We live on a water planet. From millions of miles away, Earth shines blue, with almost 70% of its surface covered in water. But most of that water is in the oceans, and it's salty. On earth, only about 3% of water is fresh - the stuff we drink and use to feed our crops - and it's constantly moving and changing. Watch this video to see Earth's changing freshwater as tracked by a fleet of NASA satellites.
The Embarrassing Product Recalls Businesses Want You to Forget
By Pauli Poisuo, Toptenz, 27 June 2019.
When a product malfunctions, its buyer complains. When enough products malfunction and customers complain, the manufacturer may be prompted to issue a recall. Product recalls are rarely good news, but there’s a world of difference between your average “there were 0.2% more bugs in this sausage than FDA regulations allow” recall and the ones we’re talking about today. These are companies panickedly realizing that they have been manufacturing products that can explode, catch fire, emit poison or even kill people, and the unfortunate aftermath of those exact things happening. Let’s take a look at some of the worst product recall cases of all time.
10. Dell notebook batteries
Mobile devices are everywhere, which means they need reliable batteries. However, every once in a while the occasional defective one manages to make it through the production line, leading to all those stories about exploding or otherwise malfunctioning batteries you occasionally read about in the news.
Between 2004 and 2006, Dell had a slightly less than lucky run with said defective batteries, when Sony delivered more than a few for their Inspiron, Latitude and Precision laptops and XPS units. Soon, reports of Dell notebooks catching fire or even exploding started surfacing, and the company was facing one of the largest recalls in the history of the electronics industry when it realized that the faulty batch was a whopping 4.1 million batteries that were a fire risk - almost 20% of Dell’s computer sales during that time period.
After some high-profile scandals such as a Dell laptop bursting into flames at a conference, Dell and Sony ended up issuing a recall for all 4.1 million batteries.
9. Westland/Hallmark beef
February 2008 was a bad time for Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company in Chino, California. Not only was the company drawing accusations for treating its cows badly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was also on their tail. They had slaughtered cows that had lost the ability to walk after they had already passed pre-processing inspections without having them examined for chronic illness, which was a bad move during a time when bovine spongiform encephalopathy - the Mad Cow Disease - was creating panic all over the Western world.
Westland/Hallmark paid a hefty price for their neglect when the Department of Agriculture forced them to recall the meat that had been potentially contaminated. All 143 million pounds of it. If you have a hard time wrapping your head around that number, it’s enough to make two delicious burgers for every single man, woman and child living in the U.S. at the time.
8. Mattel toys
As the maker of iconic toys such as Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls, it’s easy to assume that Mattel would pay pretty close attention to keeping its products safe for children. Unfortunately, not all of the company’s business partners bother with such trivialities; In 2007, Mattel announced a recall of no less than 967,000 toys after finding out that they were covered in poisonous lead paint.
The toy giant managed to stop roughly two thirds of the batch, which had been made by a Chinese contract manufacturer. However, an estimated 300,000 toys still made it to the shelves of American toy stores. These weren’t display action figures or over-12-years-old stuff, either - the 83 types of tainted products featured Nickelodeon and Sesame Street characters that were specifically aimed for toddlers.
The incident was particularly hurtful for Mattel because the Chinese company that had betrayed them was no cost-cutting spring chicken that had just started working for them. This was a manufacturer they had been working with for 15 years, which means they were in full knowledge of all the rules and regulations of safe toy-making…and yet, something went awry.
7. Ace Bayou bean bag chairs
Ace Bayou bean bag chairs were a popular and affordable piece of furniture that was sold widely by many popular retail stores and sites such as Walmart and Amazon. However, as you can probably guess by their presence on this list, their design had one serious safety flaw: The zipper. The Ace Bayou bean bag chairs were equipped with a zipper that was so easy to open that even small children could do it. Unfortunately, this exact thing happened more than once, and because an opened bean bag seems like an inviting miniature ball pit, kids climbed right in…and some of them closed the zipper behind them. We’re not going to go into the depressing specifics, so let’s just say that an airtight sack full of choking hazards is not the safest environment for a small child.
After two tragic deaths, Ace Bayou promptly issued a voluntary recall for its bean bags, and started to provide free repair kits that disabled the zipper.
