August 2012 – Page 2 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on August 20, 2012 by MOTW Admin

DNA TESTING TO DETERMINE THE ELEPHANT MAN’S AILMENT

The Elephant Man suffered from an unknown disease that scientist are now trying to name.

Joseph Merrick didn’t exactly have the most peaceful life, having been the now, and then, famous Elephant Man of London but, even in death he shall not rest peacefully for scientists plan on investigating his bones to determine just what caused his problems.

The Independent writes:

He was the thing of children’s nightmares, outcast by a Victorian society unable to comprehend his grotesque deformities, but was later immortalised in films and plays. Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, is one of medical history’s enigmas: 122 years after his death, no one knows exactly what caused his extreme disfigurement. But scientists will attempt to solve the puzzle next month by extracting DNA from his bones for analysis.

Merrick came to the attention of the medical profession in the 1880s. Ever since, scientists have struggled to explain the huge growths that caused him to be first shunned and finally celebrated by society – by the end of his life his courage and humility had, at last, been recognised. Merrick became a folk hero for speaking up for others who were similarly afflicted.

It was initially thought that he suffered from Elephantiasis, a parasitic infection characterised by the thickening and enlargement of skin and tissue, hence his nickname.

Then, in 2001, some scientists suggested that Merrick had suffered from a rare disease called Proteus syndrome – a congenital disorder that causes skin overgrowth and abnormal bone development. But other experts questioned the diagnosis, saying that the way his disease manifested was not typical of that condition. It is hoped this latest research will finally prove conclusive.

Scientists will extract DNA from Merrick’s skeleton, which has been kept at the Royal London Hospital at Whitechapel, east London, since his death, aged 27, in 1890. Tests will then be carried out to see if it is possible to sequence Merrick’s genome thereby identifying any gene alteration. The already complex technique has been made harder by the fact that Merrick’s skeleton has been poorly preserved, and years of bleaching to keep it clean have degraded the remains.

Researchers hope that, by finally diagnosing his condition, they will be able to treat other sufferers.

Read more at independent.co.uk/news/science

Posted on August 16, 2012 by MOTW Admin

LARGEST PYTHON EVER FOUND IN FLORIDA EVERGLADES NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE

Giant Burmese Pythons have been taking over the Florida Everglades

Things are getting bad in the beautiful Everglades of Florida. They’re being over run by giant snakes that are non-native to the area… and they’re getting bigger.

This little lady was the most recent find, and the largest ever. Not to mention the 87 eggs she had in her.

Huffington Post writes:

There are some Florida records no one wants to see broken, but apparently the exotic snakes invading the Everglades weren’t informed.

Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey captured a state record-breaking Burmese python that was not only a whopping 17 feet and 7 inches long, but carrying an also-record-breaking 87 eggs.

The massive gal weighed 164 pounds, according to staff at the University of Florida, who said the previous records for length and fertility were a measly 16.8 feet and 85 eggs.

“She was a beast!” USGS research ecologist Dr. Kristen Hart, whose team caught the snake, told HuffPost. “She was really impressive.”

The massive python was nearly a foot wide, said the Florida Museum of Natural History’s herpetology collection manager Dr. Kenneth Krysko (hear him describe her in the video in the slideshow below). The python was sent to the Gainesville museum so UF staff could perform a necropsy for research before mounting the body, which will eventually be returned to Everglades National Park. And then, presumably, there’s a party to be had.

“When you find something outside the known or expected range,” said FMNH’s Ichthyology collection manager Rob Robins, “it’s exciting.”

Hart said the huge python was initially spotted in March when a “judas snake” — a male python outfitted with a transmitter for tracking during mating season — led USGS biologists Thomas Selby and Brian Smith straight to her. Getting the snake from the brush to the office was no small feat, though the very fit Selby and Smith are roughly 6′ 5″ and 5′ 10″, respectively.

“She was tired from pulling against them, they were tired from wrestling her,” Hart said. “They were just exhausted but also excited: ‘You’re not gonna believe how big this snake is!'”

ANCIENT INK: SIBERIAN TATTOO THAT’S 2,500 YEARS OLD

Princess Ukok, preserved for 2,500 years, of ancient Russia had several intricate tattoos.

