Welcome to the World Wide Weird

Anyone stuck in a job they hate, or a cube farm will love this one. The BBC are reporting on how a Vietnamese Doctor has used his PC and some cheap parts to create a homemade endoscope.

Cap Slog has always felt that he would have made a fine G.P. except of course for that egalitarian technicality called Medical School. But now, I have the means to make my own endoscope, and can wack it up one’s wazoo (see, I even know the correct technical terms) for a quick squizz.

What’s that you say? You can’t remember if you had 2 or 3 weetbix for breakfast this morning? Come over here, bend over, let me just minimize Doom to the task bar and we’ll take a looksee. No need to thank me, just sign this medicare receipt and pay the $195 consultation fee.

Dr Nguyen Phuoc Huy said his hospital could never afford to buy one as the endoscope costs around $30,000. Instead he spent two years developing a DIY endoscope to peer inside the bodies of patients without the need for surgery.

Endoscopy is a minimally invasive diagnostic procedure used to evaluate the interior surfaces of an organ by inserting a small scope in the body. Through the scope, doctors are able to see lesions.

And other way cool stuff.

Dr Huy spent two years building the system”The adaptor costs almost nothing because it is simply a system of lens linked to a webcam costing just about $30.

“I can now make a complete endoscope system in just one week.” So far he has built one for himself and two for colleagues.

I bet these guys know how to party!

A Pentium 4 computer with a colour printer is all that is needed for image processing.

“Doc Cap Slog, what is this magenta thing in my intestines?”
“Nothing to worry about Madam, it’s just some internal bleeding”
“Shouldn’t it be red then?”
“The printer cartridge has run out of red, and I think we’re pretty short of blue too.”

Reuters August 09, 2005

Yeah I know, this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve only just seen it (link)

ROME: A Macedonian man left his wife at an Italian service station and only realised he had driven off without her six hours later. News agency Ansa reported that the couple, who were travelling with their four-year-old daughter, pulled over for gas in the coastal city of Pesaro as they were heading back to their home to Germany.

After filling the petrol tank, the husband drove away – without noticing that his 30-year-old wife had got out of the car to go to the toilet.

The woman, who had no money or documents with her, contacted the police who eventually traced her husband to Milan, some 340km north of Pesaro, Ansa said.

The husband told police he hadn’t missed his wife because she always sat in the back of the car with their daughter.

Gee I don’t know, what is the boot for?

NEW DELHI: An Indian firm has launched a vitamin-rich beer which it says protects the body from the harmful effects of alcohol.

Yes, its time to get out the party streamers, someone has come up with the ultimate invention, beer that is good for you (link)

Enough following rats in mazes, this time science has come up with something we can all use.

Ladybird Bio Beer contains aloe-vera extracts as well as the normal ingredients of barley malt and hops, said its inventor B. Srinivas Amarnath.

He said research showed that it did not harm the liver or cause ulcers and gastric illness, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

“The results of human clinical trials have shown aloe vera increases the bioavailability of vitamins like B1, B6, B12, C and E,” said C.B. Jagannatha Rao, senior vice president of Khoday group of industries.

So let me get this straight, I can honestly tell Mrs Cap Slog that this new beer is GOOD for me? Doesn’t get better than that! No word yet on the new lo-cal chips and peanuts you’ll need to munch while downing pints of this vitamn rich beer. All they need now is to add something to help get me home before midnight

Got it cheap too, only $20. Bet you are all jealous!

Get Behind Celebrating Anal Sex Month

That’s what the folks at the Good Vibrations sex toy shop in San Francisco are telling us. They wouldn’t lie to us now would they?

SAN FRANCISCO (Wireless Flash) — Here’s a holiday we can all get behind: August is “National Anal Sex Month.”

For the last three years, the Good Vibrations sex toy shop in San Francisco has celebrated August as “Anal Sex month” because, as spokeswoman Niki Khanna says, “the month has a lot of A’s.”

Khanna believes having a whole month dedicated to anal sex means people aren’t as touchy about the subject as in years past.

However, she says the big challenge is convincing people that the activity doesn’t “…have to involve penetration. Some people just like being touched on the tip.”

She’s got a busy few weeks ahead of her because Anal Sex Month is already one-third completed. Khanna is just getting the word out because she admits she got behind in her work.
link

Sounds reasonable to me, but seeing as how my social calendar is already filled I’ll have to give this one a miss. But hey don’t let that stop the rest of you. Knock yourself out for all I care. Just make sure to wash your hands before coming back here. I wonder if anyone makes a suitable greeting card for this event?

I wonder what these guys are AGAINST!

Make sure you are sitting, because the following news will shock you!

Men do have trouble hearing women: research
link
Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse – women’s voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men’s.

Who needs research? Any male over the age of 5 can tell you this, and we don’t need a white lab jacket, clip-board or pocket protector to know that women have a (shall we say) more complicated communication regime then men because they talk all the time and don’t say what they mean.

Men: Nothing’s wrong (means) nothing’s wrong.
Women: Nothing’s wrong (means) ?????

You get the idea?

Reports say researchers at Sheffield University in northern England have discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds.

Are these researcher’s married? If they are this couldn’t come as a surprise.

The research shows men decipher female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engage a simpler mechanism.

Men grunt, women talk and talk and talk and talk.

The Daily Mail quotes researcher Michael Hunter as saying, “the female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural ‘melody’ in their voices”.

And they can talk underwater with a mouth full or marbles.

“This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice,” Mr Hunter said. The report says the findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations usually hear male voices – the brain may find it much harder to conjure up a false female voice accurately than a false male voice.

And they keep yelling at us to do something or other when we are watching the footy. I don’t know. What’s she saying now? Is the kid on fire or something? God! Can’t she wait until half-time?