News of the Bizarre: Fir Tree Grows in Man's Lung

No, I did not find this in the Weekly World News, although there is a fascinating cover story there this week about a octopus-shaped UFO flying over Rio de Janeiro. No, this is a true story about a Russian botanist complaining of chest pains. Doctors thought he had cancer, but instead found a 5 cm FIR TREE GROWING IN HIS LUNG!! Daaaaayum, that's gotta hurt. The doctors theorize that since Artyom Sidorkin studied plants for a living, he probably inhaled (snorted? come clean Artyom, fir seeds are the hot new craze sweeping the central Russian steppe) a seed which took root in his lung. Since fir seeds need little light and only a moist environment to grow, PRESTO - chia lung! This next photo is not for the faint of heart.


Also, look at us go - three posts in one day. That's like the entire output of January. Whoohoo.

It's Official: Cooties are real!

Scourge of the playground, terror of the sandbox. Cooties. (Aside: does everything in the world have a wikipedia page?) In some ways, cooties were the way most of us first understood the concept of communicable diseases - girls had cooties, and if you got too close, you would too. I don't remember if I ever knew what the symptoms of cooties were, or even the consequences of contracting the dread disease, but I did know they were real. Of course, like many other good childhood myths, the theory of cooties was debunked as adolescence dawned and mere proximity to girls was something for which we all strove, or agonized over even.

But now, modern science confirms what small children all over North America have known since the dawn of time: Cooties are real. Sort of. A recent study at the University of Colorado has proved that women have significantly higher numbers of microbes on their hands then men do. So the next time a child proposes some ridiculous idea that seems to stretch the boundaries of reality, don't be so quick to judge. And be careful whose hand you shake.