Strange & Bizarre News

nivek

As Above So Below

North Carolina boy found locked in a freezing dog kennel is seen in a CAGE as a baby - years before he was erased from family photos and sent to 'live outside' by his cruel father, stepmom and aunt

On October 19, the child was found locked in a freezing dog kennel outside his family's house in Lexington, North Carolina. Cast outside since April and shoeless when he was found by police after a concerned neighbor called 911, he confessed that he'd been sent outside to sleep on straw because there was no room for him in the 1,400 square ft house where his father, Jonathan Starr (inset) stepmother, Sarah (top right) her aunt Shelley Barnes (far top right) slept with his siblings (bottom right). DailyMail.com is choosing not to name or picture the boy or any of the other children found in the house. All five are now in the care of social services. They range in aged from eight months to seven. We can however reveal that just a year ago, he enjoyed what looked like a happy life in a blended family.

Boy, 9, locked in a freezing dog kennel is pictured in a cage as a toddler

.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
UK boy, 11, receives highest possible Mensa IQ score

UK boy, 11, receives highest possible Mensa IQ score​

By David Meyer
November 13, 2022 3:47pm

testing in exercise and exam paper.
Yusuf Shah, 11, has an IQ as high or higher than Einstein.Shutterstock

Brilliant, kiddo!
Eleven-year-old Yusuf Shah of England took the Mensa IQ test on a whim — and earned the highest possible score of 162, according to local news reports.
Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking are estimated to have had IQs of around 160.
“Everyone at school thinks I am very smart, and I have always wanted to know if I was in the top 2% of the people who take the test,” the sixth-grader from Leeds told Yorkshire Evening Post.
Shah, a student at Wigton Moor Primary School, glided through the test, according to the report.
The family celebrated with Nando’s Portuguese-style chicken.
Shah and his parents had decided that he would prepare for the Mensa test while prepping for high-school applications, which included similar material.
“It is a difficult test to prepare for,” his father, Irfan Shah, told the paper. “We just did what we were already doing – nothing specific for the IQ test.”
“I still tell him that ‘your dad is still smarter than you’. … We take it all lightheartedly. Even if you are talented, you have to be the hardest worker,” the dad said.
Yusuf’s dad jokingly says, “I still tell him that ‘your dad is still smarter than you.’ ”Yorkshire Post / SWNS A familyposes Yusuf Shah with brothers Zaki and Khalid, mother Sana and father Irfan.Yorkshire Post / SWNS
Yusuf — who wants to study math at Oxford or Cambridge universities — has shown signs of genius since he was very young, Irfan told LeedsLive.

“Even in nursery, we just noticed that he was doing the alphabet and things quicker than other children, but you just thought some kids may pick up the ABCs a bit quicker,” the proud papa said.
“He just has this natural flair for math, and I guess that’s when we sort of realized. Even his school teachers, every time we get school reports, they’re amazing, they say, ‘There’s nothing for us to teach.’ “
 

nivek

As Above So Below
A great sheep mystery! Hundreds of sheep walk in a circle for over 10 days in China's Inner Mongolia. The sheep are healthy and the reason for the weird behavior is still a mystery.





.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
135-year-old message in a bottle found under floorboards

135-year-old message in a bottle found under floorboards​


Bottle
Image source, Peter Allan
Image caption,
Peter Allan cut around the bottle without knowing it was there
By Angie Brown
BBC Scotland, Edinburgh and East reporter

A plumber could not believe his eyes when he cut a hole in floorboards in an Edinburgh house and found a bottle containing a 135-year-old message.
Peter Allan, 50, discovered the Victorian time capsule when he opened up the floor in the exact spot where the whisky bottle had been left.
He rushed downstairs to tell the owner of the house in the Morningside area.
Eilidh Stimpson had to smash open the bottle to read the note - and said her two children were excited by the find.
Mr Allan told BBC Scotland he could not quite believe his luck in cutting into the floor directly above the bottle.
"The room is 10ft by 15ft and I have cut exactly around the bottle without knowing it was there. I can't quite believe it," he said.

