Has science gone too far?
The answer is yes. Yes, it has.
This is exactly what it looks like: a woman with a foot where her knee should be, but backwards.
This East Yorkshire woman had bone cancer, so they removed her thigh and knee. Then they moved her lower leg up to replace her thigh, but turned it around facing backwards. That way, her ankle bends in the same direction her knee used to.
It makes a certain sense. I get it. It’s not unlike having a big toe grafted to replace a thumb. But…I dunno. I could maybe, after a lot of years, get used to having a toe on my hand.
Having my foot where my knee should be but facing backwards rattles me on a deep, baseline body image level. I can’t explain it. Just, trust me…I would freak the fuck out. Every day until they took it offa me.
This lady looks happy, though, so who am I to judge? brrrrrr
October 28, 2014 — 8:12 pm
Comments: 17
Housekeeping
That reminds me. I did an inventory of dick winners this weekend. I have addresses for everybody I need, except: Carl (win #3), Scott the Badger (is that #2 for you?), hutch (did we meet in Boston that time?), platypuss (I was sure you’d sent me an address, but I can’t find it) and drew458 (is that #2 for you, too?). Just because you’ve won before doesn’t mean I can easily work out your address. Don’t be shy. You’ve won dick, fair and square.
Nope. Never gets old.
Once again, thanks for your patience. I’ve started to build drawing time into my day again, but I’m mighty rusty.
By the way, don’t indulge in a sigh or relief just yet, re: ebola. We seem to have a calming, especially outside Africa, but the BIG ones start with a few fizzles before they really get going. The Great Flu pandemic of 1918 was preceded by a little hiccup of an outbreak six months before. And I think they traced the AIDS Patient Zero back decades before anyone noticed a sudden weird uptick of Kaposi’s sarcoma in San Fran.
One of the things that can turn a local outbreak into raging pandemic is large groups of people living in close proximity. It’s not the spread so much as the opportunity to mutate rapidly. Like the barracks of WWI. Or — widely rumored — the immigrant camps of 2014 that may have given us a more aggressive Enterovirus D68.
And on that cheery note — see you back here,
Friday, 6pm WBT, Dead Pool Round 70!
October 21, 2014 — 10:27 pm
Comments: 26
Plague Doctor
Meh, I’m probably not going anywhere with this. I just had it stuck in my head, the resemblance between Medieval plague doctors and all those guys in hazmat suits.
I’m a big fan of pandemics. Have I ever mentioned that? Black Death, Spanish flu, polio. Been reading up on them for years, only in part because we’re overdue for another big one.
Ebola is probably — probably — not it.
Cons: it isn’t all that easy to spread (maybe. I think). We’re close to a vaccine, and a treatment.
Pros: it’s nasty. It’s virulent. We’re months away from a tested treatment, and a proper supply of it. And our officials — all of them — are proving themselves to be utterly incompetent boobs.
So. Don’t lose sleep over it. But, you know, if you see cans of tuna on sale, pick up a few. Goes good with saltines, just saying.
p.s. this Enterovirus D68 is giving ebola competition. Leaving aside persistent rumors that it came across the border with this year’s children’s crusade, it’s an evil customer in is own right. Goes for the kids. Half a dozen deaths, and at least one outbreak later resulted in polio-like muscle weakness several weeks later. One to watch.
p.p.s. have a good weekend!
October 17, 2014 — 8:50 pm
Comments: 10
Can he do that?
Tonight was the second and final night of my first aid course. I gave CPR to the dummy. I passed the exam. Still, god help you if you have a heart attack in front of me.
So, a quickie. I know we’ve subjected soldiers to dangerous experiments in the past. MK Ultra comes to mind. Standing close to nuclear testing, as above. I always thought these acts were mitigated because the military really didn’t know how dangerous they were when they went on. Probably.
I also assumed there’d since been…I dunno. Legislation or a regulation or something to allow soldiers to opt out of dangerous experiments not centrally important military service. I mean, those things have generated so much controversy.
So, how the fuck can we knowingly send thousands of soldiers into the middle of an epidemic hot zone for reasons not obviously vital to American security? I mean, that’s not what they signed up for. That’s not what the military is for, is it? Is there a mechanism to opt out? Also, by the way, it’s a really, really bad idea.
I haven’t seen anyone else asking this question, so I have to assume it’s an incredibly dumb question. But it’s mine and I’m asking it.
September 17, 2014 — 10:13 pm
Comments: 22
Socialized medicine sucks
I stepped on a rusty nail yesterday. Right up through the shoe and into the foot. It was a classic weasel trap: two old nails sticking up through a piece of wood in the tall grass in my next door neighbor’s back yard.
Typical. Her grandkids ran around back there the whole long weekend, and nothing. Me, I step around the back some sunny afternoon and bang. I’m disappointed there weren’t seven or eight rakes lying around so I could do the full Sideshow Bob.
I had no problem getting a same-day appointment from our local medical centre for a tetanus booster. I’ll say that about ’em…they always seem to be able to make time.
I asked the nurse lady if she’d like to see my boo boo. Her mouth said yes, but her eyes said, “why the hell would I want to see your dessicated old lady foot? I bet you haven’t had a pedicure in, like, forever.” Then she looked at it and nodded, like, “yep, there’s a small hole in your foot.”
What she didn’t say, and should have, is that it’s a quite small, shallow wound and so much more at risk of septicemia than tetanus. Because the nail shoved a lot of junk in there and it didn’t really bleed enough to clear it out. I should have been instructed accordingly.
