The STAR NOSED Mole

The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is a little North American mole found in wet low areas of eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States, with records extending along the Atlantic coast as far as extreme southeastern Georgia. It is the only member of the tribe Condylurini and the genus Condylura.

Star-nosed moles are easily identified by the eleven pairs of pink fleshy appendages ringing their snout which are used as a touch organ with more than 25,000 minute sensory receptors, known as Eimer’s organs, with which this hamster-sized mole feels its way around.


Appearance and Behavior

The star-nosed mole lives in wet lowland areas and eats small invertebrates, aquatic insects, worms and mollusks. It is a good swimmer and can forage along the bottoms of streams and ponds. Like other moles, this animal digs shallow surface tunnels for foraging; often, these tunnels exit underwater. It is active day and night and remains active in winter, when it has been observed tunnelling through the snow and swimming in ice-covered streams. Little is known about the social behavior of the species, but it is suspected that it is colonial.

The star-nosed mole is covered in thick blackish brown water-repellent fur and has large scaled feet and a long thick tail, which appears to function as a fat storage reserve for the spring breeding season. Adults are 15 to 20 cm in length, weigh about 55 g, and have 44 teeth. The mole's most distinctive feature is a circle of 22 mobile, pink, fleshy tentacles at the end of the snout, from which they derive their name. These are used to identify food by touch, such as worms, insects and crustaceans.

The star-nosed mole mates in late winter or early spring, and the female has one litter of typically 4 or 5 young in late spring or early summer. However, females are known to have a second litter if their first is unsuccessful. At birth, each offspring is about 5 cm long, hairless, and weighs about 1.5g. Their eyes, ears, and star are all sealed, only opening and becoming useful approximately 14 days after birth. They become independent after about 30 days, and are fully mature after 10 months. Predators include the Red-tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl, various skunks and mustelids, and even large fish.


Nose

Star Nosed Mole close up 

- courtesy of Image Kenneth Catania

The incredibly sensitive nasal tentacles are covered with minute touch receptors known as Eimer's organs. The nose is approximately one centimeter in diameter with approximately 25,000 Eimer's organs distributed on 22 appendages. Eimer's organs were first described in the European mole in 1871 by German zoologist Theodor Eimer. Other mole species also possess Eimer's organs, though they are not as specialized or numerous as in the star-nosed mole. Because the star-nosed mole is functionally blind, it had long been suspected that the snout was used to detect electrical activity in prey animals,though there is little, if any, empirical support for this contention. It appears the nasal star and dentition of this species are primarily adapted to exploit extremely small prey items. A report in the journal Nature gives this animal the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in the ultra short time of 8 ms if a prey is comestible or not. This speed is at the limit of the speed of neurons.
They also possess the ability to smell underwater. It is done by exhaling air bubbles onto objects or scent trails and then inhaling the bubbles to carry scents back through the nose.

Did You Know?...

• In the movie G-Force, one of the animals starring was a Star Nosed Mole called 'Speckles'. 
• In the movie The City of Ember, there is a Star Nosed Mole that has mutated to great size.
• In Suzanne Collins's The Underland Chronicles, a race of giant star-nosed moles called "diggers" attacks the human city of Regalia.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "At the Car Wash", Isabella and the fireside girls are raising money to save a Star-nosed Mole 

More on the Star Nosed Mole : naturalhistorymag

Source(s): Wikipedia

Progeria - Hutchinson - Gilford syndrome

Progeria (also known as "Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome" and "Hutchinson–Gilford syndrome") is an extremely rare, severe, genetic condition wherein symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at an early age. The disorder has a very low incidence and occurs in one per eight million live births. Those born with progeria typically live about thirteen years, although many have been known to live into their late teens and early twenties and rare individuals may even reach their forties. It is a genetic condition that occurs as a new mutation and is not usually inherited, although there is a uniquely heritable form. This is in contrast to another rare but similar premature aging syndrome, dyskeratosis congenita (DKC), which is inheritable and will often be expressed multiple times in a family line.

Scientists are particularly interested in progeria because it might reveal clues about the normal process of aging. Progeria was first described in 1886 by Jonathan Hutchinson and also described independently in 1897 by Hastings Gilford. The condition was later named Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome (HGPS).

