And singing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" at a karaoke bar in the Philippines might get you killed.

The chair and the car 2/3/10 Reader Brian points out that the stain at the top of the Lincoln chair is due to hair pomade and not the bloodstain that many mistake it for.

Bees 1/30/10 After reading this post, reader Lisa Wood sent me the link to this charming short film. An Australian study shows that bees may be able to recognize faces. As few as 30 Asian giant hornets can decimate a hive of 30,000 honeybees.

Vivisection 1/22/10 Reader Cynthia said this post reminded her of the scene in the movie "Hannibal" where Lecter opens the cranium of his drugged but ambulatory victim and serves him up some of his own brains. Here are some photos of a prefrontal lobotomy. An article debating having pets "debarked" - and 2 examples of what dogs sound like afterward. A Rhode Island man has been charged with animal cruelty and unauthorized practice of veterinary medicine after operating on his own dog. A California biologist made headlines in the 1930s when he put a dog to death and brought it back to life.

Gatorland! 1/21/10 Two British crocodiles have been taught to respond to their names. An alligator has been found in Kansas. New York marks the 75th anniversary of the urban legend about alligators in the sewers.

Disaster intensity scales 1/13/10 Yellowstone National Park is being shaken by hundreds of small earthquakes.

Views from space 1/11/10 A schematic drawing showing the distribution of satellites orbiting the earth. Previously unseen video of the Challenger disaster is released and evidence reveals that the astronauts were alive during the fall. The International Space Station is getting a new observation dome. Take this fantastic video tour of the ISS.

Thwarted 1/7/10 A suspect in the theft of the Auschwitz sign has been arrested in Sweden.

Good cove, bad cove 1/6/10 Bats and dolphins evolved separately from the same sonar gene.

Volcano videos 1/5/10 Scientists discovered a new type of lightning during the eruption of Mt. Redoubt. Lava threatens the last home in Royal Gardens, Hawaii.

Snakes to the rescue 1/4/10 The tentacled snake of Southeast Asia tricks its prey. A dog in New Zealand saves 3 kids from a deadly tiger snake. Giant extinct snake likely fed on crocodiles, according to American researchers.

Happy New Year! 1/1/10 This man uses glass(es) as an instrument.

Bushmeat 12/27/09 If you want to wear fur without feeling guilty, wear nutria fur. If you want to get rid of your fur coat, the Humane Society suggests giving it away to be used by a needy orphaned animal. Read about the strange things - including bushmeat - that U.S. Customs officials confiscate.

Secret rooms 12/25/09 A Georgia couple has discovered a trapdoor leading to a secret room in their house.

Child heroes 12/23/09 A New Jersey toddler has saved her grandmother's life.

Otis elevator, part 2 12/13/09 A woman in Ukraine is killed by an elevator.

Hermit - 2 scenarios 12/8/09 A Chinese couple lived in a cave for 50 years. Worms are eating away the centuries-old carvings in England's Royston Cave.

More white tigers 11/24/09 A live bull put in a tiger's cage in a Chinese zoo has failed to provoke the beast's natural instincts. More about China "farming" tigers. Genetic analysis reveals that tigers evolved much earlier than thought. The Sumatran tiger may go extinct by 2015. A leopard tries unsuccessfully to snack on a porcupine. Meanwhile, a friendly porcupine begs for food at a Colorado ski resort.

Stone/house 11/19/09 A 10' boulder crashed through the wall of a Tennessee woman's house.

Cloaca 11/17/09 Artist William Delvoye also tattoos pigs. A Japanese company has invented a device that recycles office waste paper into toilet paper.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 A monkey has been spotted roaming the suburbs of Darwin, Australia. Three cheetahs made their escape from a New Zealand wildlife park by swimming across a moat.

Fatal coyote attack 11/2/09 A pack of vicious beagles is terrorizing Long Island.

Engineering feats 11/1/09 A list of the world's 18 strangest tunnels includes the Chunnel.

Tree mummies 10/30/09 Chemists have discovered the female sex hormone progesterone in walnut trees.