"I was moving a radiator and cut a random hole to find pipework and there it was, I don't know what happened.
"I took it to the woman downstairs and said 'Look what I've found under your floor'."
Note
Image source, Eilidh Stimpson
Image caption,
The note is signed and dated by two male workers who laid the floor


Mr Allan, owner of WF Wightman Plumbing, said it was discovered under what would have been a maid's room when the house was first built.
Now mother-of-two Eilidh Stimpson, an Edinburgh GP, lives there with her husband.
She decided to wait until her children aged eight and 10 got home from school before they attempted to retrieve the note from the bottle.
She told BBC Scotland: "When I picked them up I told them I had something really exciting to tell them and they said 'Is it that we are having hot dogs for tea?'

"They had a few more guesses and then I told them a message in a bottle had been found in our house and they were really excited and thought it was maybe treasure."

When they got home they desperately tried to get the note out with tweezers and pliers, but it started to rip a little bit.
So she got a hammer and smashed the bottle.
She said: "We were all crowding around and pointing torches at it and trying to read it, it was so exciting."
The note was signed and dated by two male workers and read: "James Ritchie and John Grieve laid this floor, but they did not drink the whisky. October 6th 1887.
"Who ever finds this bottle may think our dust is blowing along the road."

Preserve the note​

She said: "I feel absolutely terrible breaking a 135-year-old bottle but it was the only way to reach the note. I've kept all the pieces in a Tupperware tub."
Since the find on Monday a family friend looked on the 1881 census and found the men's names living just a few miles away in the Newington area of Edinburgh.
A curator at the National Library of Scotland has since recommended to the family that they preserve the note in an acid-free pocket.
Eilidh said: "I've ordered some pockets and think ultimately we will frame the note with a piece of the bottle such as the neck because it's such an exciting and lovely thing to have."
She said they would put a bottle, with a new note from the family along with a transcription of the note, back into the hole before it is covered over.
"To think it lay there all that time and could have been there forever is just amazing. It's not from just the 70s or something like that, it's so much older, it's very cool."
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Charles V: French scientists decode 500-year-old letter

Charles V: French scientists decode 500-year-old letter​

The coded letter sent by Charles V
IMAGE SOURCE,BIBLIOTHÈQUE STANISLAS DE NANCY
Image caption,
French codebreakers finally cracked the 500-year-old code
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

A coded letter signed in 1547 by the most powerful ruler in Europe has been cracked by French scientists, revealing that he lived in fear of an assassination attempt by an Italian mercenary.
Sent by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to his ambassador at the French royal court - a man called Jean de Saint-Mauris - the letter gives an insight into the preoccupations of Europe's rulers at a time of dangerous instability caused by wars of religion and rival strategic interests.
For historians, it is also a rare glimpse at the darks arts of diplomacy in action: secrecy, smiling insincerity and disinformation were evidently as current then as they are today.
Cryptographer Cecile Pierrot first heard a rumour of the letter's existence at a dinner party in Nancy three years ago. After lengthy research she tracked it down to the basement of the city's historic library.
Setting herself a challenge to decode the document within a few days, she was disconcerted to find the task rather harder than she had thought.
The three-page letter - consisting of about 70 lines - is mainly written using about 120 encrypted symbols, but there are also three sections in plain contemporary French.

"The first thing was to categorise the symbols, and to look for patterns. But it wasn't simply a case of one symbol representing one letter - it was much more complex," says Pierrot.
"Simply putting it into a computer and telling the computer to work it out would literally have taken longer than the history of the universe!"
A portrait of Charles V by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (1553-1608)
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Charles V was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1519-1556

Little by little she and her team began to make progress. There were, she found, two types of symbol: simple and complex. Vowels were in the main not written as letters, but added as diacritical marks as in Arabic. The 'e' vowel though had no diacritical mark, so was largely absent.
They also found that while most symbols represented letters or combinations of letters, others represented whole words - like a needle for English King Henry VIII. And there were symbols that had apparently no function at all.
Finally the breakthrough came when historian Camille Desenclos pointed the team to other coded letters to and from the emperor. On one of these, kept at Besançon, the recipient had made an informal translation.
"This was our Rosetta Stone," says Pierrot, referring to the inscriptions which help decode Egyptian hieroglyphics. "It was the key. We would have got there in the end without it, but it saved an awful amount of time."