It seems that right now is far from the first time for humans to have tattoos come into fashion, it’s just taken a little bit time to come back around. Like, 2,5o0 years or so.

Daily Mail writes:

The astonishing 2,500 year old tattoos of a Siberian princess, and how they reveal little has changed in the way we decorate our bodies

Incredibly well preserved body found high in the Altai mountains, with two warriors buried close by for protections and six horses to ease the journey into the next life

Tattoos on left shoulder, including a deer with a griffon’s beak and a Capricorn’s antlers.

The intricate patterns of 2,500-year-old tattoos – some from the body of a Siberian ‘princess’ preserved in the permafrost – have been revealed in Russia.

The remarkable body art includes mythological creatures and experts say the elaborate drawings were a sign of age and status for the ancient nomadic Pazyryk people, described in the 5th century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus.

But scientist Natalia Polosmak – who discovered the remains of ice-clad ‘Princess Ukok’ high in the Altai Mountains – is also struck about how little has changed in more than two millennia.

‘I think we have not moved far from Pazyryks in how the tattoos are made,’ she told the Siberian Times ( SiberianTimes.com ).

‘It is still about a craving to make yourself as beautiful as possible.’

‘For example, about the British.

‘A lot of them go on holiday to Greece, and when I’ve been there I heard how Greeks were smiling and saying that a British man’s age can be easily understood by the number of tattoos on his body.

‘I’m talking the working class now.

‘And I noticed it, too.

‘The older a person, the more tattoos are on his body.’

Posted on August 14, 2012 by MOTW Admin

BLOOD RED WATER FLOWS IN FRANCE

In the flats of Camargue, the usually blue water turns a very creepy red.

Horror movie scenes and natural phenomena collide in the salt flats of France where the Rhône river meets the sea, creating quite the startling sight.

The high concentration of salt not only turns the water red, but also collects on just about everything.

NY Daily News writes:

At first glance, it might look like a sign of the apocalypse – but scientists say the blood red lakes in southern France are actually a natural phenomenon.

Camargue, France is a river delta where the Rhône meets the sea. The picturesque area is home to numerous salt flats, and it is this concentration of salt that will occasionally stain red the regions normally blue water.

A photographer driving through the region recently stopped to chronicle the incredible blood-red color of the water and the trillions of salt crystals crusting rocks, branches and shoreline.

Though it is unclear how often this phenomenon occurs, salt has been a lifeblood of the region for hundreds of years.

Today, evaporation pans at Salin-de-Giraud, the largest salt extraction city in Europe, extend for thousands of acres and produce some 1,000,000 metric tons of salt per year, according to Languedoc.com.

The area is also home to riz rouge, or red rice, so-named for its unmistakable blood red color.

20,000 MILLION YEAR OLD ANTARCTIC LAKE 12,000FT BELOW ICE HAS BEEN REACHED

The Russian research team made contact with the lake 12,366 feet (3,769 meters) below the ice on Sunday, 05/02/12.

What this looks like to me is the opening scene of a sci-fi horror movie, where the scientists out in the ice deserts of Antarctica break through ancient ice to an underground lake of freshwater that’s been cutoff from the outside world for 20 million years except, nothing scary happened when these guys actually did just that. Bummer?

Msnbc.msn.com writes:

MOSCOW — Opening a scientific frontier miles under the Antarctic ice, Russian experts drilled down and finally reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake, an achievement the mission chief likened to placing a man on the moon.

Lake Vostok could hold living organisms that have been locked in icy darkness for some 20 million years, as well as clues to the search for life elsewhere in the solar system.

Touching the surface of the lake, the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica, came after more than two decades of drilling. It was a major achievement avidly anticipated by scientists around the world.

“In the simplest sense, it can transform the way we think about life,” NASA’s chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday.

The Russian team made contact with the lake water Sunday at a depth of 12,366 feet (3,769 meters), about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) east of the South Pole in the central part of the continent.

