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• Commented on Animation: pitcher Dock Ellis's no-hitter while on LSD
  It's not all good. One particularly hectic full moon night, the crowning glory of a succession of particularly odd hospital admissions was the cat burglar who'd led the police on a rooftop chase while high on LSD. Unfortunately he'd come...
• Commented on Y2K ten years later
  I was working over the Y2K New Year's Eve. It was actually very quiet for us, the only event of note was that some of the children we admitted became centenarian toddlers as the Hospital Information System had their ID...
• Commented on Another Hardcore Moment from Nature
  I've seen it spelt "Pokeko", "Pukeko" and "Pōkeko". I don't know which is official - the spelling I used with the macron corresponds most closely to how I hear people around here (Rotorua) say it. I claim no expertise -...
• Commented on Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Surgery On a Beating Heart
  A shunt is a temporary artificial blood vessel that takes the blood that normally flow through the area being operated on, so the area further on doesn't die from lack of blood. Once the new graft is in place/operation is...
• Commented on Kiwis training their young to ZORB
  It's not a particularly NZ thing (unlike the Zorb, Bungee and Shweeb which are locally designed lunacies). I also saw this in Suzhou, China about 5 years ago - you paid to put your kid in a blow-up sphere which...
• Commented on Baby Star Trek Classic uniform onesies
  Bet they don't sell so many red ones....
• Commented on Another Hardcore Moment from Nature
  The Pōkeko, another indigenous New Zealand bird, will cheerfully bite the heads off chicks and young ducks if it's usual diet of insects and vegetation is in short supply....
• Commented on International Climate Day this Sat needs 22 countries to collect the set
  Kiribati is probably on the list because they're already resigned to their fate. As one of the lowest-lying Pacific island chains they've already formally approached Australia & New Zealand for refugee status for the whole population......
• Commented on The ecologist who found his wedding ring
  @ JohnDDD According to the film version or LOTR it came from Mt Ngauruhoe (say "Na-ra-ho-ee"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ngauruhoe...
• Commented on Mitch Horowitz on Freemasons
  I detest the Freemasons. They ran our town. My father wasn't (wouldn't be) in the club so they tried to screw him over and put him out of business. Nearly succeeded too, until he moved his bank accounts and legal...
• Commented on Man awarded $63k for Ketamine "overdose" at hospital
  In defence of Ketamine, it's a very useful anaesthetic and analgesic drug. I use it frequently (professionally - on other people) and usually with only minor side effects (raised heart rate, increase in blood pressure, patient feeling a bit 'spaced'...
• Commented on Boing Boing's September 11, 2001 archives.
  I was in the UK West Midlands working in a Cardiac operating theatre. Too junior to be completely left to run cases but senior enough that my supervising Consultant could be around on the floor but not necessarily in the...
• Commented on Treatment of intersexed African athlete appalling
  If she is intersex and the gonads are undescended testes rather than ovaries then she does have an increased risk of testicular cancer - somewhere around a lifetime risk of 1 in 50-ish compared to the normal male risk of...
• Commented on Botfly maggot removed from head -- the video
  OK, so I've got a strong stomach and get to see grossly biological things every day at work, but that made my morning. Anyone else wondering if cigarette smoke works and a piece of sticky tape suffocates it too, whether...
• Commented on Blue Food Coloring Un-Paralyzes Rats
  @36, it may be a bit grim but it's not appalling. Having had to care for all too many trauma patients with spinal cord injuries I'd cheerfully sacrifice an awful lot of mice not to have to tell another person...
• Commented on Odd Images of Escape Chute Lead to Better Story
  It looks like a lot more fun than queuing up in a dark stairwell waiting to burn alive. The demo videos from different companies do seem to feature slim Asian escapees though. Here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8g7AXTzD_I The (loudest) male instructor tells...
• Commented on Hammer as "cure" for constipation?
  More here: http://www.well.com/user/cynsa/newbutt.html A Professor of Surgery once told me of a live cannon shell he'd extracted from a patient's rear. The patient claimed to be using it to reduce his piles when it slipped inside... So on extraction they...
• Commented on License Agreement for a Public Park
  "HSBC seems like one of those companies you end up doing business with because you have to-- does anyone seek out HSBC products?" To be fair to HSBC, their First Direct telephone and internet banking subsidiary is actually one of...
• Commented on Newly discovered daguerreotype of man who had iron rod pierce his skull in 1848
  I remember the story well from 2nd year neuro-anatomy lectures - Phineas Gage is a staple of neuro-anatomy, psychology, neurology and neurosurgery lectures in medical schools around the world. It's nice to put a put a face to the story,...
• Commented on In the eye of the beholder
  But why go for the little finger first? It's actually a very useful digit. The actuarial values of digits go thumb, index, little, middle, ring in descending order, and the loss of my own left pinky would have a particularly...
• Commented on Photos of fireworks stand
  I love visiting the in-laws in rural Malaysia at Chinese New Year. Fireworks are illegal there and smuggled supplies from China are sold from private homes. But the only enforcement in their village is a single, frustrated Malay policeman on...
• Commented on Girl who claimed her face was tattooed while sleeping comes clean
  @20: "Facial tattoos are actually considered to be a handicap and you can receive Social Security due to limited job prospects." That may depend where you live. In this part of the world "ta moko" are part of the indigenous...
• Commented on UK cop: 'War on terror means no pictures of police vans in disabled parking spots'
  Takuan @19: paraphrasing Mao's "Hundred Flowers"? Wasn't the start of the quote "百花齐放，百家争鸣" ? (Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend). I don't know the wording of the rest of the line though - he waffled...
• Commented on The Marshallese in Arkansas and other unexpected diasporas
  Somalis in Cardiff, South Wales. First as crew for merchant ships, a later more recent wave as refugees joining their established countrymen. Poles in Swindon in the south west of England as refugees after WWII. Many had been based locally...
• Commented on Roald Dahl on vaccinating your kids
  Apoxia @ 71 New Zealand's low vaccination rates are due to the combination of two factors: Firstly there are same kind of middle class sceptics who can't do maths, but think they're too intelligent to take advice from those who...
• Commented on 1800s surgical kit unboxed
  The Liston knives were the work of Robert Liston, a famously arrogant but brilliant Scottish surgeon and the fastest knife in Europe: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/people/famousfirst1230.html He is also reputed to have performed the only recorded operation with a 300% mortality rate -...
• Commented on Montreal cop cuffs, busts and fines student $450 for not holding escalator rail in subway
  @55 Takuan But there *are* plenty of Chinese Jews in 凯丰 Kaifeng: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews...
• Commented on Chinese provincial government orders local officials to smoke more
  If you look at it from an economic perspective and take a utilitarian approach to the problem, having a population of heavy smokers actually enhances a country's bottom line. Healthcare expenditure mainly occurs at end of life. So while it's...
• Commented on Hospital Food Photo Blog
  UK National Health Service food budget comes to about £2.50 (US$3.75) per inpatient per day. I don't suppose it's any more in most places, France probably excluded. Not surprising most of it looks like crap, is it?...
• Commented on Monasteries as hotels
  The Welsh Revivals left Wales with a surfeit of Methodist chapels, and many of those now unused for their original purpose have been turned into homes. The downside is that the "Pull up a pew" joke wears incredibly thin very...