Plague doctor

Yesterday I had this image of a plague doctor in my head, so I found it this morning and only now have noticed at the end of his stick--a winged hourglass!

Conjoined twins

Two years ago, the BBC reported the discovery of the first dicephalus (two-headed) lizard in the fossil record (pictured). The anomaly is not infrequent among modern reptiles. It is less common among mammals (see these videos of a two-faced kitten and a two-faced adult cat). Dicephalus humans are extremely rare and only four sets have lived to adulthood. The modern counterparts to Giovanni and Giacomo Tocci are Abigail and Brittany Hensel, who have now reached the age of 16. While the Toccis were never able to coordinate enough to walk, the Hensels have walked, tied their shoes, ridden a bike, and swum from an early age--and now have their driver's licenses!

Labradorite

Last weekend, I came home with treasures from the annual fossil show I make a point of patronizing. Though they aren't properly accessioned by the Museum yet, the specimens I bought include a slab of amethyst crystal and a large Late Jurassic ammonite from Madagascar. Right before I left, the luminescence of a certain stone caught my eye--even more so when it was in my hand. The polished mineral, the size and shape of a bar of soap, is called labradorite, and the luminescent characteristic is called labradorescence.

Martyr to "Black Friday"

An unnamed overnight stock clerk at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart in Long Island, New York, was trampled and killed at 5 AM this morning as out-of-control shoppers broke down the doors on what is billed in the U.S. as the "biggest shopping day of the year." He was 34 years old. His coworker describes, "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back." There are also numerous reports of shoppers getting injured, including a miscarriage*, a broken nose and a broken arm, and back injuries. Awful, ridiculous, and a sad (and unnecessary) symptom of our commercialized society. And so the Christmas shopping season begins...

*The report of a miscarriage turns out to be untrue. The expectant mother was taken to the hospital, but did not lose the baby. Two additional shoppers were killed, however, when they shot each other in a Palm Desert, California, Toys R Us.

Eva Perón

The embalmed body of Eva Perón, now tucked away in the Duarte Family tomb in Buenos Aires, is likely still intact. In advance of her premature death of cancer in 1952, her husband, Argentine president Juan Perón, retained noted Spanish pathologist Dr. Pedro Ara to preserve her body. Dr. Ara's techniques are revealed in his own book, which I have not read, and in Art Aufderheide's The Scientific Study of Mummies, which I highly recommend. Since Eva is also a 20th c. mummy, I include the embalming and subsequent adventures of her body in my book. My friend Mr. Edward Johnson, a lifelong embalmer, always thought it was telling that in the photo of the two Perón caskets, that of Juan--who had just died in 1974--is closed and that of "Evita" is open--22 years after her death.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My favorite Thanksgiving story from last year is this: Rich Portnoy of Minneapolis roasting a 72-lb. turkey to definitively win an ongoing contest with his sister Rachel! This year I was fascinated by the turkey slaughter going on behind Sarah Palin in this interview at an event at which she pardoned a turkey. I find the official turkey pardon a ridiculous tradition, as do some other bloggers. But did you know that animals were tried, convicted, and executed in Europe for centuries?

Octopus with attitude

It is surprising to know that the octopus is an amazingly smart creature. It can run a maze, unscrew the lid of a jar, and walk on two legs (scroll toward the bottom of this link for two videos). The Indo-Malayan mimic octopus can change its color, shape, and the texture of its skin to mimic other animals. Scientists like Eugene Linden believe that engaging in play behavior is also a sign of its intelligence. In his book, he tells the story of a finicky octopus that was served slightly spoiled shrimp in a lab in Pennsylvania. Rather than eat it, the octopus waited until the researcher returned, made eye contact with her, then pointedly pushed all the shrimp down the drain. A German octopus named Otto recently made headlines for squirting a jet of water at the light outside his tank to short it out, rearranging his tank and throwing rocks against the glass, and juggling the hermit crabs he shares the tank with!

Myrtle Corbin & Hannah Kersey

Uterus didelphys is the condition of having a double uterus. In September 2006, Hannah Kersey gave birth to a baby from one womb and identical twins from the other. Although she is believed to be the first with the condition to have triplets, she does have a historical counterpart. Myrtle Corbin (1868-1928) had two pelvises, an anomaly known as Dipygus. She gave birth to five children, three from one womb and two from the other, though not all at the same time!

Tempest fugit

The winged hourglass occasionally depicted on Colonial gravemarkers is the visual equivalent of the saying, "Tempest fugit [Time flies]." It supposedly graces the gravestone of Lt. John Parker in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, who died in 1763 (or 1774). Without having seen that stone or a photograph of it, just a rubbing, I decided on September 11, 2002, that I needed that image etched on my arm, so I got a tattoo. Just now, I searched again, hoping to find a photo of the Parker gravestone. Instead, I found this beautiful, award-winning quilt with images from New England stones, including the winged hourglass. Artist Judy Coates Perez was just finishing the quilt on September 11, 2001, and was so unsettled that she was unable to show it for a year.