6. The Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven
Hasbro’s Easy-Bake Oven seems like a fairly simple toy…that is, until you remember that it’s quite literally a miniature oven that young children can easily stick their fingers in. For everyone who has ever seen a toddler, let alone witnessed its parents frantically baby-proof the electrical outlets of the house, this seems like a pretty massive safety risk. After all, small children love nothing more than sticking their hands in every possible place, regardless of their danger factor.
With that in mind, please pretend to look surprised when we tell you that when Hasbro started using a genuine heating element (instead of the traditional light bulb) in the ovens in 2006, it took them less than a year to voluntarily issue a recall for a million easy-bake ovens, as toddlers kept sticking their hands inside the easy-bakey part of the toy, resulting in (occasionally serious) burns when their baby sausage fingers connected with the brand new heating element. Later in 2007, Hasbro repeated the process for another million toy ovens.
Between those two recalls, the toy company and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission had been bombarded with a total of 249 complaints about kids getting their hands stuck in the oven, 77 of which reported burns. One 5-year-old received such bad burns that her finger had to be partially amputated.
5. Tylenol
Tylenol is a popular pain reliever that can nevertheless lead to massive complications - up to and including liver failure - when taken in large doses. It has also been the subject of several large-scale recalls over the years.
In 2009, the manufacturer had to recall several Tylenol brands because a wood-treating chemical had somehow made its way into the medicine and was causing diarrhea, vomiting and nausea to people who ingested the medicine. Another disaster struck in 2011, tens of thousands of Tylenol products had to be recalled over issues with quality control, and the problem became so large-scale that they had to close one of their manufacturing plants. In 2012, yet another 600,000 bottles of Tylenol for infants had to be recalled because dosing issues had turned the pill into a crapshoot of either too little or too much medicine. There have also been other, less significant recalls over mislabeling, development issues or a strange, uncharacteristically moldy odor.
However, the most infamous Tylenol product recall was no fault of the manufacturer. In 1984, someone in Chicago started tampering with bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol, lacing them with poisonous cyanide. The poison killed seven people before Johnson & Johnson (the manufacturer) had time to send warnings to distributors and hospitals, but they were quick to stop both advertisements and production of the drug and swiftly recalled an estimated 31 million bottles.
The Chicago Tylenol Murders remain unsolved to this day.
4. Jensen Farms
Cantaloupe may or may not be your favorite fruit, but even if you hate it from the bottom of your heart, eating it is unlikely to kill you…that is, unless you bought Jensen Farms’ sweet Rocky Ford cantaloupes in 2011. A batch of the farm’s product was contaminated with listeria, but nevertheless made it to the stores, where the tainted cantaloupes proceeded to kill 33 people and making 147 people violently ill in an outbreak that spanned 28 states. The listeria-laced melons were also linked to at least one miscarriage.
After a hasty recall, the two brothers who owned of the farm were arrested (and later filed for bankruptcy). An investigation found that they had neglected to use a system that sprayed the melons with an antibacterial solution before packaging, despite the fact that they knew perfectly well this could mean that their product was contaminated. Unsurprisingly, federal charges followed, and the Jensens’ farming career ended with six counts of adulteration of food and aiding and abetting.
In 2014, the brothers were each sentenced to five years probation and six months home detention, complete with 100 hours of community service and $150,000 of restitution payments. While this might seem like a slap on the wrist for men who were responsible for so many deaths, there were some mitigating factors at play. The case managed to prompt stricter food safety laws and liabilities on producers, and many of the victims’ family members also agreed that the apologetic Jensens should face no prison time. It’s also fairly uncommon to actually charge food producers for food safety issues, and the FDA made it clear the Jensens’ case was specifically meant to send a message to other food producers out there.
3. The Ford-Firestone tire recall
When hundreds of people die because of a defective product, you know that someone somewhere has messed up in a serious way. Unfortunately, Ford and tire manufacturer Firestone had a hard time agreeing on which one of them was the true culprit in 2000-2001, when Firestone’s 15-inch Wilderness AT, radial ATX and ATX II tire treads started separating from the tires’ cores, which led to many nasty and movie-worthy roll-overs and crashes…and, of course, countless human tragedies.