But never mind. I gave it a good, long soak in salt water right after the injury. And another, later, in a mild bleach solution. I should be okay. Anyway, mortality from tetanus in the Western world is quite low nowadays.
Raise your hand if you knew what to do because you’ve spent most of your life mentally preparing for surviving the apocalypse…?
Good weekend, preppers!
April 25, 2014 — 9:39 pm
Comments: 30
Mmmm…oatmeal…
This here contraption weds a camera to a kite for some intriguing low-aerial photography. (Ummm…I was sent the link by email and forgot to ask if I could say by whom). There are some cracking good pictures at the link.
The head photographer and my old art gig requisitioned (and got!) quite a large a remote-control helicopter to use as a photography platform. It didn’t turn out so well. Gear in those days was bulky, remotes were hinky and the camera shake was fierce. On the other hand, he spent weeks playing with a big, expensive toy and got the company to pay for it. So, w00t, really.
Also in my inbox today, also from someone who will remain anonymous because I forgot to ask, this link to an excellent album of some dude playing classical guitar pieces on a ukulele. Two ukes, actually, I think. It works surprisingly well.
You have to sign up at the link to download the album (it’s kind of interesting what they’re trying to do there, but no thanks)…but they’ll let you listen to the whole thing for free.
Me, I’ve got my annual bloodwork tomorrow morning early. I really, really don’t want to go on a statin, but I really, really don’t want to pick a fight with my doctor, either. He’s a crabby sod as it is. So I’ve been living on a diet that includes lots of oat bran, almonds, lecithin granules, apples and niacin. Does this shit really lower cholesterol? I don’t know and, in the bigger scheme of things, I don’t much care. I don’t think they’ve worked out the role of cholesterol yet; I’m just trying to queer the test.
I’m about an hour into my 14-hour fast and I’m feeling a lot of class envy at the moment. You people in the “sure, I’m going to eat dinner tonight” class, you really frost my ass. You know that?
April 29, 2013 — 7:44 pm
Comments: 41
Gnarly Mummy Head!
Gnarly mummy head! It isn’t even my title – it’s Discovery’s title: Gnarly Mummy Head Reveals Medieval Science.
Neat story. This is the oldest surviving European anatomical dissection. It’s a proper, prepared anatomical specimen, too — the anatomist ran wax into the arteries for preservation and everything. Carbon dating puts its origins round about 1200 AD.
Yup, during the Middle Ages. When things like autopsies were supposedly verboten.
I’ve read for some time that the Dark Ages were unfairly tagged with that moniker. I mean, that’s been a trend in history books for my whole lifetime: rehabilitating that long stretch between the Romans and the Renaissance.
Until I read the article, though, I didn’t put that together in my head with Protestantism. That newly minted Protestants talked a lot of crap about the state of science before their time, as a sort kind of anti-Church thing. “Oh, boohoo — the Pope didn’t let us cut up dead people!” Which was not, apparently, true.
Worth a read, anyway.
Oh, speaking of dead people! I’m delighted to acknowledge that Hugo Chavez is officially dead. I’m even more delighted to point out that his official date of death is today, Tuesday, March 5. Which means he falls between Dead Pools and I don’t owe dick.
Sorry, Hutch. I suspect you wuz robbed.
March 5, 2013 — 11:30 pm
Comments: 37
Miracles of Cuban medicine
So, I’m guessing they have Hugo Chavez hooked up to the latest modern machinery. While I suspect they will soon reach the limits of potato-based medicine, I’m not comfy calling the Dead Pool until we get an official death notice. That could take Some Time.
(On an unrelated note, did you see where Ariel Sharon is showing significant brain activity hooked up to a Functional MRI? Brrrrr).
No new Dead Pool tomorrow, even in the unlikely event they call him out before six WBT. So, tough luck, Hutch…for now.
February 28, 2013 — 10:34 pm
Comments: 24
Journalistic standards
So the headline in the Telegraph is Man grows new nose in his arm. Must click, right? And it’s illustrated with…a picture of the professor supervising the experiment.
Oh, come on, Daily Telegraph: you wrote that headline, don’t go all bashful and coy on us now. Show us the fucking nose!
I had to drop the doctor’s name into Google and paddle around until I found the Daily Mail take on it, from last May. Yes, they sent a photographer to the lab and got a picture of the fucking nose. Yes, that thing up there is the fucking nose.
Y’all may remember I have a hate on for the Mail. It’s a bottom-feeding, shit-stirring hyperventilating rag. It’s all trout pouts and baby bumps and catching some reality TV actress with her eyes half closed and calling her drunk(?) (the question mark confers legitimacy). But, hey, at least they have the minimal journalistic chops when they’re making an astonishing claim about a nose to show me the fucking nose.
Oh. Yes. That growing a nose in your arm thing is pretty cool, too. Here’s a more recent Mail article that better illustrates how they’re doing it.
Have a good weekend, folks. Don’t grow any noses in awkward places! (But if you do — pictures!).
January 25, 2013 — 10:18 pm
Comments: 27
Hey, it’s working!
Yes, I look exactly like this, h8rs!
I’ve decided to stay unconscious until the worst of this is over. So far, it’s working. I’ve slept 40 out of the last 48 hours, like a Serengeti lioness. And it only took one dose of Night Nurse, two doses of alcohol and a serving of ibuprofen with codeine, spread over a two day period.
Oops, gotta go…I seem to be waking up.
I’ll set the Dead Pool up now, so it’ll autopost tomorrow, 6 sharp, WBT, whether I’m conscious or not. Be here!
November 29, 2012 — 11:52 pm
Comments: 20