The code explained
IMAGE SOURCE,BIBLIOTHÈQUE STANISLAS DE NANCY
Image caption,

The code was much more complex than initially thought
The rarity of the letter 'e' is a sign that the codemakers knew their stuff. Because 'e' is the most common letter (in old as in modern French), it is what codebreakers would be looking for first. And the fake symbols were simply put in to sow more confusion.
"Of course by today's standards it is pretty basic," says Pierrot, who spends her normal time thinking about quantum physics and massive prime numbers. "But given the tools they had, they certainly put us to work!"
So what is in the letter?
The team has not yet issued a full translation, which they are saving for an academic paper. But this week they set out the themes.
February 1547 was a time of rare relative peace between the rival powers of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Charles V - ruler of vast areas including Spain, the Netherlands, Austro-Hungary and southern Italy - was no longer actually at war with King Francois I. But mistrust still prevailed.
Two recent events were in both rulers' minds. The first was the death of the Henry VIII just a few weeks before. And the second was the rebellion in Germany by a Protestant alliance called the Schmalkaldic League.

In the letter, Charles V reveals his concern to maintain the peace with France so that he can focus his forces against the League. He tells the ambassador to keep himself abreast of thinking in the French court, in particular any reaction to the death of King Henry.
What he wants to avoid above all is the French and English combining to lend more assistance to the Protestant rebels.
A map of Charles V's holdings across Europe
IMAGE SOURCE,THE CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY ATLAS
Image caption,

Charles V ruled over a swathe of land, spanning across western and central Europe
Charles V then speaks of a rumour which is circulating - that he, the emperor, is to be the target of an assassination attempt by the Italian condottiere (mercenary leader) Pierre Strozzi. Saint-Mauris is to find out as much as he can about this story. Is it just gossip, or a genuine threat?
And finally in the longest part of the letter Charles V sets out for his ambassador the current state of play in his campaign against the League. There has been a new outbreak of rebellion in Prague, and the emperor's nephew Ferdinand of Tyrol has been forced to flee.
But Charles V gives instructions on how Saint-Mauris is to "spin" the news at the French court. The Prague rebellion is a minor affair, he is told to say, and Ferdinand has left the city because he wants to join his father - the emperor's brother - on campaign.
For the historian Camille Desenclos, the fact that some parts of the letter are encrypted and others not is significant.
"They all knew there was one chance in two that the letter would be intercepted. In which case there were messages that were worth passing to the French," she says - like the fact that the emperor was co-operating on confidence-building measures in northern Italy.
"These were left in plain language. But there were other matters that had to stay secret - like the true state of affairs with the Protestant rebellion, and they were put into code."
What followed? Only a few weeks later the French king François I died, to be replaced by his son Henri II. Charles V defeated the League the next year, but Protestantism was in Germany to stay. In 1552 Henri II formed a new alliance against the emperor with the Protestant princes.
And there was no assassination attempt. Charles V died in a Spanish monastery in 1558.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

nivek

As Above So Below

America, be very afraid: Astonishingly, Canada is now euthanizing 10,000 of its citizens a year - and some of the horrific stories of its ultra-permissive policy will horrify you… Special report by TOM LEONARD

Canada, a country that prides itself on its open-mindedness and tolerance, has the most permissive rules on euthanasia in the world - and the results have been frankly terrifying. Last year, more than 10,000 people in Canada - astonishingly that's over three percent of all deaths there - ended their lives via euthanasia, an increase of a third on the previous year. And it's likely to keep rising: next year, Canada is set to allow people to die exclusively for mental health reasons. The onward march of euthanasia - reportedly approved recently even for both diabetes and homelessness in Canada - poses myriad other dilemmas for the rest of society. A 2017 Canadian study suggested medically-assisted dying could reduce health care spending in the country by as much as $137 million a year. America's health care system is also buckling under the strain of an ageing population and the increasing cost of treatments, so some believe that this financial imperative will inevitably mean the drive to euthanize spreads further south of the border in coming years.

America, be very afraid: Canada is euthanizing 10,000 of its citizens a year, by TOM

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below



This circular island in Argentina not only floats, but also rotates constantly. South America’s second longest river, the Paraná, which has a length of 4,880 kilometers, flows through three countries: Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. 4,880 kilometers is no short distance – it gives plenty of opportunities for discovering amazing things. In the case of the Paraná, one of the most exciting discoveries was made at its delta: an island 120 meters in diameter, almost completely circular in shape, and floating freely on its axis.

