Paul Komoda

Bust of Joseph Merrick



Ultra Violent Lolita


from Agony - A Gallery:

Wish you were here...(slightly odd postcards)

(click on image to enlarge)

"Souvenir du Royaume de Liliput - Paris"
[the Kingdom of Liliput was a circus troupe of people of diminutive stature]


Chaefer’s Marchenstadt Lilliput
[presumably a circus similar to the one in Paris?]

"To the memory of the Kolossal brothers and sisters"
[sideshow performers?]

"Box Made of the Human Skin of a Chinese Murderer"
Ripley Odditorium exhibit, postcard dated 1939

"Shrunken Human Heads"
from the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

"Gruss Aus with Merry Go Round and Side Show incl. Woman without Legs"
Germany, 1904

"Men Fighting Skeleton"

“Cane used by Club Foot, George Lane when Hanged by the Vigilantes in 1864”
from the Virginia City Museum

“Remarkable Discovery in Cheddar Caves”
[skeleton found in 1903 now an exhibit at the Cheddar Caves Museum, Somerset, England]

“Javaro Shrunken Heads”
from the American Museum of Natural History

“Long Tail Rooster”
Ripley Odditorium exhibit, postcard dated 1939

Munchen, Bayrische Gewerbeschau, “Marionetten - Theater”
1903



“Elisabeth Siegeretty”
printed 1906
[sideshow performer?]

“Dickson’s Mound’s State Park, Ill.”


* * *

"Bend It" - Gilbert & George

Nuclear test images

Operation Crossroads
Bikini Atoll lagoon, Marshall Islands, Pacific
24 July 1946

Operation Ranger
Nevada Test Site
27 January 1951

Operation Ivy
Enewetak Atoll
31 October 1952

Operation Hartack I
Eniwetok
28 June 1958



Operation Dominic
Christmas Island, Johnston Island, Central Pacific
10th July 1962


10th June 1962


The Nuclear Weapon Archive - A Guide To Nuclear Weapons


* * *


The following images are from:

How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb

by Peter Kuran

VIP observers are lit up by the light of an atomic bomb, Operation Greenhouse, Enewetak Atoll, 1951

Castle Bravo detonation, March 1, 1954. 15 megatons. Largest nuclear test conducted by the United States.

Troop maneuvers during Operation Tumbler-Snapper were covered extensively by the media including a color featurette entitled “Operation A-Bomb” produced by RKO-Pathe. Twenty-one hundred marines participated in the test. May 1, 1952.



Five volunteers sent to witness the Genie air strike at ground zero



Crossroads Baker, 21 kilotons Bikini Atoll, July 24, 1946.



Plumbbob Hood, 74 kilotons, Nevada Test Site, July 5, 1957.




Cameramen photograph shot of Grable at the Nevada Test Site, May 25, 1953.


* * *

Skin Condition Dermatographia Made Into Art

Ariana Page Russell has a skin condition called dermatographia, where the skin is overly sensitive to minor injuries. Even light scratches will cause it to become red and raised.

Ever the artist, Ariana decided to use her medical condition as the basis for her art:

My own skin frequently blushes and swells. I have dermatographia, a condition in which one’s immune system exhibits hypersensitivity, via skin, that releases excessive amounts of histamine, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the skin’s surface is lightly scratched. This allows me to painlessly draw patterns and words on my skin, which I then photograph.

arianapagerussell.com

* * *

3D pavement art by Edgar Mueller

Lava Burst
created on the 30th anniversary of the international competition of street painters in Geldern.

Ice Age
created in Dun Laoghaire for the “Festival of World Culture.”