Most of the defective tires were custom equipment for the Ford Explorer, which happened to be the world’s best-selling SUV at the time. Firestone immediately (and apparently genuinely) believed they had managed to sort the problem out and acted accordingly, but more and more accidents kept piling up, and Ford wasn’t happy - especially when Firestone started claiming that the problem wasn’t just the tires, but the design flaws in the Explorer itself. The back-and-forth between the two companies was a bitter one and reached epic levels that involved congressional hearings and the recall of 6.5 million tires. The situation came to a head in 2001, when the exasperated Ford promised to replace all 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires out there at their own expense. Firestone wasn’t having any of it and severed their nearly 100-year-old business relationship.
Cars have tons of parts that can cause a massive disaster if they don’t function properly, but you wouldn’t necessarily expect the floor mat to be one of them. As Toyota proved to the world in 2009, you’d be wrong to assume so when they announced the recall of almost four million Toyota and Lexus cars, including 2005-2009 editions of the popular hybrid model Prius. The problem was, as you can probably guess, the cars’ floor mats, which thanks to a design flaw could become dislodged in multiple ways and get stuck under the accelerator, which could lead to every driver’s worst nightmare: unintended, uncontrolled and dangerous acceleration. This ended up happening in the most dramatic way imaginable, when a Highway Patrolman and his family found to their horror that the doormat of their Lexus sent them speeding uncontrollably at over 100 miles per hour. The patrolman was able to call 911 and explain the terrifying situation, and was still on the phone when the fatal crash came.
As accidents started piling up, the FBI started to become interested. The ensuing investigation revealed that Toyota had downplayed the unintended acceleration problem, which also included issues with sticky pedals and plenty of allegations that they kept making cars despite being well aware of their potentially lethal issues. In 2014, the manufacturer agreed to pay a massive $1.2 billion in order to avoid prosecution for its safety issues. The agreement also forced Toyota to “admit” misleading American consumers and making deceptive statements about serious safety issues. By then, the car company’s long-standing acceleration troubles had killed 89 people and injured a further 57, and the company had recalled over eight million vehicles.
1. Ford Pinto
Yes, it’s Ford again, and if you know anything about bad cars, you might actually have seen this one coming. Ford Pinto was one of the best-selling cars of the 1970s right up until the moment it turned out that the car was basically a fireball waiting to happen. A massive and tragic flaw in the Pinto’s design made the vehicle’s gas tank vulnerable to rear-end collisions, which could create an explosion and turn the car into a fiery death trap. Unfortunately, many of the owners found this out in the worst possible way. Faulty Ford Pintos caused around 500 deaths and hundreds of injuries before 1978, when Ford agreed to recall 1.5 million of the vehicles, along with 30,000 Mercury Bobcats with similar design issues.
The product scandal left Ford’s reputation in tatters, especially when it emerged that the fatal design flaw was the result of a very cynical cost-benefit analysis. Auto industry superstar Lee Iaocca, who had presided over Pinto’s creation, was unceremoniously fired, and Ford’s lawyers had to put in some serious overtime dealing with the 117 lawsuits by disgruntled customers. The recall also prompted a 1979 landmark case, “Indiana vs. Ford Motor Co.,” which marked Ford as the first American corporation that was indicted and prosecuted for criminal homicide.
Top image: Toyota’s faulty floor mats. Credit: Associated Press/YouTube.
Batrachotoxin is the most potent non-peptide based poison known to man. It is commonly used in poison darts from, funnily enough, poison-dart frogs [pictured above].
It is a highly potent cardiotoxic and neurotoxic steroidal alkaloid. To date, no antidote has been developed.
Interestingly, the frogs are unable to synthesize the chemical themselves, but rather acquire and secrete it from the Melyrid beetles they consume.
2. Chlorine Trifluoride is highly corrosive
Chlorine Trifluoride is famous for its ability to actually corrode glass. It is a so-called interhalogen compound that is colorless, highly-corrosive and an extremely reactive chemical.
It is mainly used as a component of rocket fuel and can only really be stored in fluorine-treated metal containers. When this nasty chemical meets water, it results in a highly explosive reaction.