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

2Timberrr! 'Walmart Karen' who trashed Texas store orders taser-wielding cop to 'respect' her - then shrieks after being zapped as she topples to the ground

The unidentified woman, wearing a light-colored tank top and black pants, demanded a cop 'respect' her as she stood just inside a Walmart store in Dallas.

It is unclear what started the disagreement between the two, but the woman is standing next to an overturned product stand that appeared to hold freshly baked cookies.

'You're going to respect me whenever I f**king [unintelligible] in this place,' the woman said in the video. 'Yeah, you will.'

The cop responds: 'Get down on your knees.'

Moments later, he fires the taser, hitting her between her chest and neck. The woman stands silent for a moment before letting out a shriek and falling straight back into a bunch of poles.



View: https://twitter.com/DallasTexasTV/status/1602815363955277824


(More on the link)
.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

Actor Ahmed Ali Akbar shares creepy video of crying tree

Actor Ahmed Ali Akbar shares a mysteriously creepy video of a crying tree from the location of the shoot.

The actor shared the video from the location of his shoot in Margalla Hill Trail 5. Akbar claimed that the video is not fake but real. He added that the sounds coming out of the tree are real. The sound in the video resembled someone in stress and crying for help.

“What you hear and see is not fake WARNING: Disturbing audio. While shooting at trail 5 Islamabad we experienced something bizarre. The tree must’ve been a foot and a half in diameter and it had a perfect hole the size of a coin. The sound you hear is coming from inside the hole,” said Ahmed Ali Akbar while sharing the video on his Instagram account.

The video triggered a debate online. Some called it a paranormal activity while others called it nature’s phenomenon of trees asking for help.

Popular TV host, Anoushey Ashraf said: “It’s asking for help! Crying for help. She needs water desperately. Severe dehydration. Nature has stories for those who listen. These are warning signs.

Below I’m sharing the link to people have a better understanding of what’s going on.”



Others said that the phenomenon has been explained by National Geographic. “In the case of drought, trees undergoing stress form tiny bubbles inside their trunks, NatGeo explains, which causes a unique ultrasonic noise,” said one social media user.

Another user added that “According to NatGeo. When drought hits, trees can suffer—a process that makes sounds. Now, scientists may have found the key to understanding these cries for help.

In the lab, a team of French scientists has captured the ultrasonic noise made by bubbles forming inside water-stressed trees. Because trees also make noises that aren’t related to drought impacts.”


.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
https://nypost.com/2022/12/20/man-with-wwi-explosive-lodged-in-his-rectum-sparks-bomb-scare-hospital-evacuation/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app

By Andrew Court December 20, 2022


The case left doctors shell-shocked.

A French hospital was partially evacuated Saturday after a senior citizen arrived with a World War I artillery shell lodged in his rectum.

The 88-year-old patient visited Hospital Sainte Musse in Toulon to have the antique explosive removed — but instead sparked a “bomb scare,” French publication Var-Matin reported.

“An emergency occurred from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Saturday evening that required the intervention of bomb disposal personnel, the evacuation of adult and pediatric emergencies as well as the diversion of incoming emergencies,” a hospital spokesperson stated.

“We had to manage the risk in a reactive framework,” the rep added. “When in doubt, we took all the precautions.”
The World War I weaponry measured almost 8 inches in length and more than 2 inches in girth. Oh, shell no! The WWI relic measured almost 8 inches long and more than 2 inches wide. Twitter / @acommonlawyer

Bomb disposal experts at the scene determined there was little possibility the shell would explode inside the man.

“They reassured us by telling us that it was a collector’s item from the First World War, used by the French military,” the hospital stated.
Stunned doctors subsequently began the process of trying to remove the object — which measured almost 8 inches long and more than 2 inches wide — from the man’s rectum.
We had to manage the risk in a reactive framework,” a hospital spokesperson declared.  “When in doubt, we took all the precautions. “We had to manage the risk in a reactive framework,” a hospital spokesperson declared. “When in doubt, we took all the precautions.”Hôpital Sainte Musse

It’s believed the pervy patient inserted the item up his anus for sexual pleasure.

