Cenotaph

What do these 3 seemingly disparate images have in common? Cenotaphs. A cenotaph is a memorial - often in a cemetery - that does not mark a grave. The word comes from the Greek kenotaphion, an empty tomb. The 1st is a watercolor drawing by French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee (1728-1799) of a cenotaph that was never built. Intended to memorialize English mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), it was designed to be a giant perfect sphere with a dark interior illuminated only by holes in the walls that would simulate the stars to represent the night sky. "The confines of the space would disappear and the visitor would be engulfed by the vastness of the universe." While researching cenotaphs, I learned that there are many in India because they are a basic component of Hindu architecture. Called chhatris [canopies], they may consist only of a dome atop 4 pillars or several domes over a basement with several rooms. Hence the 2nd image, which shows a boy jumping into the Betwa River in Orchaa, an Indian town known for its chhatris (there is one in the background). The 3rd image shows the many cenotaphs placed in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., to honor 120 members of congress who died in office. These cenotaphs were designed by British-born American architect Benjamin Latrobe (1764-1820), who also designed the U.S. Capitol. From the photograph, it's easy to see why cemeteries are sometimes called silent "cities of stone." And with 50 senators and 435 representatives in office at any one time, it's easy to see why the practice of erecting cenotaphs didn't continue.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

You may remember this rhyme - "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) - from childhood:

.

It was 6 men from Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

May satisfy his mind.

.

The 1st approach'd the elephant,

And happening to fall

Against his broad and sturdy side,

At once began to bawl:

"God bless me! But the elephant

Is very like a wall!"

.

The 2nd, feeling of the tusk,

Cried, - "Ho, what have we here

So very round and smooth and sharp

To me 'tis mighty clear.

This wonder of an elephant

Is very like a spear!"

.

The 3rd approached the animal,

And happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands,

Thus boldly up and spake:

"I see," quoth he, "the elephant

Is very like a snake!"

.

The 4th reached out his eager hand,

And felt about the knee.

"What most this might beast is like

Is mighty plain," quoth he,

"'Tis clear enough the elephant

Is very like a tree!"

.

The 5th, who chanced to touch the ear,

Said: "E'en the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most;

Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant

Is very like a fan!"

.

The 6th no sooner had begun

About the beast to grope,

Then, siezing on the swinging tail

That fell within his scope,

"I see," quoth he, "the elephant

Is very like a rope!"

.

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each of his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and long,

Though each was partly in the right

And all were in the wrong!

.

So oft in theologic wars,

The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean,

And prate about an elephant

Not one of them has seen!

.

The parable is said to have originated in China or India, but has been attributed to and used by Buddhists, Jainists, Hindus, and Muslims to discourage dogmatism. I'm sure we all know people who would benefit from a fresh reading!

Sylvester

Several years ago, I was consulted by the National Geographic Channel's The Mummy Road Show for an episode called "Unwanted Mummy." It was about Hazel Farris (d. 1906), whose preserved body I had seen in Tennessee during my research for Modern Mummies. Having "met" her in person (she is the mummy in my profile picture), it was awfully difficult to watch her body - which had been intact for nearly a century - carved up when the episode aired in 2002. She had been in the custodianship of Luther Brooks, but when he died his family allowed the autopsy and had her placed in above-ground crypt.

.

Another episode "One Tough Cowboy" focused on a famous mummy who has remained above-ground: Sylvester (pictured), whom I have seen at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle. According to the story, Sylvester's naturally dehydrated body had been found in the Arizona desert in 1895, but medical imaging arranged by the researchers on "The Mummy Road Show" discredited that theory. A CT-scan in 2001 at the University of Washington Medical Center showed Sylvester's body to be perfectly intact, with organs that had retained their shape and arteries that showed evidence of embalming. In 2005, a CT-scan and an MRI at Inland Pacific Imaging in Seattle revealed even more detail, astounding the technicians, including a bullet fragment beneath his collarbone and a completely intact tongue. The researchers are convinced that Sylvester's preservation was achieved with an arsenic-based embalming fluid. "We've looked at probably 1,000 mummies," said Jerry Conlogue, "and he's absolutely the best preserved of any mummy we've ever examined." I'm pleased to report that you may conduct your own visual examination of Sylvester - he is still a Seattle resident.