3. Potassium Cyanide has killed some notable people in the past
Potassium Cyanide is a highly poisonous chemical that kills in minutes. For this reason, it has historically been used as a suicide pill by many prominent people in history.
Victims include the likes of Eva Braun (Hitler's long-time partner), Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Alan Turing and many more. It is also used by professional entomologists as a killing agent in collecting jars for, particularly fragile insect specimens.
VX, or Venomous Agent X, is a nasty nerve agent specifically designed for use in war. It was created by British military researchers and is deadly in doses as low as 10 mg.
VX can enter the body through the skin and doesn't easily break down in the environment. Exposure to VX kills by constantly activating glands and muscles. Death comes when the respiratory system fails.
Botox, or Botulinum Toxin A, is a very common cosmetic chemical that also happens to be one of the most toxic things in nature. This neurotoxic protein is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and other related species.
It is so toxic that just 1.3-2.1 ng/kg of it would be enough to kill someone if injected. So you might well ask, why is it used in cosmetic surgery?
Because of its ability to paralyze muscles, it is ideally suited for treating things like wrinkles, and muscle spasms in extremely small doses.
Ricin is widely known as a highly dangerous chemical. Yet it can be readily found in the seeds of castor oil plants.
It is a highly potent toxin and a dose the size of just a few grains of table salt will kill a human outright. Ricin was investigated for a time for its potential applications in war, but interest was ultimately turned to the weaponization of sarin.
Sarin is a highly potent nerve agent that will kill exposed victims in less than ten minutes. It kills you through suffocation as your lung muscles become paralyzed as a result of inhaling it.
According to Wikipedia, "Sarin is generally considered a weapon of mass destruction. Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed as of April 1997 by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, and it is classified as a Schedule 1 substance."
8. Strychnine has been rumored to have killed Alexander the Great
It has been rumored in the past that it might have been used to kill historical figures like Alexander the Great and Robert Johnson, the famous Blues musician.
Nicotine was developed by plants as a defense mechanism against pests. For this reason, it happens to be one of the most potent toxins in the world.
For humans, apart from being highly addictive in low doses, if you exposed yourself to enough of it - it would actually be fatal. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), exposure to 5 mg/m3 of nicotine is "immediately dangerous to life and health."
Space Photos: The Most Amazing Images This Week!
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com, 22 June 2019.
An astronaut spots a beautiful sunrise with a guest appearance from Venus, a photographer catches the moon's blue glow through barren tree branches, and NASA celebrates 10 years of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. These are just some of the top photos this week from Space.com.
This ethereal blue curve is sunlight refracting in Earth's atmosphere at sunrise. NASA astronaut Christina Koch took this beautiful photo from the International Space Station. The planet Venus also makes an appearance as a glimmering spot at the bottom of the image.
Engineers of NASA's next rover to the Red Planet, called Mars 2020, took a moment for a selfie after attaching the robot’s remote sensing mast on June 5, 2019, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The team also installed a suspension system and wheels; while the former will be a permanent feature of the mission, the wheels will eventually come off.