“An apple, a mango, or even a can of shaving foam, we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” one doctor declared. “But a shell? Never!”

Medics were forced to take the elderly man into surgery, cutting open his abdomen in order to remove the relic.

According to the hospital, he is now in “good health” and is expected to make a full recovery from the surgery.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

What's wrong with eating people?

You could soon be dining on lab-grown celebrity canapés and lightly-seasoned chunks of your loved ones. But is the world ready for synthesised cannibalism?

What if you could tuck into a juicy human burger that was guaranteed cruelty-free? No-one has to lose a shoulder for your Sunday roast; no-one gets their leg sawn off for your signature slow-cooked tagine. No-one even has to die these days. In the not-too-distant future, we could all be tucking into lab-grown meaty cubes of our favourite celebrities. Or eating a synthesised slab of newlyweds to mark the special day.

“In the West, this is a huge taboo,” says Dr. Bill Schutt, professor of biology, research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History and author of Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism. “Especially the medicinal cannibalism that took place relatively recently in Europe. I think it was something that people probably weren’t particularly proud of, once they discovered that modern medicine had better solutions than eating body parts.”

In 2017, salves and tinctures made from people have fallen out of fashion with pharmacists. But what about the restaurant up the road? In 2013, scientists from the Netherlands proved that we can make animal meat in a lab from cell cultures into beef burgers (the first, which cost £215,000 to make was, apparently, “not that juicy”). But there is a difference between eating a cow and eating cow.

The latter is a massive win for cows. Cheek swab beats boltgun. For diners, too; once you factor in how much of your bill goes into breeding and sustaining livestock. There’s also no animal cruelty in a petri dish. With nothing more invasive than a cotton bud, anyone could eat as much beef as they like without harming a single cow.

Or as much human.

Dr. Koert Van Mensvoort, director of the Next Nature Network and fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, is the man behind what is probably the worst (but in a good way) cookbook you could ever hope to buy. The In Vitro Meat Cookbook contains recipes for over 40 dishes – none of which you can actually make. Yet. Each entry is illustrated, with an accompanying list of ingredients (all centred around lab-grown meat), a gleefully morbid description, and a five-star rating system of scientific feasibility. One star: we’re a long ways off. Five stars: Set the table! And use the good cutlery – we’re eating guests.

“I started writing the book because I was already in contact with some of the biotechnology companies that had been developing in vitro meat for years,” says Van Mensvoort. “And what was striking was that they were trying to make the same kinds of sausages and burgers that we already know. That sounded weird to me, like how people called the first cars horseless carriages. So I decided to step into their space and explore the creative design: what could be on our plates in the future because of this new technology?”

The In Vitro Meat Cookbook is really a cookbook in name only. It’s an art project, a conversation starter. There’s a recipe for knitted meat (“a festive centrepiece” to replace the Christmas turkey, four stars) and Dodo Nuggets (“The dodo has returned! To the dinner table”, also four stars).


Labgrown human meat could be used to create cubes of celebrity meat

Lab-grown human meat could be used to create cubes of celebrity meat.

.
Only towards the very end do things start turning shades of Soylent Green. Would sir or madame care for a Celebrity Cube? Cells swabbed from today’s hottest stars, grown into cubic canapes and speared on cocktail sticks. “Give European royalty a try before the next coronation,” the book suggests. Which would certainly change the atmosphere on The Mall. Celebrity Cubes might be feasible – if you can grow mutton, you can grow Miley – but even without a sacrificial lamb, any company hoping to sell lab-grown human flesh will, says Van Mensvoort, be selling to a market that is exclusive and esoteric in equal measure.

“In general, I think there will be huge reluctance against in vitro human meat,” he says. “It will be very, very niche. Maybe a very haute-cuisine restaurant will offer this once-in-a-lifetime, special experience for which you pay a lot of money. Or it could be a ritual: when you get married, you consume a piece of each other’s meat, just that once. I’m not promoting it, I just think it’s a fascinating conversation to have. The problems are much more social and cultural than technical or medical.”

But, providing the cell donor is informed and consenting, what is the problem? What is it about the image of a half-dozen friends, laughing and chatting in between mouthfuls of each other, that makes it so innately ghoulish? One plausible answer is that it’s ingrained that eating members of our own species is bad for us. Other animals – the list is longer and fluffier than you would hope – do it all the time. But at least in mammals, cannibalism is usually a product of extreme circumstance: food scarcity, environmental stressors, or one group fighting another and then eating infant usurpers.