Hummingbirds

This high-speed flash photo of a male broadbill hummingbird was taken without the electric eye that R.W. Scott usually uses, because the hummingbird "will be there and gone before triggering." Hummingbirds flap their wings as many as 100 times per second, which made it a challenge for scientists to figure out how they hover and to replicate this feat mechanically. Biologists have also determined that pound for pound - or should I say ounce for ounce - the hummingbird is the world's fastest flyer, diving up to speeds of 385 body-lengths per second. But the science takes some of the magic out of it, so have a look at this video of the splendid courtship ritual of the Marvellous Spatuletail. And here are a couple of "Marlin Perkins" moments for you:

• My Dad reported that while on the golf course recently he was buzzed by a hummingbird - no doubt attracted to his red shirt. The birds are attracted to red, the color of flowers they frequent, but naturalists discourage against adding red dye to the nectar used in hummingbird feeders and suggest that the red color of the feeder itself is enough of an attraction.
• My sister had an up-close-and-personal hummingbird moment of her own, which she documented in a letter to the New York Times magazine: "Following the recent Los Angeles earthquake, I was returning to my apartment from a neighbor's when I came upon a dead hummingbird. I reached down to take a closer look at its beautiful iridescent green and fuschia body and it flipped onto my arm! I took it home and set a bowl of sugar water next to it. It made no effort to drink, so I dipped my finger in the water and held it to the tiny creature's needlelike beak. To my amazement, a thread of a tongue emerged to drink from my finger. Shortly, it began to eat in this way voraciously. A few minutes later, it flew off. It was a wonderfully happy ending to what had been a traumatic morning. I often remind myself, when I need cheering up, that I have been licked by a hummingbird!"

I have now blogged about both of Melissa's favorite animals - hummingbirds and seahorses (in particular, leafy sea dragons)!

Hottentot Venus

Time to tell the story of the Hottentot Venus. I just finished a book about her and everyone I've mentioned her to has never heard of her - though hers is a household name in South Africa...
.

Saartjie (pronounced Sar-key, and anglicized as Sarah) Baartman (1789-1815) was a Khoikhoi* woman, brought to England at the age of 20 from her life of slavery on the Eastern Cape of what is now South Africa. In exchange for a portion of the profits, she was exhibited to the public as the exotic Hottentot Venus, notable for two characteristics of her people: steatopygia (large buttocks) and sinus pudoris (extended labia also known as the "apron" or "veil of shame"). She became a sensation in Piccadilly, where she performed on her ramkie (watch video of a modern version being played here) dressed in a form-fitting outfit and adorned with African beads and ostrich feathers - and was compelled to allow members of the audience to poke and pinch her bottom. She became a cause celebre among abolitionists, who raised the issue of her economic exploitation, and a symbol of the repression of women and the overly sexualized representation of African women in particular. And, when she was taken to Paris, she became the subject of intense scientific (and some say prurient) scrutiny by Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) and his colleagues, who finally convinced her to disrobe so they could examine and sketch her. Alcohol abuse contributed to her death, after which Cuvier gained custody of her body to satisfy his curiosity about her "apron," which - even when naked - she had shielded with a handkerchief. Saartjie's corpse was dissected by Cuvier, who preserved her skeleton, her brain, and - yes - her genitals, which were on display at the Musee de l'Homme, along with the cast made of her body, until 1974. Largely due to the rediscovery of these specimens in a storeroom by American scientist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), there were calls for the repatriation of Saartjie's remains to her native South Africa. Former president Nelson Mandela made a formal request, which was finally honored in 2002.