More at metanamorph.com

* * *

Cookie Williams

Men Kissing (acrylic and gouache)

Jemima (India ink on paper)

Nurse 1



Nurse 2



Untitled



Weeeeeeee


* * *

"Rubber Johnny" - Aphex Twin (dir. Chris Cunningham)

Aphex Twin - Rubber Johnny - Free videos are just a click away

Doll Coffeeshop

For the people who have asked for a link, here is Everard Cunion's homepage:

Doll Coffeeshop

(Everard also posts as user "Everhard" at The Doll Forum)


* * *

The horror of parasitic worms

Hookworm

While living in its host’s gut, the Hookworm lodges its well developed, toothy mouth into the intestinal lining and voraciously begins sucking out blood. This thirsty vampire drinks so much of the red stuff that there is a serious risk of anemia caused by iron deficiency.

Rashes, nausea and diarrhea are among the symptoms those infected by Hookworm can expect, though part of the danger lies in the fact that its damage is so insidious and easy to miss.

Foot infested by Hookworm larvae

As larva, the Hookworm forces entry by burrowing into its host’s skin, usually through bare feet, and from there it travels through the body to the intestine, at which point it grows into an adult worm.

Although all but eradicated in America’s South, where it infected a large proportion of the population during the early 20th century, the Hookworm remains a major threat to children in the tropics, causing retarded growth as well as cognitive and intellectual impairment.

As many as 740 million individuals are thought to be infected by Hookworm today.

Ascaris

A larger cousin of the Hookworm, Ascaris is a giant sized roundworm that can reach as long as 40cm, as opposed to little over 1cm. It too sets up shop in its host’s small intestine, using its characteristic mouth, which is surrounded by three lips.

Ascaris is in fact the parasite most familiar to us humans, though the fact that up to 25% percent of the world’s population is infected certainly doesn’t make it any more welcome in our bowels.

Sickness, fever, and heavy infestations with severe intestinal blockages kill up to 20,000 people a year.

Like the Hookworm, the Ascaris likes warm, damp conditions with poor hygiene, and is a particularly severe pain in the backside for young people.

Yet while the larva of Ascaris’ smaller relative tends to penetrate the skin of prospective hosts, infection in this case occurs through consuming food contaminated with faeces containing Ascaris eggs.

The larva then hatches and migrates through the gut and respiratory system, before eventually being re-swallowed and allowed to mature, anchored snugly to the intestinal wall. The female Ascaris may then lay hundreds of thousands of eggs a day.

Guinea Worm

Guinea Worm Larva

Another elongated roundworm of ill repute, the Guinea Worm is one of the best documented of human parasites – and at around a meter in length, as thick as a spaghetti noodle, and with some decidedly unsavoury habits, it’s easy to to see why.

When humans drink stagnant water contaminated with this nasty blighter’s eggs, it eventually gives rise to a slender, fulsome female Guinea Worm that burrows its way along to the arms or more likely the legs. There it assumes a position under the skin, before boring its way out through a blister that brings excruciating pain to the unfortunate host.

Guinea worm having emerged from a foot

The burning sore often leads the afflicted individual to dunk their limb in cool water, much to the delight of the Guinea Worm, which proceeds to release hundreds of thousands of larvae, infecting the water supply and starting the cycle all over again.

Meanwhile, the host must wind the Guinea worm around a stick and slowly tease it out over several agonising, debilitating weeks.

Still, it’s better to endure the ghastly Guinea Worm hanging there, for if it breaks apart it is more likely to cause a potentially fatal infection.

Despite efforts to eradicate it, largely through education, this remains one strand of evolutionary adaptation that definitely gets too close to the bone.

Tapeworm

If Ascaris and the Guinea Worm thought they had it sewn up in the length stakes, the Tapeworm puts them both to shame. Typically 3-5m long, this odious form of parasitic flatworm can grow to over 12m in some situations – situations that usually involve the digestive tracts of humans, livestock or other animals.

Armed with powerful suckers and revolting teeth, the Tapeworm hunkers down and grows. And grows. Despite its size, the common Beef Tapeworm is not especially dangerous: it can by avoided by having your steak well done, and its symptoms are limited to sickness and intestinal obstruction. Not so with its cousin Echinococcus.