(More on the link)

.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable

What's wrong with eating people?

You could soon be dining on lab-grown celebrity canapés and lightly-seasoned chunks of your loved ones. But is the world ready for synthesised cannibalism?

What if you could tuck into a juicy human burger that was guaranteed cruelty-free? No-one has to lose a shoulder for your Sunday roast; no-one gets their leg sawn off for your signature slow-cooked tagine. No-one even has to die these days. In the not-too-distant future, we could all be tucking into lab-grown meaty cubes of our favourite celebrities. Or eating a synthesised slab of newlyweds to mark the special day.

“In the West, this is a huge taboo,” says Dr. Bill Schutt, professor of biology, research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History and author of Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism. “Especially the medicinal cannibalism that took place relatively recently in Europe. I think it was something that people probably weren’t particularly proud of, once they discovered that modern medicine had better solutions than eating body parts.”

In 2017, salves and tinctures made from people have fallen out of fashion with pharmacists. But what about the restaurant up the road? In 2013, scientists from the Netherlands proved that we can make animal meat in a lab from cell cultures into beef burgers (the first, which cost £215,000 to make was, apparently, “not that juicy”). But there is a difference between eating a cow and eating cow.

The latter is a massive win for cows. Cheek swab beats boltgun. For diners, too; once you factor in how much of your bill goes into breeding and sustaining livestock. There’s also no animal cruelty in a petri dish. With nothing more invasive than a cotton bud, anyone could eat as much beef as they like without harming a single cow.

Or as much human.

Dr. Koert Van Mensvoort, director of the Next Nature Network and fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, is the man behind what is probably the worst (but in a good way) cookbook you could ever hope to buy. The In Vitro Meat Cookbook contains recipes for over 40 dishes – none of which you can actually make. Yet. Each entry is illustrated, with an accompanying list of ingredients (all centred around lab-grown meat), a gleefully morbid description, and a five-star rating system of scientific feasibility. One star: we’re a long ways off. Five stars: Set the table! And use the good cutlery – we’re eating guests.

“I started writing the book because I was already in contact with some of the biotechnology companies that had been developing in vitro meat for years,” says Van Mensvoort. “And what was striking was that they were trying to make the same kinds of sausages and burgers that we already know. That sounded weird to me, like how people called the first cars horseless carriages. So I decided to step into their space and explore the creative design: what could be on our plates in the future because of this new technology?”

The In Vitro Meat Cookbook is really a cookbook in name only. It’s an art project, a conversation starter. There’s a recipe for knitted meat (“a festive centrepiece” to replace the Christmas turkey, four stars) and Dodo Nuggets (“The dodo has returned! To the dinner table”, also four stars).


Labgrown human meat could be used to create cubes of celebrity meat

Lab-grown human meat could be used to create cubes of celebrity meat.

.
Only towards the very end do things start turning shades of Soylent Green. Would sir or madame care for a Celebrity Cube? Cells swabbed from today’s hottest stars, grown into cubic canapes and speared on cocktail sticks. “Give European royalty a try before the next coronation,” the book suggests. Which would certainly change the atmosphere on The Mall. Celebrity Cubes might be feasible – if you can grow mutton, you can grow Miley – but even without a sacrificial lamb, any company hoping to sell lab-grown human flesh will, says Van Mensvoort, be selling to a market that is exclusive and esoteric in equal measure.

“In general, I think there will be huge reluctance against in vitro human meat,” he says. “It will be very, very niche. Maybe a very haute-cuisine restaurant will offer this once-in-a-lifetime, special experience for which you pay a lot of money. Or it could be a ritual: when you get married, you consume a piece of each other’s meat, just that once. I’m not promoting it, I just think it’s a fascinating conversation to have. The problems are much more social and cultural than technical or medical.”

But, providing the cell donor is informed and consenting, what is the problem? What is it about the image of a half-dozen friends, laughing and chatting in between mouthfuls of each other, that makes it so innately ghoulish? One plausible answer is that it’s ingrained that eating members of our own species is bad for us. Other animals – the list is longer and fluffier than you would hope – do it all the time. But at least in mammals, cannibalism is usually a product of extreme circumstance: food scarcity, environmental stressors, or one group fighting another and then eating infant usurpers.