*"Hottentot" is today considered a pejorative term.

Capitol cornerstone

On a wall in the U.S. Capitol is this mural painted by Allyn Cox (1896-1982) depicting the ceremonial laying of the building's first cornerstone. I learned about the 1793 event on the website of Oglethorpe University, (re)founded by Thornwell Jacobs (1877-1956), the "father of the modern time capsule." The custom of burying a time capsule owes its origins to the Masons, who held rituals to lay cornerstones, often after placing memorabilia inside for later recovery. During his presidency, George Washington (1732-1799) performed the Masonic ritual over the Capitol's cornerstone and read the inscription on a silver plate that was laid in place with it. Exactly 200 years later, Masons from the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia reenacted the entire ceremony - except that the original cornerstone has never been located. The Capitol has undergone extensive expansion, remodeling, and reconstruction, but neither the stone nor the identifying plate have been found despite extensive searches beginning with the building's Centennial in 1893. As I was finishing my research for this post I learned that Dan Brown's new novel - being released in September - is called The Lost Symbol, and it has been speculated that the cornerstone in question figures in the plot!

Museum behind the scenes

On the day I found the turn-of-the-century photograph of the 2 men making a death mask, I also found these historical images of staff working to put together displays at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. The photos above link to further information about each one, but the treasure trove is here. Between prints, negatives, and lantern slides, the AMNH holds over 1 million images in their photographic archives, so they call this on-line exhibit "small" and promise to add the entire collection to it.

.

I first heard of the AMNH "Picturing the Museum" exhibit on one of my favorite websites Curious Expeditions. One of the writers of that site, Dylan Thuras, has teamed up with the founder of the Athanasius Kircher Society, Joshua Foer, to launch an incredible new website Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities & Esoterica. The Atlas Obscura includes many of the places I have blogged about, including the Paris Catacombs, the Mutter Museum, and the Sedlec Ossuary. Since many of my readers have been to or know about equally strange and wondrous places, I encourage you - as they have encouraged me - to visit, comment, and contribute!

.
I've been on "behind the scenes" visits to several museums, some of which have entries in the Atlas Obscura - the National Museum of Health and Medicine, the Mutter Museum, the San Diego Museum of Man, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History - and can personally vouch for the fact that that they are even more fascinating from the back side than the front. Did you know that most museums only have room to display about 10% of their collections?