An Echinococcus like the Hyper Tapeworm carries with it a rather nasty surprise in the shape of hydatid disease. This occurs when the Tapeworm eggs are ingested in fecal-contaminated food, and the embryos take a ride in the bloodstream to hook themselves onto an organ like the lungs or liver.

There, they grow into hydatid cysts, which act as a nursery for the next generation of Tapeworm larva – but which, less maternally, also put pressure on the host’s organs, and can cause shock if they rupture. These large, potentially fatal cysts need to be surgically removed.

Filarial Worm

Another roundworm, and one with a rather remarkable life cycle allied to some pretty gruesome costs. Once injected into its host by that harbinger of disease and destruction, the mosquito, this threadlike little horror needles its way into its host’s lymphatic system, where it lodges itself and can cause blockages.

This in turn may lead to elephantiasis, a grotesque swelling of the skin and tissue usually in the limbs. The Filarial Worm is thought to be one of the world’s leading causes of disability.

Elephantiasis of legs due to filariasis

* * *

the Catacombs of Palermo

Locked in time... the 400-year-old Mummies (and one little girl)
by Jane Fryer
(words originally from the Daily Mail, 28th January 2009)

Preserved: Rosalina died in 1920, aged two

With her crumpled yellow hair bow and grubby face, pretty little Rosalina looks as though she's just flaked out for a nap after a morning spent playing in the garden.

In fact, she has been lying in her tiny, wooden, glass-topped coffin in the catacombs beneath the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, for more than 90 years - skilfully and shockingly preserved to look just as she did when she died of a bronchial infection in December 1920, aged two.

And she is not alone. In the vast, musty-smelling catacombs are nearly 2,000 mummified corpses, many of them more than four centuries old - Rosalina was one of the last to enter this strange underground resting place, before the authorities banned the process.

Underground resting place: Many of the mummified corpses in the catacombs beneath the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, are more than four centuries old

As these extraordinary photographs show, some are resting in open wooden boxes like Rosalina, others are arranged straight-backed on benches, while many hang from the walls in ghoulish rows - heads lolling and in various stages of decay.



Some have a nose or a stretch of cheek still in place, others have a clump of wispy hair. All are on display to the public.


The ghoulish display dates back to the 16th century, when the monks outgrew their cemetery, started excavating crypts beneath it and discovered that the combination of the coolness of the crypt and the porous limestone walls meant corpses dried out, rather than rotted.


The first and oldest corpse is brother Silvestro of Gubbio [below], who died in 1599 and, 410 years on, is still dressed in his flowing religious robes.


The embalming process was remarkably simple.

The newly dead were undressed and laid out on racks of ceramic pipes in special chambers where their bodily fluids gradually drained out and the remains became desiccated.


After seven or eight months, the fluids had drained out and the bodies were doused with vinegar, redressed and put in coffins, or hung on the wall - depending on their family's wishes.



The catacombs are divided into distinct areas. As well as the priests, one wall is devoted to women - an eerie sight with their disintegrating hooped skirts and ragged parasols - and a separate side chapel houses virgins.


A ' professional' section is home to professors, doctors, teachers, lawyers and soldiers - all dressed according to their trade.


Then there's the chapel for children, all dressed in their best party clothes.



In more recent times, an elaborate preservation system was adopted, using chemical injections.

Rosalina was one of these and so successful was her embalming that, until recently, locals believed she was a doll.

X-rays of her tiny body show her organs are astonishingly intact.

While it makes an horrific and ghoulish tourist attraction, the remains are incredibly informative for scientists, who can learn about diet, diseases and life-expectancy in past centuries.

[Recommended site: King's Capuchin's Catacombs of Palmero, Italy.]

* * *

* * *

say NO to swine flu vaccine

Ten things you're not supposed to know about the vaccine - read here

* * *

crappytaxidermy.com

"A visual blog dedicated to seeking and exploring the world of taxidermy. The bizarre, the horrifying, or the downright awful."

crappytaxidermy.com

* * *

The world's youngest mother - 5 years 8 months old

Peruvian five-year-old Lina Medina, accompanied by her 11-month-old-son Gerardo, and Doctor Lozada who attended her son's birth, are shown in this 1940 file photo taken in Lima's hospital.