Traumatic skull injuries

I heard a passing reference on the news this morning about a boy who survived keys lodged in his eye socket (x-ray below). It reminded me of the classic story of Phineas Gage. Yesterday, I had an x-ray taken of my tooth, which I had the office e-mail to me so I could upload it. I've been unsuccessful with that so far, but offer the following strange images and stories:

The Death of Innocents

I attended a dramatic reading of Sister Helen Prejean's book The Death of Innocents last night. She tells the story of two wrongfully executed men. There are many reasons to abolish capital punishment - killing innocent people is a strong one, and the State has done just that, she points out, more than 130 times in the past few decades. I had seen Sister Helen speak before at Georgetown after Dead Man Walking, her book about spiritually advising a (guilty) man on death row, had been made into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. She spoke of the sneakiness of God and said that he leads you through door after door and if you knew what that far door opened to--in her case, death row--you would have never gone through. When she kneeled next to me for this picture, I reminded her of that story and she said, "You know a little about the sneakiness of God, don't you?" Yep.

Facial reconstruction

Facial reconstruction--or as some prefer, facial reproduction--is benefitting from modern technology. As important as it can be forensically (for instance, helping identify a mutilated or skeletonized victim), it is fascinating to see historic and prehistoric faces brought to life from their skulls or mummies:

A bog body known as the Yde Girl has been reconstructed to show what she may have looked like when she was alive.

A skull with battle wounds was reconstructed and believed to be Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, but has since proven to be that of Philip's brother.

A reproduction of King Tuthankhamun's face, made when his mummy underwent a CT-scan in 2005, can be compared with his face, which has been put on display for the first time.

Eli Bowen & Charles Tripp

This is one of my favorite photographs: Charles Tripp (1855-1930), billed as the "Armless Wonder," did the pedaling and Eli Bowen (1844-1924), legless acrobat, steered. These two performers did not ride as a regular habit, but grabbed the tandem bicycle in an inspired moment of self-promotion:

Pairing an armless man with a legless one was surely a stroke of showman brilliance but it was a moment of jovial playfulness that would cement Tripp and Bowen into history. While the pair posed for promotional photographs one of them spotted a tandem bicycle. In no time at all the two gents not only mounted the bicycle-built-for-two, but rode off together laughing as boys would. The photographer quickly snapped the pair mid-ride and the resulting surreal photograph still draws perplexed smiles.

The quote and photos from J. Tithonus Pednaud's The Human Marvels, which I found (and subscribed to) this morning.

Gravestones of Ruth Sprague & Grandma Moses

I opened the book I had ordered, Body Snatching by Suzanne M. Shultz, and the frontispiece was a photo of a child's gravestone in Old Maple Grove Cemetery in Hoosick Falls, New York, which indicts those who stole her body:

Ruth Sprague

dau. of Gibson & Elizabeth Sprague

died Jan. 11, 1846; aged

9 years 4 mo's & 3 days.

She was stolen from the grave

by Roderick H. Clow & dissect-

ed at Dr. P. M. Armstrong's office

in Hoosick N.Y. from which place

her mutilated remains were

obtained & deposited here.
"Her body dissected by fiendish Men

Her bones anatomised,

Her soul we trust has risen to God

Where few Physicians rise."

I searched in vain for a photo of Ruth Sprague's grave, but did find the e-mail address of a female descendant of Dr. Armstrong who had posted a message about wanting to repair the stone so the last line remains visible.

By coincidence, my friend Ellen Holloway grew up in Hoosick Falls! I just called her and she hadn't heard the Sprague story, but had told me that the town's most famous resident was Anna Mary Robertson, better known as Grandma Moses (1860-1961). She, too, is buried at Maple Grove.

Ice swimmers

Just as my "afternoon chill" was coming on, I was inexplicably compelled to seek out the stories and images of people swimming in icy waters. I must have seen a story about Lewis Gordon Pugh and remembered seeing a similar swimmer--Lynne Cox, as it turns out--on Sixty Minutes. Both Lewis and Lynne have swum in frozen Arctic and Antarctic waters wearing only a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. He claims to have spent 18 minutes at the North Pole swimming in colder water than anyone else. She describes the sensation in an interview:

You feel an intense cold. In that first moment, your body is changing in huge ways. You're shunting the blood into the core of the body to protect the heart, lungs and brain. And so you are feeling that shift. Your blood pressure is changing instantly. You're hyperventilating. Your heart is beating very rapidly. You're trying to compensate and trying to create heat by moving your arms really fast. I was really focusing on trying to keep my stroke rate so I could create heat. I also swam with my head up, because you lose up to 80 percent of heat through your head.

After years of study, scientists still can't figure out how they can pull off feats that would kill anyone else. It requires a lot of practice, even if you are up for the annual polar bear plunge...

Caucasoid mummies in China

A recent article in the New York Times pointed out the ongoing controversy about more than 200 mummies excavated in Xinjiang, China, over the past few decades. Because of their caucasian features, the mummies--referred to as the "Tarim Basin" or "Urumqi" mummies--support the idea that northern China was a melting pot. I first heard of them in Elizabeth Wayland Barber's The Mummies of Ürümchi. Click on the photos for further information.

Albinos

People with albinism are being targeted in Burundi and Tanzania because of the superstitious belief that their body parts can be used by witchdoctors to make magic potions. This has sparked a lucrative trade in albino limbs, hair, and skin, and has caused albinos to abandon their homes or live in fear. Dozens have been killed, many of them children. One woman had her legs hacked off and died afterward; another woman's hand was cut off, but she survived. Most recently, a family had just returned to their home after fleeing to a provincial center in Ruyigi, Burundi, when attackers tied the parents up, shot their 6-year-old albino daughter in the head, dismembered her body, and took away her limbs and head. Albinos have long suffered discrimination in Africa, but an albino woman appointed to Tanzanian Parliament hopes to change that.