Burqa 10/20/09 Dubai has annulled a marriage contract after the groom found, upon lifting his bride's niqab that she was cross-eyed and had extensive facial hair.

Dinosaur eggs 10/3/09 China is reexamining the sites of major paleontological discoveries. A list of 14 bizarre dinosaurs and extinct species. Di0nosaur extinction caused some birds to become flightless. The color of dinosaur feathers is identified. American paleontologists discover a new species of tyrannosaur in New Mexico. Thousands of dinosaur footprints have been found in China. An American scientist has uncovered a nearly pristine spider fossil in China. Large fossils found in Utah are challenging existing notions of mass extinction.

Oarfish 9/25/09 Video of the elusive oarfish swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

Optical illusions 9/23/09 Stare at the outer figures and the inner figure appears to change directions.

Eskimo snow 9/14/09 The last speaker of the Bo language of the Andaman Islands has died. Meanwhile, King's College London has done away with its Palaeography Department.

World's heaviest insects 8/28/09 Scientists in Costa Rica are growing edible insects to evaluate them as an alternative food source. Here is an amusing slow-motion video of a dragonfly escaping from a frog.

Stain 8/6/09 Rapatronic photographs captured in the instants after a nuclear explosion.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 An artist in the U.K. creates sculptures that are displayed underwater and become artificial reefs.

Humboldt squid 7/17/09 A New Zealand scientist wants to attempt to keep a giant squid alive in captivity. The incredible vampire squid turns itself inside out to avoid predators.

Birthing and hoarding bunnies 6/18/09 An Ohio woman has 70 cats thanks to an abusive husband. A vengeful ex-husband in Sweden pushed 19 mice through his ex-wife's mail slot. Fifty animals have been removed from the home of a Texas couple.

Hazards of hail 6/16/09 Atmospheric ice crashed through a Pennsylvania woman's roof. The world's largest meteorite fell in Namibia. Crystals harder than diamonds have been found in a meteorite by French scientists. American astronomers may have found evidence of giant meteors hitting the earth 1,500 years ago.

Two of a kind 6/12/09 A list of 15 Cute animals that will cause you horrible harm includes the platypus.

Gladiators 6/5/09 Fire festival features helmet much like those worn by gladiators. Roman army knife has the ingenuity of a Swiss army knife. British filmmakers uncover the lost source of a Roman aquaduct.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Two new fossil rodents have been discovered in Utah. A new species of frog identified in Papua New Guinea changes color. A new kind of single-celled organism has been found in a British pond. A new spiny pocket mouse has been found in Venezuela. An Israeli scientist went on a secret mission to Iran to capture 4 Persian fallow deer and save them from extinction. Meet Japan's "living fossil," the giant salamander. A Canadian scientist is analyzing the recent evolution of birds' wings. A Canadian study shows that some birds use their feathers like cats use their whiskers. Scientists are filling in the evolutionary family tree of arthropods.

Forked tongue 5/13/09 The latest trend in body modification is a lip window.

Vultures 5/4/09 Watch what happened when a vulture crashed through the windshield of a helicopter.

Skellies 4/29/09 Italian police have found a skeleton that was pieced together from the remains of 5 people. Extra bones were also found at the site of the disposal of a Minnesota murder victim. Three Neanderthal teeth have been found in Poland. Skeletal remains dating back 8,000 years have been found in Malaysia. The skeleton of a Western man has been found in an ancient Mongolian tomb. DNA testing on ancient bones in Italy reveals East Asian ancestry.

Mastectomy tattoos 4/27/09 Every time you click at the Breast Cancer Site, sponsors pay for free mammograms.

Ocean garbage dump 4/23/09 More effects of trashing the ocean.

Frank Gehry 4/13/09 A slideshow of the World's 18 strangest homes.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 A cat in the U.K. is the 1st feline recipient of an artificial knee. An injured eagle's beak is repaired by a dentist. A lame duck inspires a handicapped British boy to walk.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 The last U.S. veteran of World War I has turned 109. A 100-year-old pedophile released from prison in New York has been rearrested.