When her child was born by Caesarean section in May 1939, Medina made medical history, and is still the youngest known mother in the world.

Lina Medina's parents thought their 5-year-old daughter had a huge abdominal tumor and when shamans in their remote village in Peru's Andes could find no cure, her father carried her to a hospital.

Just over a month later, she gave birth to a boy.

Medina was born on September 27, 1933 in the small village of Paurange. She was only 5 years 8 months old at the birth of her child on Mother's Day, May 14, 1939.

Born at full term at Lima's maternity clinic, her child was taken through a caesarian operation (Dr. Lozada and Busalleu, operators, Dr. Colretta, anesthesiologist). The child (boy), weighing 2,700 grams, was well formed and in good health. Child and mother were able to leave the clinic after only a few days.

Doctor Lozada has conducted very detailed studies since the diagnostic of the pregnancy which aroused much curiosity in the country; he took an x-ray of the child and her baby, established a diagnostic of the fetal situation, observed the state of functionality of the little mother who had begun menstruating at the age of 8 months. At four years old she had already developed breasts as well as pubic hair, her body proportions were a bit amazing and her bone hardening a bit advanced, things that are often observed in cases of such premature pregnancy.

After taunting from schoolmates, Medina's son, Gerardo - who was named after one of the doctors who attended Medina and who became their mentor - discovered when he was 10 that the person he had grown up believing to be his sister was in fact his mother.

Gerardo died in 1979 at age 40 from a disease that attacks the body's bone marrow, but it was said it was not clear there was any link with his illness and the fact his mother had been so young at his birth.

Medina herself married and in 1972 had a second son, 33 years after her first. Her second child now lives in Mexico.

Youngest mother - snopes.com

* * *

Mind controlling parasites

Leucochloridium Paradoxum

(aka "zombie snails")

Leucochloridium Paradoxum is a parasitic flatworm that uses gastropods (snails and slugs) as an intermediate host.

The worm in its larval stage, travels into the digestive system of a snail to develop into the next stage, sporocyst. The sporocyst grows into long tubes to form swollen “broodsacs” filled with tens to hundreds of larvae.

These broodsacs invade the snail’s tentacle (preferring the middle, when available), causing a brilliant transformation, of the tentacles, into a swollen, pulsating, colorful display that mimics the appearance of a caterpillar or grub.



The infection of the tentacles of the eyes seems to inhibit the perception of light intensity. Whereas uninfected snails seek dark areas to prevent predation, infected snails are more likely to become exposed to predators such as birds.

The resulting behavior of the flatworm is a case of aggressive mimicry, where the parasite vaguely resembles the food of the host.

This gains the parasite entry into the host’s body; this is unlike most other cases of aggressive mimicry, in which only a part of the host resembles the target’s prey and the mimic itself then eats the duped animal.

Sacculina

Sacculina is a genus of barnacles that parasitise crabs. Upon finding a host crab, the female Sacculina larva walks on it until it finds a joint. It then molts, injecting its soft body into the crab while its shell falls off.

The Sacculina grows in the crab, emerging as a sac on the underside of the crab’s rear thorax, where the crab’s eggs would be incubated.

When a female Sacculina is implanted in a male crab it will interfere with the crab’s hormonal balance. This sterilizes it and changes the bodily layout of the crab to resemble that of a female crab by widening and flattening its abdomen, among other things.

The female Sacculina has even been known to cause the male crabs to perform mating gestures typical of female crabs. The male Sacculina looks for a female Sacculina adult on the underside of a crab. He then enters and fertilizes her eggs. The crab (male or female) then cares for the eggs as if they were its own, having been rendered infertile by the parasite.

The natural hatching process of a crab consists of the female finding a high rock and grooming its brood pouch on its abdomen and releasing the fertilized eggs in the water through a bobbing motion. The female crab stirs the water with her claw to aid the flow of the water.