A lunar corona peeks through barren tree branches in this night-sky photo. When the water droplets in thin clouds drift in front of the moon's face, the moonlight is diffracted, causing this optical phenomenon. Photographer Miguel Claro captured this image from Évora, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Portugal's Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launch to the moon on June 18, 2009. The orbiter uses seven instruments to examine the lunar surface, and among its most notable achievements is finding extensive evidence of water ice on the lunar surface. This is an LRO view of Wargo Crater, an impact crater on the northwest edge of the moon's Joule T crater.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket pierces through a layer of clouds after lifting off in the thick morning fog at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday (June 12). The rocket successfully delivered three Earth-observing satellites into Earth orbit for the Canadian Space Agency before returning to Earth to stick a landing. - Hanneke Weitering
The arc of the Milky Way galaxy stretches over the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile in this panoramic shot by European Southern Observatory photo ambassador Petr Horálek. Also visible in the night sky here are the Crux constellation (also known as the Southern Cross), located above and to the right of the nearest antenna, and the Carina Nebula, a reddish-pink emission nebula to the right of the Southern Cross. - Hanneke Weitering
Countless stars fill the cosmic void around the irregular galaxy IC 10 in this deep-space image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Located 2.2 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, IC 10 is the closest known starburst galaxy, or a galaxy that is undergoing rampant formation of new stars. It is a member of the Local Group, a collection of more than 50 galaxies that includes the Milky Way. This image won 10th place in the Hubble Hidden Treasures competition, which called on the public to help sift through Hubble's enormous collection of images to find the most beautiful ones that did not receive the fanfare they deserved. - Hanneke Weitering
Ten years ago today, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) soared into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket, together with the agency's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The rocket with the two spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 18, 2009, at 5:32 p.m. EDT (2132 GMT). LCROSS intentionally crashed into the moon a few months later, but LRO is still going strong today. - Hanneke Weitering
A new photo of Earth from space offers a clear view of southern Italy, a peninsula commonly referred to as "the boot," and the island of Sicily. The northern part of the country is obstructed by a blanket of clouds that stretches as far as the eye can see. An astronaut at the International Space Station captured this view of Italy as it was passing over the Mediterranean Sea on June 9. At the time, the space station was orbiting at an altitude of 255 miles (410 kilometers), which is more than high enough to be able to see the curvature of the Earth. - Hanneke Weitering
10 Cases Of Bizarre Medical Ailments
By James Fenner, Listverse, 25 June 2019.
Medical dramas are spreading across US television networks like wildfire. From Chicago Med to The Good Doctor, it would seem that people yearn to understand the complex and fragile nature of the human body. Through the power of television, we are given a glimpse of the mysterious world beneath our own skin. We learn about what happens when these processes start to unravel, feeding our fascination with sickness and mortality.
While the body remains remarkable - having adapted to a range of climates, diets, and activities - it is not without its weaknesses. Sometimes, the immune system goes haywire, the pumping power of the heart dwindles, or genetic mutations corrupt some vital aspect of our metabolism.
But every once in a while, disease does something to the body so rare that it warrants special attention. Without further ado, we’ll take a look at 10 fascinating cases of bizarre medical ailments.
Every morning, Nick Hess would wake up and vomit. The 35-year-old experienced a number of unexplained symptoms, including stomach pains, nausea, and headaches. Hess frequently found himself intoxicated without a drop of alcohol passing his lips. “Sometimes, it would come on over the course of a few days; sometimes, it was just like ‘bam! I’m drunk,’ ” said Hess.
His wife initially suspected that he was an alcoholic in denial. Karen Daws searched their family home for a secret stash of booze but came up empty. Although Nick was subjected to a battery of medical tests, doctors remained baffled by their patient’s condition.
Through Karen’s own research, the Ohio couple eventually made contact with Dr. Anup Kanodia. After taking stool and blood samples, Kanodia discovered that Nick’s gut had around 400 percent more yeast than normal.
It turned out that Nick had a condition called auto-brewery syndrome. A particular type of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in Nick’s gut was responsible for excessive fermentation of carbohydrate-rich meals. The resultant alcohol was then absorbed across the intestine, thereby raising his blood alcohol levels.
While auto-brewery syndrome is an established condition, there remains much debate over whether the amount of alcohol produced in the gut can lead to any significant intoxication. Over the years, a number of individuals accused of drunk driving have used auto-brewery syndrome as part of their defense.
In 2015, charges of drunk driving against a New York woman were dropped after it emerged that she was suffering from auto-brewery syndrome. Anup Kanodia was asked to test the woman’s blood alcohol levels. The woman was monitored for an entire day to ensure that she could not consume any alcohol. By the end of the testing period, it was discovered that she had a blood alcohol content of 0.36 - over four times the legal limit for driving.
As for Nick, he currently takes antifungal tablets to control the yeast levels in his gut. He also adheres to a low-carbohydrate, low-yeast diet.
9. Hyperekplexia
Also known as “exaggerated surprise,” hyperekplexia is an inherited disorder that causes an increase in muscle tone. The most obvious symptom of this rare disease is something called “excessive startle reflex.” Sufferers appear to overreact to simple surprises, leading to exaggerated movements. This is then followed by a brief moment of rigidity, where the patient cannot move at all.