Symptoms
The earliest symptoms include failure to thrive and a localized scleroderma-like skin condition. As a child ages past infancy, additional conditions become apparent. Limited growth, alopecia, and a distinctive appearance (small face and jaw, pinched nose) are all characteristic of progeria. People diagnosed with this disorder usually have small, fragile bodies, like those of elderly people. Later, the condition causes wrinkled skin, atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular problems.


Cause
Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a childhood disorder caused by a point mutation in position 1824 of the LMNA gene, replacing cytosine with thymine, creating an unusable form of the protein Lamin A. Lamin A is part of the building blocks of the nuclear envelope.
Unlike most other "accelerated aging diseases" (such as Werner's syndrome, Cockayne's syndrome, or xeroderma pigmentosum), progeria is not caused by defective DNA repair. Because these diseases display different aspects of aging but never every aspect, they are often called "segmental progerias".


Diagnosis
Diagnosis is suspected according to signs and symptoms, such as skin changes, abnormal growth, and loss of hair. It can be confirmed through a genetic test.

A young girl with progeria (left). 

A healthy cell nucleus (right, top) 

and a progeric cell nucleus (right, bottom).

Treatment
No treatments have been proven effective. Most treatment focuses on reducing complications (such as cardiovascular disease) with heart bypass surgery or low-dose aspirin. Children may also benefit from a high-calorie diet.
Growth hormone treatment has been attempted.
A type of anticancer drug, the farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs), has been proposed, but their use has been mostly limited to animal models. A Phase II clinical trial using the FTI Lonafarnib began in May 2007.


Prognosis
There is no known cure. Few people with progeria exceed 13 years of age. At least 90% of patients die from complications of atherosclerosis, such as heart attack or stroke.
Mental development is not affected. The development of symptoms is comparable to aging at a rate eight to ten times faster than normal, although certain age-related conditions do not occur. Specifically, patients show no neurodegeneration or cancer predisposition. They do not develop physically mediated "wear and tear" conditions commonly associated with aging, like cataracts (caused by UV exposure) and osteoarthritis (caused by mechanical wear).
Although there may not be any successful treatments for Progeria itself, there are treatments for the problems it causes, such as arthritic, respiratory, and cardiovascular problems.


Epidemiology
A study from the Netherlands has shown an incidence of 1 in 4 million births. Currently, there are between 35 and 45 known cases in the world. Approximately 100 cases have been formally identified in medical history.

Classical Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome is almost never passed on from parent to child. It is usually caused by a new (sporadic) mutation during the early division of the cells in the child. It is usually genetically dominant; therefore, parents who are healthy will normally not pass it on to their children. Affected children rarely live long enough to have children themselves.

There have been only two known cases in which it became evident that a healthy parent can carry the LMNA mutation that causes progeria. A family from India has five children with progeria; they were the subject of a 2005 Bodyshock documentary entitled The 80 Year Old Children.

Nabi Hussain Khan, 50, (left) with his wife Razia, 46, (right) and their children. Sanjeeda, now aged 20, (back, centre) does not have Progeria

In the other case, a family from Belgium has two children with progeria. …

Popular culture

• The 1922 short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (and later released as a feature film in 2008) may have been inspired by progeria. The main character, Benjamin Button, is born as a seventy-year-old man and ages backwards.
• The Hindi film Paa, released in December 2009, has its story line around progeria (starring Amitabh Bachchan playing a thirteen year old boy Auro).
  
• Progeria is also a central theme in the animated film Renaissance in which one of the characters finds the much sought cure.
• Orlando Gardiner of the science fiction book series Otherland suffers from this disease, and ultimately succumbs to it at the age of 14.
• On the episode "Designate This" from the series "Dark Angel", Max's "younger version" has the disease.
• Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the well known book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," had a son who suffered from this disease, and likely his son's tragic illness was the impetus for this book on suffering.
• The character J.F. Sebastian in the science fiction film Blade Runner states that he suffers from "Methuselah Syndrome," clearly a form of progeria.
• Progeria was featured in the X-Files episode "Young at Heart," where a scientist studying the disease found a way to reverse the aging process.
• A disease similar to progeria, called Werner syndrome, was featured in the movie Jack (film), starring Robin Williams, in which his character aged 4 times faster than normal.
• Leon Botha, who appeared in a video for the South African conceptual rave-rap group Die Antwoord, has Progeria Syndrome.
• The Chuck Palahniuk novel Haunted includes one character, Brandon Whittier, who is dying of progeria at 13.