Creative cremains

What is this, you ask? It is one of 8,000 sealed cans of unclaimed cremated human ashes that have accumulated since 1883 at the Oregon State Hospital. A photographer has found the corrosion on these copper containers - the cremains of psychiatric patients within - worthy of documentation in a book called Library of Dust. Most funeral homes have a closet full of unclaimed cremains, though probably not quite so many. But if you would like to ensure that your dust does not gather dust of its own, there is a growing number of creative options for your ashes:
.
Incorporate them into a painting At Ash2Art, British artist Val Thompson will be happy to mix a vial of cremains with acrylic paint and fill a canvas with an image based on a photograph of a place that was special to you. "I know the idea of painting using someone's ashes may seem bizarre to some people," she says, "but everyone I have spoken to about it thinks it is a great idea." If you prefer an abstract oil painting by Mona, that too is available.
.
Fashion them into a diamond LifeGem offers a service that will transform human ashes into a gem that can then be incorporated into one or more pieces of keepsake jewelry. The process involves subjecting the carbon captured from cremains to high heat and then high pressure. The resulting raw diamond is cut to your specifications by a gemologist. "Like the most precious and rare natural diamonds, the LifeGem process allows you to choose from a range of carats, cuts, and colors." Alternatively, many companies offer to enclose portions of the ashes in lockets that can be distributed among the mourners.
.
Send them into space Celestis will launch a symbolic portion of human cremated remains into orbit, into deep space, or - soon - onto the surface of the moon. A memorial spaceflight that returns the cremains to earth is also available. "A mission of purpose, a commemoration of love, a dream fulfilled, a step into the universe."
.
Embed them in a reef Eternal Reefs uses cremains in the casting of artificial reefs that are sunk along the East Coast in areas designated for fishing and diving recreation. Cremains may also become part of the Memorial Reef off the coast of Miami, which is maintained by the Neptune Society and has an interesting interactive component.
.
Convert them into potting soil The Ancestral Tree marries the cremated remains to the soil used in the art of Bonsai, attaches an engraved plaque to the container, nurtures a 24" Memorial Bonsai tree for 30 days, and then ships it by overnight air.
.
Scatter them from a plane Air Legacy is one of many companies that will release cremains into the air at 500-2,000' altitudes, "...lending dignity over simply just spreading the ashes on the ground."
.
Send them up in a balloon The Eternal Ascent Society will place the cremains into a 5' biodegradable balloon, inflate it with helium, and release it. The balloon will ascend to 30,000' and burst, scattering the ashes to the four winds. "It's a fitting farewell."
.
Explode them as fireworks Angels Flight will pack the cremains into fireworks and illuminate the sky with them. "Bursting over the ocean in exquisite patterns and colors, the cremains are scattered into the sea." Heaven Above Fireworks offers the service in the U.K. and will even modify such fireworks for self-firing.
.
Fire them from a shotgun Many articles about cremains disposition mention the option of loading them into shotgun shells, but I could not find a company that offers this service for humans - just dogs - but I did find mention of a do-it-yourselfer.
.
Make them into pencils Artist Nadine Jarvis has designed a unique memorial by fusing the cremains with graphite so that they can be made into 240 personalized pencils. The sharpenings go back into the special dispenser, which eventually becomes an urn for them. Jarvis has also blended cremains with birdseed to form a fully functional birdfeeder, from which they will be carried away bit by bit.
.
Craft them into sculpture As just one example, Cremation Solutions will form a glass globe in which a portion of the cremation ashes will show as a white streak. They also offer personal urns that turn a photograph into a 3-dimensional portrait to hold the cremains and urns that double as clocks, music boxes, or birdhouses.
.
Form them into Christmas ornaments In the Light Urns sells Christmas ornaments that incorporate a small amount of cremated remains. They also offer the largest collection of sports urns.
.
Inter them beneath a putting green In a service called "Forever on the Green" at Catawba Memorial Park in Hickory, North Carolina, cremains can be poured down one of two practice holes leading to an ossuary beneath a putting green.
.
Make them into a memorial tablet Relict Memorials will cast a slab that incorporates cremains and attach a memorial plaque, so that the result can be placed in a cemetery, in the garden, or on a wall as a permanent monument that can be relocated as necessary.
.
Include them in a time capsule I can't find a website, but a Reno, Nevada, company called LegaSEA is said to make a bronze and glass combination memorial urn and time capsule that it deploys in international waters so that it rests for eternity on the sea floor - unless discovered by future archaeologists.
.
If none of these ideas appeals to you, you can have your cremains scattered more traditionally on water or land, buried in an urn garden, or placed in a columbarium...or you can simply maintain your presence in the proverbial urn on the mantelpiece.