It is estimated that 1 in 40,000 people in the United States have hyperekplexia. Researchers believe that genetic hyperekplexia is the result of mutations in certain receptors of the brain stem. These mutations prevent the normal “dampening” signals that would otherwise lessen the startle reflex.
The condition presents considerable danger to newborn babies as the startle reflex can cause breathing problems. This certainly remains the case for one British boy, Jacob Madgin. As a baby, Magdin’s condition was so severe that he needed to be fed through a tube. The mere touch of a teat against the boy’s nose was enough to trigger a spasm that interrupted his breathing.
From the sound of a dog barking to the splash of water, almost anything can set off an episode. “You never know what might trigger Jacob’s condition. When I was opening a box of blueberries, the noise of the plastic as I opened the lid set him off,” explained the boy’s mother.
Sometimes, surgeons are tasked with bypassing part of a patient’s diseased or injured intestine. To do this, the healthy part of the intestine is cut away from the diseased part and redirected through the abdomen. Waste matter passes through this opening, called a stoma, and is collected in a colostomy or ileostomy bag. As a result of stoma surgery, feces no longer reach the rectum.
Some stoma patients keep their rectums. In this case, the bowel continues to create a lubricant that is supposed to help with the movement of food. When there is no passage of food, however, this mucus can sometimes form a dry, painful ball that needs to be passed.
Patients who have had their rectums removed may also feel the urge to defecate - an experience known as phantom rectum syndrome. Many have reported feeling the need to pass gas (phantom flatus) and feces (phantom feces). Phantom pain of the region is associated with burning, stinging, and pins and needles.
In 2013, BBC presenter Sam Cleasby underwent an operation to have part of her colon removed after suffering for years with ulcerative colitis. She is now on a mission to spread awareness of stomas and break down the stigma surrounding the use of stoma bags.
Sam has previously spoken about what phantom rectum syndrome feels like: “People who have lost a limb still feel pain or itching, or they feel like their limb’s still there. [...] So that’s the same but in your rectum. It’s like your brain doesn’t know that it’s not attached anymore.”
In 2017, an Italian woman was admitted to the hospital with one horrifying symptom: spontaneous bleeding of the palms and face. The episodes would last up to five minutes and could strike at any moment. The 21-year-old struggled for three years before finally seeking medical attention. Understandably, the woman felt self-conscious about her ailment. She shut herself away from the rest of the world and started to develop the telltale signs of depression and panic disorder.
Doctors initially suspected their patient of having factitious disorder - a mental health issue in which a patient attempts to fake a medical condition, usually in a bid to receive attention or sympathy. Factitious disorder is not uncommon, costing the US around $40 million every year.
However, it quickly became apparent that the woman was not self-harming. Doctors witnessed firsthand the “discharge of bloodstained fluid” from the woman’s forehead and lower face.
The team eventually diagnosed the woman with hematohidrosis. Although the exact cause of the disease remains a mystery, the condition often occurs in patients who are under extreme emotional or physical stress. The tiny capillaries that supply blood to the sweat glands are said to rupture and leak. The blood then enters the sweat glands, mixes with sweat, and oozes its way to the skin’s surface.
Cases of hematohidrosis have been documented in people with acute fear. The phenomenon may even date back to the time of Jesus Christ. The day before his crucifixion, Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. According to Luke’s Gospel, a rather anxious-looking Jesus produced “great drops of blood” that fell to the ground.
In 2017, surgeons in China removed around 76 centimeters (30 in) of a patient’s colon. Prior to surgery, 22-year-old Zhou Hai’s abdomen had ballooned to such an extent that he looked heavily pregnant. Contained within the resected bowel was an astonishing 13 kilograms (29 lb) of feces.
Doctors soon discovered the source of the problem: a rare congenital disorder called Hirschsprung’s disease.
The patient had struggled with constipation since he was born, with laxatives doing little to alleviate the symptoms. It turned out that this constipation stemmed from an absence of nerves along parts of his large intestine.
Typically, the entire stretch of bowel receives signals from a large network of nerves. Nervous impulses trigger the rhythmic contraction and relaxation of the bowel’s muscle, thereby pushing the feces toward the rectum. In patients with Hirschsprung’s disease, the absence of some of these nerves disrupts this movement, causing feces to accumulate and form a blockage.