Source(s): wikipedia

Tran Van Hay aka The Man with the LONGEST HAIR ​

Tran Van Hay died of natural causes, at the age of 79, at his home in Kien Giang province on Fri, Feb 25, 2010., after dedicating his life to curing people, for free. His wife, Nguyen Thi Hoa, says Tran’s personality changed completely after he stopped cutting his hair – he became inspired by the local Buddhist monks  in nearby pagodas to learn traditional medicine to help the poor, and lived a content life, as a herbalist.
​
He was 79 and unfortunately died before receiving formal acknowledgement of his record.
​
He had stopped cutting his hair 50 years ago and his hair was 6.8m (22ft.) long and weighed 10.5kg (23 lbs). The world record is now in the name of a Chinese woman whose hair is 5.6m long.
​
According to his wife Nguyen Thi Hoa, Tran hadn’t gotten a haircut in over 50 years, after getting seriously sick after cutting his hair, when he was 25 years old. And, in half a century, he only washed it a few times, the last time being 11 years ago.
​

But his hair had become too much of a burden in his day-to-day life; he could not work as a farmer because of it.
At the time of his death, Tran Van Hay’s hair was over 6.8 meters long and weighed around 10.5 kilograms. As impressive as that sounds, the hair was a real problem for Tran, who couldn’t even catch a motorcycle taxi or work as a farmer, because of the giant pile of hair he had to balance on top his head.
​
The herbalist was providing free treatment to poor patients in Chau Thanh District until his death.

The RED-HAIRED MUMMIES of EGYPT

Professor P. F. Ceccaldi, with a research team, studied some hairs from the mummy's scalp. Ramesses II was thought to be 87 years-old when he died, and his hair had turned white. Ceccaldi determined that the reddish-yellow color of the hair was due to a dye with a dilute henna solution. Many Egyptians dyed their hair, and this personal habit was preserved by the embalmers.

Red-haired Ramesses II

However, traces of the hair's original color remained in the roots. Microscopic examinations showed that the hair roots contained natural red pigments, and that therefore, during his younger days, Ramesses II had been a red head. Analysis concluded that these red pigments did not result from the hair somehow fading, or otherwise being altered after death, but did represent Ramesses' natural hair color. Ceccaldi also studied the cross-section of the hairs, and determined from their oval shape, that Ramesses had been "cymotrich" (wavy-haired). Finally, he stated that such a combination of features showed that Ramesses had been a "leucoderm" (white-skinned person).


THE RED HAIRED RAMSES II - LAST SIGNIFICANT WHITE PHARAOH

Egypt's last display of national vigor came with the red haired Pharaoh Ramses II (1292 - 1225 BC). Ramses II managed to re-establish the already decaying Egyptian Empire by recapturing much land in Nubia.

He also fought a series of battles against invading Indo-Europeans, the Hittites. This was culminated with the battle of Kadesh in northern Syria. Ramses signed a treaty with the Hittites in 1258 BC, which ended the war. In terms of the treaty, Ramses took as his wife an Indo-European Hittite princess. His other achievements included the building of the rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel, the great hall in the Temple of Amon at Karnak, and the mortuary temple at Thebes.

After this king, Egypt entered into a steady period of decay, caused directly by the elimination of the original Egyptians, and their replacement with a mixed population made up of Black, Semitic and the remnant White population. This racially divergent nation was never again to reach the heights achieved by the First, Second or the first part of the Third Kingdoms. In these later years there were competing claimants to the pharaohs throne, many of whom, racially speaking, bore no resemblance to the original pharaohs at all.

The mummy of the wife of King Tutankhamen has auburn hair.

A mummy with red hair, red mustache and red beard was found by the pyramids at Saqqara.

Red-haired mummies were found in the crocodile-caverns of Aboufaida.

The book HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN MUMMIES mentions a mummy with reddish-brown hair.

The mummies of Rameses II and Prince Yuaa have fine silky yellow hair. The
mummy of another pharaoh, Thothmes II, has light chestnut-colored hair.