Amen

Did you ever wonder what the word "amen" signifies? I did, and asked my follower Kent Schnake, who has read the Bible cover to cover more than 20 times. He elucidates:
.
During my first trip to Japan, I was repeatedly told that hai means "yes." That is true, but during a conversation a Japanese listener will usually say "hai" repeatedly. They often don't mean "yes, I agree" - it's more likely "yes, I hear you." I was frustrated. Why couldn't the Japanese be clearer? Upon reflection, I realized that the same thing can be true in English: Sure. Okay. Got it. These can all mean "yes, I agree," but they are often simply ways of saying "yes, I hear you." We decide which is meant by paying attention to tone of voice, body language, and context. If we want to be unambiguous, it is good to have a word that is less subject to interpretation. That is particularly valuable for a literate people, because words in text are devoid of tone or body language. Muslims have long referred to Jews and Christians as "people of the book." It is a positive statement, indicating that Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all benefited from divine revelations that have been committed to writing and preserved. All have many centuries of literacy as part of their heritage - and all say "Amen." There are variations in pronunciation. Even as an English speaker, I have never been confident whether "ah-men" or "ay-men" is more suitable.
.
Monotheistic religions have one important practice in common: prayer. Simply put, prayer is conversing with God. When we converse with God, we seek to be as clear both with God and with others who are listening. The person praying may say "amen." "Amen" has been spoken and written in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin for centuries. From there it has passed on to many other languages, including English. A common English definition is "so be it." Unambiguous, emphatic agreement. As with many cultural conventions, saying "amen" has lost force in many situations. For a long time I thought it was just a way of saying "I'm done" when a person finished praying. However, particularly in the Pentecostal fellowships that I frequent, "amen" is used during sermons, during prayers, and even as an emotional response to good news. I might say, "My daughter has recovered from pneumonia," and then hear an emotional "amen" as a response. Emphatic, unambiguous, and multilingual. Amen to all that!

Maps featured in paintings

I have found the most incredible website about Johannes [Jan] Vermeer (1632-1675)! Here's how it happened. I was looking at a link of 20 fascinating ancient maps and the map of Belgium as a lion (top) caught my eye. The description explains that maps like this one, which was drawn by Jodocus Hondius in 1611, were often featured in 17th c. Dutch paintings. I immediately navigated to the painting referenced (2nd image), and wasn't convinced that it showed a lion-shaped land mass. The 2nd source I chose was Essential Vermeer, the site of which I speak, but more about that below. I had also googled "maps in paintings" - and I'm sure there are thousands - but what I came up with was this painting (4th image) of "Eugene Joseph Stanislas Foullon d'Ecotier (1753-1821) with a Map of Guadaloupe" by French artist Antoine Vestier in 1785. The map was identified, so I was able to find a copy of it on-line and show it here (3rd image) - it was published by J.N. Bellin in Paris in 1760. I also found this informative paper, "Vermeer's Maps: A New Digital Look in an Old Master's Mirror," which confirms the link between art and cartography and the Netherlands as the focus for both, because the Dutch were world leaders in mapmaking and many Dutch artists either drew maps themselves or featured them on the walls of their homes and in their paintings. The paper cited a long list of examples by Vermeer, which I found on Essential Vermeer and - here is the beauty of the site - was able to scroll over the map in each painting to find a remarkable amount of research about it! These are the paintings that include maps:

• Officer and Laughing Girl (c. 1655-1660)
• Woman with a Lute (1662-1664)
• Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (c. 1664-1665)
• Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (c. 1662-1665)
• The Art of Painting (c. 1662-1668)
• The Love Letter (c. 1667-1670)
• The Astronomer (1668)
• The Geographer (c. 1668-1669)

This incredibly rich website is the work of one man - Jonathan Janson - over a period of 8 years! Remarkable!

Steampunk design

I'm not sure how this got by me, but I didn't know what "steampunk" meant until yesterday. My only excuse is that I rarely read science fiction, from which this aesthetic derived. The word was coined in 1987, but the literature goes back to Jules Verne (1828-1905) and H.G. Wells (1866-1946) and involves an alternate reality in which futuristic devices were powered by the steam engines of the time. The modern steampunk genre is characterized by machines in a historical setting that predates the Industrial Revolution. Steampunk subculture has developed around the literature and the resulting aesthetic is sometimes known as "neo-Victoriana." Afficionados have modified contemporary machines to meet this historically-grounded but futuristic look. Among the most artful - but still functional - devices are electric guitars and the computers and peripherals I have featured here, including a USB mouse, a laptop, keyboards, and all-in-one systems. I find them to be masterful, and clicking on the photos will show how some of them have been made. Note that the circular component in the top photo is a disk drive and the book on the desk is a flatbed scanner! Ingenious!

