Viewing entries in
Weird Science

Love Sucks (Literally)

Recently a 44 year old woman in New Zealand suffered a stroke and partial paralysis from a hickey gone wrong.  A hickey, or love bite, is a bruise that forms due to excessive "sucking" of the skin.  Hickeys have reached near epidemic proportions amongst teenagers; the youth of today do not wear scarves and turtle necks to be stylish, but rather to hide their love bruises. Normally these "bites" are harmless, but in this particular case a blood clot formed in an artery near the suckage area.  This clot then travelled to the lady's heart where it triggered the stroke.  Doctors are treating her with anti-coagulants and hopefully she will make a full recovery.

A lady suffers from a stroke after being given a hickey.

Happy I’m a Physicist

I just saw this recent article on the scientific portal PubMed on a new way to treat hiccups: "Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage" Loosely translated, this research implies that as an added bonus your proctologist can now treat your hiccups. Trust me I'm a doctor: New cure for the hiccups.

Personally, I'll stick to trying to hold my breath to cure hiccups. I'm glad I'm an experimental physicist as opposed to an experimental biologist.