Zhou Hai’s blockage had been left for so long that the resultant backlog of feces was stopping him from breathing properly. He also complained of severe abdominal pain - which was understandable considering the weight he was lugging around.
Surgeons at the Tenth People’s Hospital in Shanghai removed the affected portion of Hai’s bowel. As part of the three-hour-long procedure, the healthy part of Hai’s bowel was reattached to his anus.
Most people have heard of celiac disease. It occurs when a person’s immune system is primed to a specific structure found in wheat. This ultimately causes the cells of the immune system to target the small intestine. If left untreated, the tissues of the gut become damaged, impairing the ability of the intestine to absorb vital nutrients.
The most common symptoms of celiac disease include gas, abdominal pain, weight loss, diarrhea, and constipation. However, in very rare instances, the condition has been known to play tricks on the mind.
In 2016, doctors were baffled when a 37-year-old student presented with a series of unusual symptoms. The woman thought that her friends and family were conspiring against her as part of an elaborate “game.” Then she mistakenly accused her mother and father of burglarizing her apartment. After issuing a series of threats to her loved ones, the woman was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
The patient’s iron levels had plummeted, and she was deficient in a number of vitamins. She also underwent extreme weight loss, despite having an increased appetite. The doctors initially diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia.
She was eventually discharged with antipsychotic medications along with multivitamins and minerals. But the treatment was unsuccessful. The woman’s psychosis persisted, and she continued to lose weight.
The doctors eventually discovered the reason for the patient’s psychotic breakdown: celiac disease. While most cases of celiac disease manifest in symptoms of the digestive tract, around a fifth of patients experience neurological and psychiatric problems.
The destructive immune cells are usually isolated within the gut. But if they migrate to the central nervous system, patients can experience a range of psychiatric issues, including memory loss, hallucinations, and seizures.
The woman refused to adhere to a wheat-free diet, thinking the doctors were working against her best interests. Her condition rapidly deteriorated. She lost her job, became homeless, and tried to commit suicide. She was eventually rehospitalized and placed on a wheat-free diet.
After mere months of treatment, the woman’s psychosis disappeared and her life started to return to normal. Unfortunately, in a moment of extreme carelessness, she accidentally started consuming wheat again. She suffered yet another psychotic episode and was put in jail for trying to murder her parents.
4. Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder
A&E nurse Kim Ramsey used to have up to 100 orgasms a day. This continuous state of arousal started in 2001 after the 46-year-old fell down a flight of stairs. Since that day, Ramsey has struggled with a condition known as persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD).
PGAD is an unwanted, uncontrollable feeling of genital arousal that can last for hours or days. The condition mostly affects women, but a few cases have been documented in men. While PGAD remains poorly understood, researchers think the disease is rooted in psychological, neurological, and vascular problems.
Many PGAD sufferers feel like they are constantly on the verge of orgasm, with symptoms often manifesting in public places. Arousal is sometimes accompanied by pelvic pain and discomfort. For Kim, avoiding certain triggers helps to lessen her symptoms. She also tries to keep herself distracted with work.
A South Carolina resident, Heather Dearmon, started experiencing similar symptoms during her pregnancy. The 34-year-old hoped the problem would go away after giving birth to her son. But the problem persisted for years, and her symptoms became more frequent.
Dearmon would masturbate to three consecutive orgasms to alleviate her symptoms. “To achieve three consecutive orgasms takes a long time. I felt my whole life being robbed,” she explained. Even trips in the car would trigger her arousal.
Due to the embarrassing nature of PGAD, many women report feeling suicidal and depressed. In 2012, Gretchen Molannen committed suicide after living with PGAD for 16 years. Before her death, Molannen described one of her worst experiences: “I had not had medical treatment yet or any kind of medication. I had 50 orgasms in a row. In a row. Nonstop. I thought I was gonna die.”
There is no known cure for PGAD. However, the condition is often treated using medications, cognitive behavioral therapy, and pelvic floor therapy.