Pangolins

It's easy to see from these photos why the pangolin, a.k.a. the scaly anteater, is described as a walking pine cone. Unfortunately, that's not enough of a disguise for these rare creatures. They are being poached to extinction in their native habitats of Africa (where they are a popular source of bush meat) and Asia (where their meat is considered a delicacy and their meat, blood, and scales are used in traditional Chinese medicines). The demand for pangolins far outstrips their ability to reproduce, since most of them give birth later in life and to only one baby at a time, and they cannot be bred in captivity. The offspring is born with soft scales and the mother defends it by rolling up around it - the same way that she defends herself. But pangolins are no match for the illegal traders, who have been intercepted with enormous loads, despite a global trade ban: 280 live pangolins seized in Thailand in February 2007, 24 tons of meat and scales seized in Vietnam in February and March 2008, 14 tons of frozen Malayan pangolins siezed in Indonesia in July 2008, 5 tons of pangolin meat (from an estimated 1,481 animals) seized in Vietnam in December 2008.

So the pangolin holds 2 records. It has the longest tongue, measuring more than 2/3 the length of its body - it is anchored in the pelvis and rests in the chest cavity when not in use! And it is the most frequently seized mammal in southeast Asia. As the number of pangolins decrease, the demand for them continues to rise - and smugglers are now turning to Africa to supply the luxury restaurants of China.

Death masks

Making a plaster death mask, New York, c. 1908. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.


A plaster cast of the face and hands of theologian and religious reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546), made shortly after his death and now on exhibit at Luthers Sterbehaus [Luther's Death House] in Eisleben, Germany, where he spent the last few weeks of his life.

Cast of death mask of Australian wife-murderer Frederick Bailey Deeming, hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in 1892. The shape of Deeming's skull was held by phrenologists to indicate that he was an innate criminal, but the judge in his case rejected his plea of insanity.

Death mask with wounds added, used as a visual aid to demonstrate the characteristics of incisions, lacerations, and stab wounds, c. 1965. New York City Medical Examiner's Collection, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington, D.C.

It is easier to make plaster molds of the faces of the dead than the living - they don't move and they don't require straws in the nostrils through which to breathe. I came across the top photo yesterday on one of my favorite blogs, Morbid Anatomy, in reference to the article "Death Doesn't Lie." Then began a lengthy search for more information about death masks, starting with the book cited in the comments to the Morbid Anatomy post. In Portraits in Plaster, American essayist and critic Laurence Hutton (1843-1904) documents his extensive collection of life and death masks - but in A Pictorial Guide by John Delaney, Princeton University Library has kindly digitized the entire array (click on the alphabet). Note that the cast of Abraham Lincoln's face - often mistakenly assumed to be made after his death, is correctly identified as a life mask, as is further explained on a blog called Project Death Mask. There are plenty of death masks to be found on the web - politicians, scientists, artists, writers, and particularly musicians - but they are also available for sale from Teardrop Memories if you want to hold one in your hands. I chose the images above to represent the reasons death masks have been made: not just sentimental, but historical, pseudoscientific, and forensic. They are the direct imprint of the human face, predating and paralleling photography. Hutton writes:

The value of a plaster cast as a portrait of the dead or living face cannot for a moment be questioned. It must, of necessity be absolutely true to nature. It cannot flatter; it cannot caricature. It shows the subject as he was, not only as others saw him, in the actual flesh, but as he saw himself. And in the case of the death-mask particularly, it shows the subject often as he permitted no one but himself to see himself. He does not pose; he does not "try to look pleasant." In his mask he is seen, as it were, with his mask off!

They may be so unflattering, in fact, that posterity prefers a print or photographic portrait...