When the hatching parasite eggs of the Sacculina are ready to emerge from the brood pouch of Sacculina, the crab performs a similar process. The crab shoots them out through pulses creating a large cloud of parasites. The crab then uses the familiar technique of stirring the water to aid in flow.

Lancet Liver Fluke
(Dicrocoelium Dendriticum)

D. dendriticum spends its adult life inside the liver of its host. After mating, the eggs are excreted in the feces.

The first intermediate host, the terrestrial snail, eats the feces, and becomes infected by the larval parasites. The larvae (or cercariae) drill through the wall of the gut and settle in its digestive tract, where they develop into a juvenile stage. The snail tries to defend itself by walling the parasites off in cysts, which it then excretes and leaves behind in the grass.

The second intermediate host, an ant, uses the trail of slime as a source of moisture. The ant then swallows a cyst loaded with hundreds of juvenile lancet flukes. The parasites enter the gut and then drift through its body.

Most of the cercariae encyst in the haemocoel of the ant and mature into metacercariae, but one moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion (a cluster of nerve cells underneath the esophagus). There, the fluke takes control of the ant’s actions by manipulating these nerves.

As evening approaches and the air cools, the infested ant is drawn away from other members of the colony and upward to the top of a blade of grass. Once there, it clamps its mandibles onto the top of the blade and stays there until dawn. Afterward, it goes back to its normal activity at the ant colony. If the host ant were to be subjected to the heat of the direct sun, it would die along with the parasite.

Night after night, the ant goes back to the top of a blade of grass until a grazing animal comes along and eats the blade, ingesting the ant along with it, thus putting lancet flukes back inside their preferred host.

Glyptapanteles
(aka "zombie caterpillar")

Glyptapanteles is a genus of parasitoid wasps found in Central and North America. A female Glyptapanteles will lay her eggs (about 80 at a time) inside a young caterpillar host.

After hatching the larvae will feed on the caterpillar’s succulent juicy insides until they are fully developed. They then emerge from the body, attach themselves to a branch or leaf, and form a cocoon.

However, one or two larvae remain behind and manipulate the caterpillar to take up position near the cocoons, arch its back, and cease to move or feed. If the cocoons are disturbed, the caterpillar will thrash around violently. The pupae effectively have themselves a zombie-caterpillar bodyguard.

The caterpillar remains this way until the cocoons hatch at which point it dies.

Cordyceps Unilateralis

C. unilateralis is a species of entomopathogenic fungus that infects and alters the behavior of ants in order to ensure the widespread distribution of its spores. The spores enter the body of the insect through its spiracles, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues.

When the fungus is ready to spore, its mycelia enter the ant’s brain and change how it perceives pheromones, causing the insect to climb to the top of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the stem. The fungus then kills the ant, and the fruiting bodies of C. unilateralis grow from its head and explode, releasing the spores.

Costa Rican Parasitoid Wasp
(Hymenoepimecis Argyraphaga)

Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga is a Costa Rican parasitoid wasp whose host is the spider Plesiometa argyra.

The adult female wasp temporarily paralyzes the spider and lays an egg on its abdomen. The egg hatches into a larva which sucks the spider’s blood through small holes, while the spider goes on about its normal web building and insect catching behavior for the next one to two weeks. When the larva is ready to pupate, it injects a chemical into the spider, causing it to build a web whose design is completely different from any it has ever made, and then to sit motionless in the middle of this web. Even if the larva is removed prior to the web-building process, the spider still engages in aberrant web-spinning.

The wasp larva then molts, kills the spider with a poison and sucks its body dry before discarding it and building a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider has just built.

The larva pupates inside the cocoon, and then emerges to mate and begin the cycle over again.

Hairworm
(Spinochordodes Tellinii)

This worm’s larva develops and grows inside orthopteran insects (grasshoppers, crickets, etc.).

As it grows the worm will consume the internal organs of its host until there is nothing left but the head, legs and outer shell.

Once the parasite is grown (usually 3-4 times larger than its host), it manipulates its host to actually seek out and dive into a large body of water.