Toads encased in stone 3/23/09 In 1897, a horned toad was placed in the cornerstone of a Texas courthouse; in 1928, the courthouse was demolished - but "Ol' Rip" was still alive.

Designer legs 3/15/09 A Scottish prosthetist was fired for outfitting an amputee with 2 left feet. It is suggested that the aesthetics of today's prosthetic limbs will stir envy. An ancient skeleton proves that amputations were performed in the Stone Age.

Kangaroo home invasion 3/15/09 Australians are asked to keep whacking cane toads to kill the invasive species. Australian farmers are told to dynamite rabbits. And authorities are going to feed the feral camels to the crocodiles.

Shark attack capital 3/12/09 Florida researchers have created a shark-bite severity scale. An Australian surfer has fought off a shark with his fists and a New Zealand girl survives being bitten by a shark. A neary 10' hammerhead was caught and released at a Florida beach. And a wind-surfer at another Florida beach was killed and eaten by a shark. The whorl-tooth shark lived 250 million years ago and the elusive frilled shark is a "living fossil." A tiger shark eats an underwater camera set up to monitor the Great Barrier Reef. A killer whale takes down a great white shark.

Shakespearean insults 3/10/09 British archaeologists have found that Tudor theater-goers liked to snack on oysters, crabs, and mussels during performances.

Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 A film shot entirely by chimpanzees will air on British television. Nonja the orangutan is selling the photographs she takes on e-bay. Chimps more selfless than they have been given credit for, according to new German study. A Dutch team has found legendary giant lion-eating chimps in Congo.

Marine creatures 2/15/09 A 10' Japanese spider crab was caught by fisherman and is now on display in Britain.

Disturbingly young parents 2/14/09 A 9-year-old Chinese girl has given birth to a healthy infant. A woman with no vagina got pregnant after being stabbed during a knife fight. Ultrasound cannot detect the condition of being born without eyes.

Embalmers and anthropologists 2/4/09 Dario Piombino-Mascali's book about embalmer Dr. Alfredo Salafia has been published (with text in Italian).

Natural mummification 1/23/09 The mummified body of a woman who has been death for about 4 months has been found in Moscow.

Corsets and wasp-waists 1/12/09 Meet Cathie Jung, who has a 13" waist.

Diagnosing the canvas 1/2/09 Italian scientists have applied for permission to exhume the remains of Leonardo da Vinci to compare them to the "Mona Lisa," which some believe to be a sel-portrait. Danish and Czech researchers have been given permission to exhume the remains of astronomer Tycho Brahe to determine the exact cause of his death.

Progeria 12/24/08 Photographic portraits of a 24-year-old man with progeria. Photos of the transformation of a 67-year-old actor into a young man with progeria.

Auroras 12/23/09 A strange object in photographs of the aurora borealis has been identified.

Conjoined twins 11/29/08 The parents of South African conjoined twins have decided not to separate them. After surgery, an Indian girl born with 8 limbs is thriving. Siamese crocodiles.

Ice swimmers 11/20/08 A description of what it's like to freeze to death. A man stranded on ice in the North Sea is rescued after a German woman spots him on a webcam. Photos of the "bleeding glacier" in Antarctica. An international team of scientists has confirmed a mountain range under the antarctic ice. The winter of 1779-1780, when the Hudson River and Long Island Sound froze over. New glaciers discovered in the mountains of Albania by British geographers.

Oldest zoo in the world 11/10/08 A parasite is spreading between zoo animals and their keepers. Specialists at the Philadelphia Zoo saved the life of the victim of a cobra bite. Baby giraffe is born at the Memphis Zoo. A pack of stray dogs kills 13 animals at a Bulgarian zoo.

First U.S. face transplant! 2/17/08 A Canadian girl is having rare craniofacial surgery to correct a genetic condition.

Elephants 10/30/08 A California collector has run into trouble with the law by selling an elephant skull. Elephants do not walk or run, they do both at the same time.