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Curious Times No. 203
July 31, 2003IF YOU'RE DRINKING URINE YOU REALLY ARE SICK
Ahhh yes, Urine Therapy is once again in the news. It seems my very favourite medicinal procedure, that of drinking your own stinky piss, has finally made it to Thailand. An article from the BBC quotes a Thai doctor who has been recommending urine therapy to his patients, including a woman who claims to have cured her cancer with “diet, prayer and daily urine therapy". Dr. Banchob's prescription includes collecting your urine in the morning and drinking small amounts on a daily basis, gradually increasing to a glassful of pee per day. This “therapy" has led to some remarkable cures, says the doctor, everything from back pain to the aforementioned cancer. An official at the government's Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine discouraged the practice, as there are no research papers or clinical trials proving the effectiveness of the treatment. But not for lack of trying. Deputy Director Dr. Pennapa Subcharoen claims that the health authority has tried to organize research in the past, but, big surprise, had trouble finding enough volunteers to take part.THE MOST BORING JOB IN THE UNIVERSE
A team of astronomers at the Australian National University Research School of Astronomers claim to finished to most accurate calculation ever of the number of stars in the visible universe. Using some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth, the team counted galaxies near the Milky Way, estimated the number of stars in each galaxy and extrapolated the number to cover the entire visible universe, approximately 250,000 galaxies worth. Team leader Simon Driver claims that his team counted 70 sextillion stars - or 70 thousand million million - more than every grain of sand on all the beaches and deserts on Earth. “This is not the total number of stars in the universe," Driver explained, “but it's the number within the range of our telescopes." (SpaceDaily.com)OLD NEWS
Scientists at the annual World Future Society convention spent much of their time last week debating the upper limit of human aging. Optimistic scientists at the gathering believe that nanotechnology and dramatic advances in manipulating cells and genes could help people live as much as 180 years. “There is a dramatic and intensive push so that people can live from 120 to 180 years," said Dr. Donald Louria of the New Jersey Medical School. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years." Other scientists believe that kind of talk is pure nonsense. Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Center pointed out that remaining healthy in old age is still a massive obstacle. He gave as an example Jeanne Louise Calment of France, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. “At 122 she was fairly debilitated. I visited her when she was 119 in France and at that time she was pretty much blind and having very much difficulty hearing," he said. (CNN)VOODOO CURSES MADE SIMPLE
For all the bitter, evil, vengeful and psychotic freaks out there (of course I'm not talking about you), I've found the perfect website to vent some of your twisted anger. PinStruck.com is the place to unleash your misguided rage by sending anonymous voodoo curses to the people who piss you off. After filling out the form with your nastiness, PinStruck.com will deliver your venom to the intended victim by email, letting them know that they are now cursed for life. And if they're really brave, they can click on the link and view a personalized effigy of themselves impaled with pins. How sweet...HE SHOULD HAVE CHALLENGED HIMSELF TO A DUEL
A strange tale of infidelity (kind of) and suicide unfolded in Taiwan recently, when a man who used a secret on-line identity to test the love of his girlfriend, ended up killing himself when the woman failed the test miserably by falling in love with her boyfriend's alter-ego. Confused? Huang Tzu-heng, 20, who had been dating Hsiao Lan since high school, created a fictional online character, “Mr. J", and began chatting up his girlfriend. Then one horrible day, Hsiao told him that she had fallen in love with this Mr. J, who she had met on the internet. Instead of clearing the air and having a good laugh about it all, the distraught (and obviously not quite sane) Tzu-heng then killed himself, leaving a suicide note which read, in part, “Do you remember your Internet friend? That is me." (www.iol.co.za)
YEAH IT HURT, BUT I BET IT LOOKED REALLY COOL
A British woman had a freaky brush with death last week when lightning struck her tongue stud, leaving her in the hospital with various injuries. Becky Nyang, 26, was temporarily blinded, with serious burn blisters in her mouth, on her face and on her feet, and was unable to talk for three days, after lightning hit her tongue piercing and surged through her body. (BBC)KEEP YOUR HEAD UP
And more from the freaky near death department. A 28-year-old man in Agra, India, whose head was cut nearly completely off in a traffic accident, tied a pieced of cloth around his neck to help keep his head attached, and drove himself about 20 miles to the nearest hospital. After the accident, the man found himself soaked in blood, his head severed and his eyes popping out, surrounded by a crowd of stunned onlookers who didn't know what to do. Even his co-worker passed out at the site of his friend's trauma, as blood oozed from his mouth when he tried to speak. At that point, he knew his fate was in his own hands, so he jumped in his van and drove to the hospital, where doctors were able to reconnect his head, which was still partly joined to his spinal cord. (newwindpress.com)THEY'RE JEALOUS BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SO FRIENDLY
A couple of reports released recently provide some good bored-at-a-party conversation fodder. A six-year study by a group of social psychologists concluded that Rio de Janeiro is the friendliest city in the world. Despite it's many problems, citizens of that city were the most likely to help strangers. The study also found that people in the poorest and least stable cities in the world were also the most friendly. Kuala Lumpur, New York, Singapore and Amsterdam were found to be the least friendly cities in the 23 nations studied. In another case of bored researchers looking to kill some time, another study found that Brazil was not only the home of the friendliest people on Earth, but also the most jealous. The study found that Brazilian men are the most jealous, and Japanese men and women were the least concerned with the fidelity of their partners. (BBC) (Reuters)
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