Scientists hope the lake might allow a glimpse into microbial life forms that existed before the Ice Age and are not visible to the naked eye. Scientists believe that microbial life may exist in the dark depths of the lake despite its high pressure and constant cold — conditions similar to those believed to be found under the ice crust on Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

Akin to the space race
Valery Lukin, the head of Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, said reaching the lake was akin to the Americans winning the space race in 1969.

“I think it’s fair to compare this project to flying to the moon,” said Lukin, who oversaw the mission and announced its success.

American and British teams are drilling to reach their own subglacial Antarctic lakes, but Columbia University glaciologist Robin Bell said those are smaller and younger than Vostok, which is the big scientific prize.

“It’s like exploring another planet, except this one is ours,” she said.

1ST EVER PANORAMIC VIEW OF MARS, FROM MARS!

A panoramic view from the Curiosity Rover inside Gale Crater on mars.

No signs of life, yet.

Here’s a cool video NASA has released of Curiosty’s actual decent on the red planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UcGMDXy-Y1I

NASA writes:

PASADENA, Calif. – The first images from Curiosity’s color Mast Camera, or Mastcam, have been received by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The 130 low-resolution thumbnails, which were received Thursday morning, provide scientists and engineers of NASA’s newest Mars rover their first color, horizon-to-horizon glimpse of Gale Crater.

“After a year in cold storage, where it endured the rigors of launch, the deep space cruise to Mars and everything that went on during landing, it is great to see our camera is working as planned,” said Mike Malin, principal investigator of the Mastcam instrument from Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. “As engaging as this color panorama is, it is important to note this is only one-eighth the potential resolution of images from this camera.”

The Curiosity team also continued to downlink high-resolution black-and-white images from its Navigation Camera, or Navcam. These individual images have been stitched together to provide a high-resolution Navcam panorama, including a glimpse of the rover’s deck. Evident on some portions of the deck are some small Martian pebbles.

“The latest Navcam images show us that the rocket engines on our descent stage kicked up some material from the surface of Mars, several pieces which ended up on our rover’s deck,” said Mike Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from JPL. “These small pebbles we currently see are up to about 1 centimeter [0.4 inch] in size and should pose no problems for mission operations. It will be interesting to see how long our hitchhikers stick around.”

Curiosity’s color panorama of Gale Crater is online at: http://1.usa.gov/P7VsUw . Additional images from Curiosity are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

LOST PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT FOUND USING GOOGLE EARTH?

Are these geographical anomalies actual ancient egyptian pyramids?

Certainly you hadn’t thought we found all of Earth’s hidden wonders and ruins of ancient civilizations. In the Amazon Rainforest alone there are at least 60 that we know of and can’t get to, and assuredly hundreds more we haven’t even found yet.

Scouring the extensive imagery available via Google Earth has led to quite few discoveries about our own planet. The most recent being this set of what could possibly be ancient egyptian pyramids.

I09 writes:

Satellite archaeologist Angela Micol believes she may have stumbled upon two previously unidentified pyramid structures by using Google Earth. Located in Egypt, the sites contain distinct features and orientations that definitely suggest the potential presence of pyramids — a prospect that has local archaeologists eager to check it out. The Archaeology News Network reports:

“One of the complex sites contains a distinct, four-sided, truncated, pyramidal shape that is approximately 140 feet in width. This site contains three smaller mounds in a very clear formation, similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids.

The second possible site contains four mounds with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width. This site complex is arranged in a very clear formation with the large plateau, or butte, nearby in a triangular shape with a width of approximately 600 feet.”

According to Egyptologist and pyramid expert Nabil Selim, these structures have never been identified — and he notes that one of the proposed sites is similar in size to 13th Dynasty Egyptian pyramids. It’s anticipated that archaeologists will visit the site to conduct what’s called “ground truthing.”

Micol, who is based in Maiden, North Carolina, has been conducting satellite archaeological research for over a decade — and she has made Google Earth her primary tool. The program has helped her document a number of potential archaeological sites, including a potential underwater city off the Yucatan Peninsula.

NEW PARTICLES LET YOU LIVE W/OUT BREATHING

If you thought science wasn’t as “futuristic” as you thought it’d be after watching all the crazy movies and tv shows we have now-a-days, looks like something pretty incredible is coming down the pipeline!