During the 1960s, a hematologist and a nurse embarked upon a rather bizarre adventure. They tasked themselves with finding the elusive “Blue People of Kentucky.” Ruth Pendergrass had first seen one of the blue people while she was working as a nurse at a clinic in Hazard, Kentucky.
“Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. It like to scared me to death! [sic] She looked like she was having a heart attack,” Pendergrass said.
Intrigued, Pendergrass decided to team up with hematologist Madison Cawein to work out what was going on. The pair scoured Troublesome Creek and Ball Creek where the blue people were known to live. But Pendergrass and Cawein came up empty.
One day, two blue siblings walked into Cawein’s clinic. “They were bluer’n hell,” he remarked. The doctor set to work figuring out what was wrong. He took blood samples from his new patients, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie. Then Cawein drove out to take blood samples from the pair’s relatives.
Cawein discovered that the blue people’s blood was lacking a key enzyme. The missing enzyme is usually found in red blood cells and is needed for converting blue methemoglobin into red hemoglobin. The Blue People’s condition (hereditary methemoglobinemia) meant that their red blood cells were oxygen poor, hence their bluish skin color.
Cawein’s research turned up a simple treatment: methylene blue. Within minutes of administering the treatment, the Blue People’s skin turned a normal pink hue. The case was solved.
But why were there so many blue people roaming the creeks of Kentucky?
Well, the condition dates back to 1820 when a blue-skinned Frenchman, Martin Fugate, settled in Troublesome Creek. In an incredible twist of fate, Fugate married a woman who also carried the recessive gene for methemoglobinemia.
A person only gets the disease when they inherit two faulty genes, one from each parent. As a result of their parents’ genetic makeup, four of the seven Fugate children inherited blue skin. Inbreeding between members of the Fugate family caused the condition to spread throughout the region.
2. Parry-Romberg Syndrome
Parry-Romberg syndrome is a rare disorder that causes the skin, muscle, and connective tissue of the face to atrophy. The atrophy mostly affects just one side of the face (hemifacial), resulting in a slightly droopy appearance. Parry-Romberg syndrome usually kicks off in childhood or adolescence and worsens over a period of many years. The traumatizing disease affects just 1 in 250,000 people.
In 2011, a British girl called Maha Asghar was diagnosed with Parry-Romberg syndrome. She was just three years of age when the right side of her face started slowly wasting away.
Changes to the tissue around the youngster’s right eye and ear mean that she will likely encounter problems with vision and hearing. She also suffers with debilitating pain which can last for several hours.
There is currently no treatment available from Britain’s National Health Service, so Asghar’s family hopes to get crowdfunding for surgery abroad. Patients with Parry-Romberg syndrome often travel to the United States where only two vascular surgeons have the skill required to perform the facial reconstruction technique.
In 2011, a North Carolina girl’s face was saved by microvascular surgery. The pioneering surgeon, Dr. John Siebert, took tissue from underneath the girl’s arm and sculpted it into her face.
Very little is known about Parry-Romberg syndrome, but some researchers believe that it could be the result of autoimmunity, nerve problems, infection, or trauma.
Mario Bosco is a Hollywood actor in his forties. Despite his advancing years, the Brooklyn man is routinely mistaken for a 14-year-old boy. Bosco’s youthful looks and diminutive stature are caused by a condition known as panhypopituitarism.
Panhypopituitarism occurs when the pituitary gland fails to secrete the correct levels of hormones. The symptoms of the disease are dependent upon which hormones are deficient. As one might expect, decreased levels of growth hormone lead to delays in growth, whereas a decrease in gonadotropins causes stunted sexual development.
Bosco spent much of his youth in and out of the hospital. He had severe medical issues when he was first born, including convulsions, low blood sugar, and thyroid problems. Bosco’s abnormal hormone levels meant that his body did not mature correctly. Today, he stands at just 147 centimeters (4’10”) and has the face and body of a wiry teenager.
Despite these challenges, Bosco went on to find fame as an actor. He has met many Hollywood stars and appeared on numerous television shows, including NYPD Blue and Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I feel like none of this would have happened if I hadn’t have looked and sounded different,” he said.
Top image: The Blue People of Kentucky. Credit: Viral Heart/YouTube.