Once in the water the worm emerges and swims away to live out the rest of its life, leaving the host to drown.

Jewel Wasp
(Ampulex Compressa)

When a female jewel wasp is ready to lay its egg it finds a cockroach and administers two stings.

The first sting is to the roach’s thorax temporarily paralyzing its front legs. The second sting is directly to the roach’s brain. This sting causes the roach to lose its escape reflex. Without its escape reflex the wasp, who is much too small to carry the cockroach, can grab one of the cockroach’s antennae and lead it around like a dog on a leash.

The wasp takes her new pet back to her nest, lays an egg on its belly and seals it inside.

Eventually the larva will hatch and consume the still living roach, which happily lies there until it dies.

Euhaplorchis Californiensis

This parasite lives in the gut of shorebirds and produces eggs that are released in the bird’s stool which are spread into the salt-water marshes and ponds of southern California.

Some of these eggs get swallowed up by snails and hatch into larva. Once these larvae are mature enough they leave the snail and swim out into the marshes eventually finding a killifish, entering through the gills and making its way along a nerve and into the brain cavity.

Once in the brain cavity the parasite will cause the fish to come to the surface, swim in circles, jerk around and display its silvery underside in an attempt to attract a bird’s attention.

This behavior makes the infected fish 30 times more likely to be caught and consumed by a bird.

Once the fish is consumed, the parasite lives in the bird’s gut and the process can begin anew.

Toxoplasma gondii

Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite the definitive host of which is the cat, but the parasite can be carried by all known mammals including humans.

T. gondii infections have the ability to change the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to rather than fearful of the scent of cats.

This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to sexually reproduce if its host is eaten by a cat.

The infection is almost surgical in its precision, as it does not affect a rat’s other fears such as the fear of open spaces or of unfamiliar smelling food.

Phorid flies
(Pseudacteon)

The genus Pseudacteon, of which 110 species have been documented, is a parasitoid of the ant in South America.

Members of Pseudacteon reproduce by laying eggs in the thorax of the ant. The first instar larvae migrate to the head. The larvae develop by feeding on the hemolymph, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue in the head.

Eventually, the larvae completely devour the ant’s brain, causing it to do nothing but wander aimlessly for approximately two weeks.

After about two to four weeks, they cause the ant’s head to fall off by releasing an enzyme that dissolves the membrane attaching the ant’s head to its body.

The fly pupates in the detached head capsule.

* * *

Walter Yeo - first person believed to undergo plastic surgery

Walter Yeo sustained terrible facial injuries including the loss of upper and lower eyelids while manning the guns aboard HMS Warspite in 1916 during the Battle of Jutland.

In 1917 he was treated by Sir Harold Gillies - the first man to use skin grafts from undamaged areas on the body - and know as 'the father of plastic surgery'.

London-based Gillies opened a specialist ward for the treatment of the facially-wounded at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent. Records show Yeo was admitted to Sir Harry Gillies' care on August 8, 1917 - just two months after he opened his specialist hospital.

Walter Yeo is thought to have been one of the first patients to benefit from his newly-developed technique - a form of skin grafting called 'tubed pedical'.

The young sailor, of Plymouth, Devon, was given new eyelids with a 'mask' of skin grafted across his face and eyes.

Documents show after the procedure Walter, a gunnery warrant officer, was 'improved, but still had severe disfigurement'.

The First World War was a war dominated by high explosives and heavy artillery and casualties treated by Sir Harold Gillies included an unprecedented number with horrific facial injuries. Often unable to see, hear, speak, eat or drink, they struggled to re-assimilate back into civilian life.

Gillies is credited with developing new, untried techniques to treat the injuries created by this new kind of war, taking grafts from undamaged areas of flesh.

He used tubular 'pedicles' from the forehead, scalp, chest, neck or shoulders but retained a connection to allow blood flow.

More work by Sir Harold Gillies:

The Queen Mary's Hospital Sidcup Archives

* * *