Metrology

When I saw this photograph (bottom) today of an Australian metrologist holding a near-perfect silicon sphere (weighing 1.0000000 kg, smooth to the nearest 0.0000000003 meter, and round to within 0.000000050 meters), I immediately thought of the print (top) by one of my favorite artists, Dutch printmaker M.C. Escher (1898-1972). Doing some more poking around, I found the photograph of Escher holding the sphere in his 1935 lithograph. The comparison is appropriate, since many of Escher's artworks were mathematically inspired.

Femur scepter

It has long been suspected - from sculptures like the one above - that the men of the Zapotec culture (500 B.C.-1,000 A.D.) carried human femurs as status symbols. The earlier excavation of a tomb containing 9 skeletons missing only their femurs lent credibility to the theory, but now more conclusive proof is offered by the discovery of a femur-less skeleton buried beneath a home in a grave that was reentered 25-100 years after the death. Zapotecs fluorished in the Oaxaca Valley in Mexico and I have seen the sculptures at Monte Alban while visiting the area with my sister and her husband in the early 1990s. We flew to Mexico for the Day of the Dead celebrations. My sister was the only one on whom Montezuma did not exact his revenge...

Follow-ups

Humboldt squid Subsequent to my post this afternoon, I heard that the two competing reasons for the influx of squid are 1) climate change, and 2) the overfishing of their predators, namely sharks. Here is a dramatic look at the squid underwater.
.
Follow-ups In my follow-up to Elusive animals, I mentioned the almiqui of Cuba, which was new to me. It is included in this list of the top 10 ugliest animals. Also be sure to check out #2, the very unfortunate-looking naked mole rat.
.
Oscar Mayer dies News broke just today that the wienermobile crashed into a Racine, Wisconsin, home! The driver took a wrong turn, ended up on a dead-end street, and stepped on the gas instead of the brake while turning around. No one was hurt, but the wienermobile was towed. My friend Deb. Weiner (pronounced why-ner) took me to task for misspelling the name of the vehicle, which I immediately corrected. "Having my name routinely mispronounced," she writes in an e-mail that left me in stitches, "I can speak authoritatively on this issue of spelling. Fear not, it is a common mistake."
.
Chihuahuas in the weird news These little dogs always seem to grab the headlines. This guy, ironically named "Smoky," got a barbecue fork lodged in his skull when the handle snapped off at a cook-out. He disappeared into the woods for 3 days before the family could get him to the vet. The fork was removed and he has recovered.
.
Megafishes I'm of two minds about 11-year-old angler Jessica Wanstall landing this record-breaking catfish in Spain. While it makes for a spectacular story and equally spectacular photograph, I mourn the death of the 193 lb. monster, which must have been ancient and probably wasn't used for food.
.
Hedgehogs Speaking of naked mole rats, a spineless hedgehog that surfaced in an English garden has regrown its spines and is no longer "embarrassed," even though the underlying skin condition causing the loss of this defense mechanism remains unresolved.
.
Traumatic skull injuries Phineas Gage (1823-1860) is one of the earliest documented cases of traumatic brain injury, surviving (though with some personality changes) an explosion that sent a metal pole through his head. Bright Bytes Studio has just identified a daguerreotype that it has had in its collection for 30 years as the only known photograph of this famous patient. Remarkable!
.
Myrtle Corbin & Hannah Kersey Meet Lindsay Hasaj, who has just given birth to a baby from one of her two wombs. Like Corbin and Kersey (and plenty of other women, judging from the comments about the article) she has the condition uterus didelphys.
.
Amputation Along with news of the most recent double hand transplant, here is a list of 10 fascinating reattachment surgeries that includes several stories I have blogged about: the young woman who lost her feet at Six Flags, the man whose hand was torn off in a tug-of-war, and the veterinarian whose arm was bitten off by a crocodile.
.
Cannibalism Reports of a newly unveiled military robot made a massive splash in the weird news the other day because the machine sustains itself by "eating" biomass and converting the energy from it. Headlines blared that it would be consuming the corpses of the war dead. These reports have been retracted with the news that the robot "is a vegetarian."