I’m surprised to find that the term gigantism (scientific name Acromeglia) has never yet graced the pages of this blog, since I run across these stories from time-to-time.

Anyway, here’s another one…

30 year old Tanya Angus is 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 476 pounds, making her one of the largest women in the world.

When she was 18, she was 5′ 8″ and quite a bit lighter, judging by the picture.

In her late teens/early 20s she began growing in odd proportions.

She went to see her doctor in the world class British health care system, but he thought she was just trying to score anti-depressants from him.

Eventually she went back to the US, where the evil capitalist doctor realized something was wrong and got her some tests.

Says the Daily Mail:

An MRI scan eventually showed a tumour the size of a grapefruit in her brain which had wrapped itself around her inner carotid artery, causing an overproduction of growth hormone.

A surgeon removed most of the tumor, but she continued to grow and eventually suffered a stroke. Her heart couldn’t keep up with her massive size.

The tumor is back again, and now it’s the size of an orange.

Doctors are stumped. She won’t respond to the usual treatments, and continues to get worse.

She has a new evil capitalist doctor now, who is committed to finding something that will help her. I really hope he succeeds.

Teen actor Jamie Waylett, who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies, admitted to growing marijuana in a London court, the AP reports. Police reportedly found eight bags of pot during a search of a car in which the 19-year-old Waylett was riding. By pleading guilty to producing cannabis, Waylett faces a maximum of 14 years in jail. He’s due to be sentenced on July 21.

Also, it’s old news, but Ron ate a bad ham samm’ich and got the Miss Piggy disease.

Source: here for Crabbe, and here for Weasley (actually I heard about both of them first on Dave Ryan)

Brooke Greenberg, pictured here, is 16 months… er… make that 16 years old.

Brooke doesn’t age. At least most of her doesn’t. (Parts of her body seem to age independently.)

She also seems to have an amazing ability to heal.

In her first six years, Brooke went through a series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers. She suffered a brain seizure followed by what was diagnosed as a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage.

At 4, she fell into a lethargy that caused her to sleep for 14 days. Then, doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, and the Greenbergs bought a casket for her.

“We were preparing for our child to die,” Howard Greenberg said. “We were saying goodbye. And, then, we got a call that there was some change; that Brooke had opened her eyes and she was fine. There was no tumor. She overcomes every obstacle that is thrown her way.”

No one knows why she is like this. She has no known illness or disease.

Scientists think she may hold the key to understanding how we age.

In the meantime, Brooke just hangs out with her mom and her sisters (aged 22, 19, and 13 – all normal) at the mall.

One particular part of the story that I just can’t let go by without comment, though:

Brooke goes to a Baltimore County public school, Ridge Ruxton, dedicated to special education. Based on her age, she would be a junior in high school. Jewel Adiele, one of Brooke’s teachers, said she wonders sometimes what Brooke is thinking or perceiving.

Huh? School? For all intents and purposes she is an infant. It’s a public school… we’re paying for it. How does this make sense?

I know it’s not politically popular to say this, but this is another extreme example of how our school system needs reforming.

Turns out having “Swine Flu Parties” is a bad idea. Or so the government would have you believe.

In much the same way as (demented) parents intentionally expose their kids to chicken pox (you know, because the pox are milder when you’re younger) people have begun organizing Swine Flu Parties.

The thought is that if they get infected now, while the flu is mild, then when the next wave hits, they’ll be immune.

But the CDC says it doesn’t work that way.

And I’m sure the CDC wouldn’t lie to you. They’re from the government.

The Spanish Flu that killed 70-100 million people in 1918 came in two waves. The first wave happened in March, and was relatively mild. Not very many people died.

The second wave happened in September, and that’s when it got really deadly.

So like I said, no need to panic, yet.

We still have a few months.

Source: Science Channel

Because you are all avid readers of the Something New Every Day blog, you are all aware of what symptoms indicate the flu. If not, familiarize yourself with the chart here.

Well, today, Joe Biden was on The Today Show and told people that he’s recommended to his friends and family that they stay off the Subway and well… read for yourself:

I would tell members of my family, and I have, that I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, if I had another way, another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.

In what has become a regular occurrence, WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sought to “clarify” what the VP really meant to say. But he went on to clarify by misstating flu symptoms. “Coughing, Sneezing and Runny Nose” are not typical flu symptoms. Those would indicate the common cold.

Maybe we can get Gibbs to clarify his clarification.

The final word (Tom Maguire via Hot Air): They told me that if I voted for McCain we’d have a Vice President who was a moron… and they were right!

With all the flu talk going around, I thought it would be nice to have a handy-dandy chart that explains the difference between cold, flu, and allergy symptoms. So I put one together.

Source: here, here, here and here.

(I was 1 G away from a decent alliteration in the original title, so I decided to force it.)

The Gallbladder is an organ that is found in all vertebrates except horses, rats, and Lamoids. It stores bile that is produced in the liver. The bile is used to aid food digestion. In humans, the gallbladder is shaped like a grape.

It is a non-vital organ, meaning you can survive without it. Sometimes things go wrong with the Gallbladder and you have to have it removed. For instance, as in the case of my Aunt this week, sometimes the Gallbladder develops Gangrene.

This can happen for many reasons. It doesn’t seem all that preventable. It does sound extremely painful.

You can read more here.

Source: wiki

I knew that Prairie Dogs still ran around with The Plague, but I kind of thought the whole human-to-human transition thing went out of style in the middle ages.

Guess Not. The Black Death is still alive and well. And it’s being blamed for the death of 40 or so Jihadis in Algeria and Pakistan.

I can’t get over the irony of a bunch of guys who want the world to regress to the middle ages being offed by a disease last seen around then. Good riddance.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, it’s not a pretty death:

Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include boils in the groin, neck and armpits.

A note to my fellow hypochondriacs – no need to worry (unless you frequent Al-Qaeda training camps). The Plague can be easily treated with modern medicine. But it’s the kind of modern medicine that is not so prevalent in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia or Nigeria.

Source: The Sun, via Hot Air, where Ed is skeptical. I choose to take the British Press at face value and believe the story. You have to be able to believe in something.

Apparently, there are some people who think that Colloidal Silver (liquid suspension of microscopic particles of silver) can be used in replacement of antibiotics. This dates back prior to 1938 when colloidal silver was widely considered a cure-all. Use of colloidal silver was primarily discontinued after 1938 due to the lower price and increased availability of antibiotics.

In 1999, the FDA banned marketing colloidal silver as medicine, “Noting that such products were being marketed for numerous diseases without evidence of effectiveness.”

In 2002, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) found that there
were no legitimate medical uses for colloidal silver and no evidence to support
its marketing claims.

Unfortunately, the 2002 study was too late for Stan Jones. Jones is a Libertarian Politician (word used loosely; 2 unsuccessful runs for Montana Senate and 2 unsuccessful runs for Montana Governor) who heavily used colloidal silver prior to Y2K believing post 2000, antibiotics would no longer be available. Well, this use caused a condition called Argyria, which causes your skin to permanently become blue or blueish-grey.

Source: Wiki, wiki, wiki