Gizmodo writes:

This may seem like something out of a science fiction movie: researchers have designed microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body, even if you can’t breathe anymore. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in recent years, and one that could save millions of lives every year.

The invention, developed by a team at Boston Children’s Hospital, will allow medical teams to keep patients alive and well for 15 to 30 minutes despite major respiratory failure. This is enough time for doctors and emergency personnel to act without risking a heart attack or permanent brain injuries in the patient.

The solution has already been successfully tested on animals under critical lung failure. When the doctors injected this liquid into the patient’s veins, it restored oxygen in their blood to near-normal levels, granting them those precious additional minutes of life.

MAN CRUSHES 6 POLICE CRUISERS WITH TRACTOR

Police officers with 2 of the 6 totaled police cars that were the victim of one mans tractor.

Here’s one way NOT to retaliate when you feel you’ve been wrongly harassed by the local police force. A man in Vermont , Roger Pion, decided driving his tractor of a couple, well more like 6 or 7, police cruisers while they were parked in front of the station was a good way to spend an afternoon.

Huffington Post writes:

When an angry Roger Pion allegedly took a tractor and crushed six police cars and a van last week an unlikely anti-establishment hero was born.

The 34-year-old Vermont man, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, has been lionized on Facebook pages, tribute songs and a t-shirt.

The Orleans Sheriff’s Department alleges that Pion, smarting over an earlier arrest for marijuana possession and resisting arrest, destroyed much of their fleet in Newport last Thursday.

Two officers jumped from a cruiser as Pion headed towards them. He was arrested at gunpoint two miles away, the Burlington Free Press reported.

On Facebook, there’s a page called “Roger Pion, the magnificent,” with more than 2,300 fans. Supporters are asked to donate to his defense fund. The page is filled with snarky posts riffing on popular advertising campaigns.

In a parody of the famous milk ads, there’s a photo of Pion’s vehicle and the caption “Got Tractor?” Another shows demolished patrol cars with a tag line lifted from Verizon Wireless, “Can you hear me now?”

A t-shirt with the words “Free Roger Pion” and a picture of a tractor has been created, according to the Associated Press.

BRITISH EXPLORER SET TO FIND PIRATES LOST GOLD ON ‘TREASURE ISLAND’

An archaeological expedition is heading to Cocos Island in search of the “Treasure of Lima”, a true life “treasure island” if there ever was one.

The Telegraph writes:

It eluded Franklin Roosevelt, Sir Malcolm Campbell and Errol Flynn, but now an explorer from Melton Mowbray could be on the trail of a multi-million-pound hoard of gold, silver and jewellery stolen by pirates and buried on a treasure island.

Shaun Whitehead is leading an archaeological expedition to Cocos Island, the supposed hiding place of the “Treasure of Lima” – one of the world’s most fabled missing treasures.

The haul – said to be worth £160 million – was stolen by a British trader, Captain William Thompson, in 1820 after he was entrusted to transport it from Peru to Mexico.

He is said to have been stashed his plunder on the Pacific island, from where it has never been recovered.

An original inventory showed 113 gold religious statues, one a life-size Virgin Mary, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jewelled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns, 150 chalices and hundreds of gold and silver bars.

The site, credited by some as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, is uninhabited and around 350 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, of which it is a part.

It has also been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site for its unspoilt environment and variety of wildlife and it has taken around 18 months of negotiations with the authorities to secure permission to go there on an exploratory mission.

Although there have been no official expeditions to the island for more than a quarter of a century, Mr Whitehead will join an impressive a line of notable adventurers and explorers who been attracted by the lure of the “Lima loot”.

They include Roosevelt, the American president from 1933 to 1945, who travelled there with friends in 1910, Campbell, the racing driver, who went there in the 1920s, and Flynn in the 1940s.

Another explorer, August Gissler, a German, spent 19 years living on the island hunting the treasure but returned with just six gold coins.

However, Mr Whitehead’s team is equipped with technology that has never before been used on the island. He has also established the most likely spots around the island on which to focus his efforts.