An article in a leading British anthropological journal states that many mummies have dark reddish-brownhair. Professor Vacher De Lapouge described a blond mummy found at Al Amrah, which he says has the face and skull measurements of a typical Gaul or Saxon.

A blond mummy was found at Kawamil along with many chestnut-colored ones.

Chestnut-haired mummies have been found at Silsileh.

The mummy of Queen Tiy has "wavy brown hair."

Mike the HEADLESS Chicken

Mike the Headless Chicken

Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947), also known as Miracle Mike,was a Wyandotte rooster that lived for 18 months after its head had been mostly cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.

Beheading
On September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen chose a five-and-a-half month old cockerel named Mike, but failed to completely decapitate the bird. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.

Despite Olsen's botched handiwork, Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; it even attempted to preen and crow, although it could do neither. After the bird did not die, a surprised Mr. Olsen decided to continue to care permanently for Mike, feeding it a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper; it was also fed small grains of corn. Mike occasionally choked on its own mucus, which the Olsen family would clear using a syringe.

Mike the Headless Chicken -
feeding it a mixture of milk and water
via an eyedropper.

Part of the reason that a chicken can live without its head has to do with its skeletal anatomy, according to Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel a poultry physiologist and neurobiologist at the University of Arkansas. The skull of a chicken contains two massive openings for the eyes that allow the brain to be shoved upwards into the skull at an angle of around 45 degrees. This means that while some of the brain may be sliced away, a very important part remains.

“But because the brain is at that angle,” says Kuenzel, “you still have the functional part that’s so critical for survival intact.”

A truly enduring headless chicken, according to Kuenzel, “is a very rare phenomenon.” In the case of Mike, while the brain was gone, the brain stem remained, which was able to control breathing, heart rate and most reflex actions.

When used to its new and unusual center of mass, Mike could easily get itself to the highest perches without falling. Its crowing, though, was less impressive and consisted of a gurgling sound made in its throat, leaving it unable to crow at dawn. Mike also spent its time preening and attempting to peck for food with its neck.

Being semi-headless did not keep Mike from putting on weight; at the time of its partial beheading it weighed two and a half pounds, but at the time of its death this had increased to nearly eight pounds.



Fame

Mike the Headless Chicken + Lloyd Olsen

Once its fame had been established, Mike began a career of touring sideshows in the company of such other creatures as a two-headed calf. It was also photographed for dozens of magazines and papers, featuring in Time and Life magazines. Olsen drew criticism from some for keeping the semi-headless chicken alive.

Mike was on display to the public for an admission cost of 25 cents. At the height of its popularity the chicken earned princely $4,500 USD per month ($50,000 in 2005 dollars) and was valued at $10,000. Olsen's success resulted in a wave of copycat chicken beheadings, but no other chicken lived for more than a day or two. A pickled chicken head was also on display with Mike, but this was not Mike's original head, as a cat had already eaten it. Mike was later examined by the officers of several humane societies and was declared to have been free from any suffering.

A children's playground chant soon emerged: "Mike, Mike, where's your head? Even without it, you're not dead!"


Death

A sculpture tribute to
Mike on Fruita's Main Street Colorado.

In March 1947, at a motel in Phoenix on a stopover while traveling back home from tour, Mike started choking in the middle of the night. As the Olsens had inadvertently left their feeding and cleaning syringes at the sideshow the day before, they were unable to save Mike. Lloyd Olsen claimed that he had sold the bird off, resulting in stories of Mike still touring the country as late as 1949. Other sources, including the Guinness Book of World Records,say that the chicken's severed trachea could not take in enough air properly to be able to breathe; and therefore choked to death in the motel.

Post mortem, it was determined that the axe blade had missed the carotid artery and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of its head was severed, most of its brain stem and one ear was left on its body. Since basic functions (breathing, heart-rate, etc) as well as most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to remain quite healthy.



Legacy in Fruita
Mike the Headless Chicken is now an institution in Fruita, Colorado, with an annual "Mike the Headless Chicken Day", the third weekend of May, starting in 1999. Events held include the "5K Run Like a Headless Chicken Race", egg toss, "Pin the Head on the Chicken", the "Chicken Cluck-Off", and "Chicken Bingo", in which chicken droppings on a numbered grid choose the numbers. There is also a song about Mike by the band Radioactive Chickenheads.


Source(s): wikipedia | miketheheadlesschicken | modernfarmer