Clipmarks |

The world's tiniest baby - meet the 10oz bundle of defiance

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:46:02 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

When she was born, 15 weeks premature and weighing ten and a half ounces, her father's confidence was about the only thing on Kimberly Mueller's side.

In the few snatched moments he was allowed before his daughter was whisked away by doctors, Andreas Mueller spoke from his heart.

"I whispered to her: 'Kimberly, you'll make it,'" he recalled.

The size of a mobile phone: Kimberley Mueller weighed just over 10 ounces when she was born in Hanover, Germany - making her the world's smallest surviving baby

With a survival chance of less than 1,000 to one, every day she has got through since then is a triumph.

Six months later, Kimberly has finally been allowed to go home to her parents in Hanover.

"Babies as small as this usually have no chance," said Dr Oliver Moeller, a heart specialist who treated her.

Kimberly is the smallest baby ever born in Germany and the youngest to survive.

She was just 10.2 inches long and weighed little more than a packet of butter

Tags: children, neo-natal, babies, medical, current affairs

Scientists create the world's first transparent frog

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:58:55 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Scientists have invented a transparent frog whose organs can be seen through its skin.

Why would they do such a thing, you might ask? For cancer research, of course.

The frog was pictured at a laboratory at Hiroshima University's Institute for Amphibian Biology in western Japan.

Scientists are hoping the transparent frog will give researchers of diseases such as cancer an insight into organ growth.

Tags: frog, amphibian, animals, creatures, fauna

Gallery of Creepy Places

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 03:15:32 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: I'm gearing up for Halloween 5 weeks early.

Clip Source: away.com

Bran (a.k.a. Dracula's Castle) in Transylvania was the 15th-century home of Prince Vlad Tepes. He punished invaders by piercing them with wooden stakes and earned the name "Vlad the Impaler."

Clip Source: away.com

This "city of the dead" is just one of many above-ground cemeteries in New Orleans. Because the Big Easy is practically at sea level, it's hard to keep a casket buried—it's not unheard of for coffins to float on a rainy day.

Clip Source: away.com

Prague's Old Jewish Cemetery contains more than 12,000 tombstones, with many additional bodies lurking beneath.

Clip Source: away.com

Allegations that Alcatraz was escape-proof weren't exactly true. In the prison's 30 year history, 34 men attempted to escape in 14 incidents; 29 men were caught. The missing five were assumed dead, but their true fate is a mystery.

Clip Source: away.com

Skulls, rib cages, and tibias create corridors of bones in the catacombs of Paris. Ovecrowded cemeteries in the 18th century caused severe hygiene problems. Bodies were exhumed and transferred to the tunnels, which can be toured today.

Tags: ghosts, mystery, paranormal

Mouldy old mammoth hair yields DNA

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:02:31 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Maggie Fox

Scientists who pulled DNA from the hair shafts of 13 Siberian woolly mammoths say it may be possible to mine museums for genetic information about ancient and even extinct species.

This 25,000 year old mammoth hair had been sitting in a museum drawer for years before scientists extracted its DNA

They sequenced a DNA sample taken from mammoth hair that had been "in somebody's drawer for 200 years", and one that was at least 50,000 years old, the international team of researchers says.

Now they are asking for samples of hair, feathers and even horn from museum specimens to see what they can learn from some of these ageing items.

"For me the whole study is about extinction. How is it that large mammals go extinct?" says Webb Miller, a biology professor and genomics researcher at Pennsylvania State University.

Studying the genetic material of animals could offer clues about tiny differences that helped one species survive while another perished, Miller says.

Tags: science, genetics, dna, mammoth, age, extinction

White mischief: magical pictures of polar bears at play

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:30:13 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

As we see them here, nuzzling, cuddling and playing rough and tumble in the snow, it's easy to forget that polar bears are highly specialised killing machines. They can smell a seal 20 miles away, smash through yards of ice in minutes to reach their prey and swallow 100lb of meat at a single sitting.

However, for many of the bears captured in these extraordinary pictures - taken in the Arctic over a five-year period by wildlife photographer Mireille de la Lez for the beautiful new book Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic - a decent meal is no longer a certainty.

Polar bears can break through yards of Arctic ice in minutes

Global warming has meant the ice cap has been forming perilously late over recent years, causing the bears to wait longer and longer for the sea to freeze over so they can start hunting seals, their main food source, and replenish lost pounds.

up to 10ft tall and weighing half a ton, polar bears are the world's largest carnivore and at the top of the Arctic food chain.

Tags: polar bears, bears, mammals, animals, fauna

Students’ spray and fire fun

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:24:24 GMT

clipped by: CarnivalBorn

Clip Source: www.metro.co.uk

Students in Canada have found a new way to fill time in between lectures – by setting each other on fire for fun.

Police in Ontario said they were aware of students taking deodorants to school and using them to set each other on fire, usually for no more than a second.

This new pastime came to light when a 14-year old boy suffered third-degree burns to his stomach after another male sprayed deodorant on him and set him alight.

PC Doug Graham from Middlesex Ontario Provincial Police said: 'This is a fairly common thing around the province. It's certainly an issue we have to notify parents about.'

According to Canada.com, some students light their trousers on fire, while others have deodorants sprayed on their bare stomachs, which are subsequently lit.

'We know parents are aware their children are taking the deodorant to school but they're not aware that they are setting each other on fire,' said PC Graham.

Tags: stupid, fire, school, canada, ontario

Tie-dyed Roses

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:09:14 GMT

clipped by: vandamonium

Clip Source: www.craftzine.com

I came across these psychedelic-looking roses at the county fair the other day and just had to snap a few photos. Yes, they're real! The signage at the event explained that the flowers hail from the Netherlands, and that the multi-hued effect is created by injecting various dyes into the stems during the growing process. The effect is very surreal, like a wedding bouquet a Deadhead might carry. Does anyone out there have any more information about these wild and crazy roses? More photos in the CRAFT Flickr pool. Link.

Tags: roses, tie-dyed