(More on the link)

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?

If you’ve ever put anything inside yourself and gotten it out again without needing medical attention: Congratulations! Things went way better for you than they did for so many other poor souls. This is a tribute to American ingenuity, American perseverance, and above all else, American recklessness.

All reports are taken from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits, all descriptions are verbatim, and always remember that a flared base is your best friend.

As always, objects are sorted by orifice, working south:


Ear
  • BB SHOT FROM A DISTANCE
  • “WAS SEEN FOR EARACHE BUT FOUND TO BE POSITIVE FOR COCAINE METABOLITES”
  • INSECT
  • CHARGER
  • COMPUTER STYLUS
  • CUFFLINK, “TRIED USING A KNIFE TO CUT IT OUT BUT WAS UNSUCCESSFUL”
  • WET TISSUES IN BOTH EARS
  • MONKEY NOODLE
  • TWO EAR BUDS IN SAME EAR CANAL
  • PLASTIC OWL
  • PLASTIC SWORD
  • LOLLIPOP
  • THERMOMETER
  • “MISTAKENLY USED SHOE GLUE INSTEAD OF EAR DROPS”
  • LIGHTER FLUID
  • AIR FRESHENER BEAD
  • PIECE OF ICE CREAM CONE
  • PUSH PIN
  • “DOING MAGIC TRICK AT SCHOOL, PUT A PENCIL ERASER IN EAR AND WAS UNABLE TO RETRIEVE IT”
  • GLOW STICK
  • BATTLESHIP GAME PIECE
  • CANDLE WAX
  • “FRUIT FLY WAS ON HER HEADPHONE WHICH SHE PUT IN HER EAR AND FELT ‘BUZZING’, USED HYDROGEN PEROXIDE TO KILL THE FLY BUT WITH PERSISTENT BURNING/DISCOMFORT IN EAR, UNSURE IF THE FLY STILL ALIVE”
  • ROCK
Nose
  • GUM WRAPPER
  • USED MATCH
  • YARN
  • CANDY HEART
  • TIC TACS
  • “SAYS HE WAS SMELLING A MAGNET AND IT WENT UP HIS NOSTRIL”
  • RICE
  • VITAMIN D
  • “PUT A JEWEL UP NOSE WHILE MAKING A CROWN”
  • POPCORN KERNEL
  • GUMMY WORM
  • “PUT AN LED LIGHT IN HER RIGHT NOSTRIL IN AN ATTEMPT TO PRANK HER BROTHER BUT THEN WAS UNABLE TO GET IT OUT”
  • FLOWER
  • ORANGE PEEL
  • FISHING LURE
  • GLUE
  • PIECE OF COMPUTER MOUSE
  • “A BOOK OR A BUG”
  • DIESEL FUEL
  • CHEESE
Throat
  • STEAK KNIFE
  • SMALL FLASHLIGHT
  • SIM CARD
  • GLUE STICK
  • “THUMBTACK WAS HOLDING CURTAINS UP AT A WINDOW, PATIENT INHALED DEEPLY NEAR THE TACK & THEN COUGHED & SWALLOWED THUMB TACK, CONFIRMED ON XRAY”
  • BINGO CHIP
  • DOG TOY
  • CAT TOY
  • “EXPENSIVE COIN FROM COIN COLLECTION”
  • INSULIN NEEDLE
  • GOLF PENCIL
  • STACK OF STAPLES
  • MAGIC WAND
  • 3 CIGARETTES
  • “PATIENT SAYS HE FORGOT TO TAKE FOIL OFF FOIL-WRAPPED BURRITO”
  • TEA BAG
  • HAIR CLIP
  • CANDY RING POP WITH PLASTIC
  • “DROPPED HIS OTTERPOP ONTO THE FLOOR WHICH WAS COVERED IN METAL SHAVINGS FROM A DRILL PRESS, AND CONTINUED TO EAT THE OTTERPOP”
  • VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER
  • LASER POINTER
  • YOGURT FOIL
  • CRAB SHELL
  • DRIED ORNAMENTAL GRASS
  • DART
  • GINGERBREAD MAN–SHAPED BROOCH
  • “THREW THREE COINS UP INTO THE AIR AND CAUGHT THEM IN MOUTH AND SWALLOWED THEM”
  • A SMALL KEY TO A DIARY
Penis
  • CAR KEY
  • WOODEN SPOON
  • NAIL
  • PENCIL
  • “SOME BEADS”
  • SEVEN-INCH SILICON TUBE
  • PAPER CLIP
  • COMB TEETH
  • PIECE OF SOAP
  • “CEILING FAN CHAIN IN HIS PENIS HOLE, STATES IT HAS BEEN THERE SINCE HIS SHOWER AT 9 LAST NIGHT”
  • SCREWDRIVER TIP
  • INFLATABLE SEX TOY
  • USB CORD
  • CELL PHONE CHARGER AND 14-INCH CORD
Vagina
  • COIN
  • SCREW
  • “WAS HOLDING A PEN NEAR HER VAGINA WHEN THE CAP DISLODGED AND STUCK INSIDE”
  • TWO PENCIL SHARPENERS
  • BUTTERFLY CHARM
  • DRINKING CUP
  • BOBBY PIN
  • GOLF BALL
  • “FLASHLIGHT PLACED IN VAGINA BY PATIENT AT HOME BUT HAD NO INTENTION OF IT BECOMING STUCK”
  • DRUMSTICK
  • NAIL POLISH BOTTLE
  • CAMERA LENS CAP
  • UNSCENTED SOAP BAR
  • PERFUMED SOAP BAR
  • SOAP DISPENSER
  • SPATULA
Rectum
  • PLASTIC TOY FISH
  • SMALL BIRD TOY
  • SILVER MAGNET
  • “SENT IN BY WIFE FOR POSSIBLE 16OZ GLASS BOTTLE IN RECTUM”
  • SKIN CARE BOTTLE
  • HAIR MOUSSE CAN
  • PIECE OF A LAMP
  • “‘HANDMADE TOY’ MADE OUT OF METAL”
  • CUBE-SHAPED TOY
  • CRAYON
  • RATCHET WRENCH
  • T-HANDLE WRENCH
  • “SAYS WAS IN THE SHOWER AND FELL AND THE SHOWER STOPPER STUCK UP RECTUM”
  • ACTION FIGURE HEAD
  • ACTION FIGURE
  • TOILET BRUSH
  • “PATIENT COMPLAINING OF RECTAL PAIN. PATIENT ADMITS TO INSERTING SEX TOYS 6 MONTHS PRIOR”
  • SPOON
  • “VIBRATOR EGG, PATIENT NOT SURE IF PASSED IN STOOL”
  • DEFLATED BALLOON
  • FIST-SIZED WATER BALLOON
  • VEGETABLE PEELER
  • CROCHET NEEDLE
  • FISHING POLE
  • “PATIENT STATES HE HAS A BIG TOY STUCK IN RECTUM. PATIENT STATES HE FELL ON TOP OF IT.”
  • COMB
  • FRAGRANCE BEADS
  • REUSABLE ICE PACK
  • GLASS BEER BOTTLE
  • “HAD A FEW BEERS AND THEN PLACED A LONG WAX CANDLE INTO HIS RECTUM, LOST BALANCE AND FELL ONTO A COUCH AND LOST HOLD OF THE CANDLE”
  • PILL CONTAINER
  • COLOGNE BOTTLE
  • PERFUME BOTTLE
  • “SAYS GIRLFRIEND PUT VIBRATOR IN RECTUM WHILE HE WAS ASLEEP”
  • BILLIARD BALL
  • “PATIENT SAYS HE WAS PLAYING WITH A CONTAINER OF ATHLETE’S FOOT SPRAY AND ACCIDENTALLY IT ENDED UP IN HIS RECTUM”
  • PLASTIC CANDY HOLDER
  • PIECE OF BROOM HANDLE
  • “PUT IN BUTT PLUG THEN FELL ASLEEP, NOW CAN’T FIND BUTT PLUG”
  • STAINLESS STEEL ROD
  • ICE CREAM CONE
  • MONOPOLY PIECE
  • “TWO POKER CHIPS BECAUSE OF A BET”
.
 
Top