Midnight Showing

The Dancing Plague (or Dance Epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in July 1518. Numerous people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

The outbreak began in July 1518, when a woman, Frau Troffea, began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg. This lasted somewhere between four to six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined, and within a month, there were around 400 dancers. Some of these people eventually died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

Historical documents, including “physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and even notes issued by the Strasbourg city council” are clear that the victims danced. It is not known why these people danced, some even to their deaths.

As the dancing plague worsened, concerned nobles sought the advice of local physicians, who ruled out astrological and supernatural causes, instead announcing that the plague was a “natural disease” caused by “hot blood.” However, instead of prescribing bleeding, authorities encouraged more dancing, in part by opening two guildhalls and a grain market, and even constructing a wooden stage. The authorities did this because they believed that the dancers would recover only if they danced continuously night and day. To increase the effectiveness of the cure, authorities even paid for musicians to keep the afflicted moving. Some of the dancers were taken to a shrine, where they sought a cure for their affliction.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518

The Cotard delusion, Cotard’s syndrome, or Walking Corpse Syndrome is a rare mental disorder in which people hold a delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In rare instances, it can include delusions of immortality.

The central symptom in Cotard’s syndrome is the delusion of negation. Those who suffer from this illness often deny that they exist or that a certain portion of their body exists. Cotard’s syndrome has been found to have three distinct stages. In the first stage – Germination – patients exhibit psychotic depression and hypochondriacal symptoms. The second stage – Blooming – is characterized by the full blown development of the syndrome and the delusions of negation. The third stage – Chronic – is characterized by severe delusions and chronic depression.

People with the Cotard Delusion often become withdrawn from others and they tend to neglect their own hygiene and well-being. The delusion makes it impossible for patients to make sense of reality, which results in an extremely distorted view of the world. This delusion is often found in psychotic patients suffering from schizophrenia. While Cotard’s Syndrome doesn’t necessitate hallucinations, the strong delusions are comparable to those found in schizophrenic patients.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion

Exploding head syndrome is a form of hypnagogic auditory hallucination and is a rare and relatively undocumented parasomnia event in which the subject experiences a loud bang in their head similar to a bomb exploding, a gun going off, a clash of cymbals, ringing, an earthquake, or any other form of loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head.

This noise usually happens at the onset of sleep or within an hour or two of falling asleep, but is not necessarily the result of a dream. Although the sound is perceived as extremely loud, it is usually not accompanied by pain. Attacks appear to change in number over time, with several attacks happening in a space of days or weeks, followed by months of remission. Sufferers often feel a sense of fear and anxiety before and after an attack, accompanied by elevated heart rate. Attacks may also be accompanied by perceived flashes of light (when perceived on their own, known as a “visual sleep start”) or difficulty in breathing. The condition is also known as “auditory sleep starts”. The associated symptoms are varied, but the benign nature of the condition is emphasized and neither extensive investigation nor treatment are indicated. Sufferers may experience an inability to vocalize any sound, or mild forms of sleep paralysis during an attack. There is no known treatment.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

Lina Medina (born September 27, 1933, in Ticrapo, Huancavelica Region, Peru) is the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days.

Born in Ticrapo, Peru, to silversmith Tiburelo Medina and Victoria Losea, Medina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, Peru, to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant.

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The hamster zona-free ovum test (HZFO test), or hamster test is a method for diagnosing male infertility due to the inability of the sperm to penetrate the ova.

In this test, sperm are incubated with several hamster eggs. After seven to twenty hours, the number of sperm penetrations per egg is measured. The hamster eggs have had the zona pellucida, the outer membrane, removed- hence, zona-free.

Having all eggs penetrated by multiple sperm is considered to be a positive sign for fertility. Results suggest that men whose sperm fail the hamster test are a third as fertile than those whose sperm pass.

Donated sperm and intracytoplasmic sperm injection techniques are considered more strongly for those whose sperm fail this test.

It is worth noting the human sperm does not fertilize the hamster eggs, which are unable to grow or develop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamster_zona-free_ovum_test

Aw man! The eggs don’t fertilize? That’d be awesome! Some big giant hamster. It’d be amazing!

… and this is nothing to do with donner kebabs. Well, not lamb ones anyway…

The Donner Party (sometimes called the Donner-Reed Party) was a group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness.

The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed by following a new route called Hastings Cutoff, which crossed Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert. The rugged terrain, and difficulties later encountered while traveling along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada, resulted in the loss of many cattle and wagons, and splits within the group.

By the beginning of November 1846 the emigrants had reached the Sierra Nevada, where they became trapped by an early, heavy snowfall near Truckee (now Donner) Lake, high in the mountains. Their food supplies ran low, and in mid-December some of the group set out on foot to obtain help. Rescuers from California attempted to reach the emigrants, but the first relief party did not arrive until the middle of February 1847, almost four months after the wagon train became trapped. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived to reach California.

Historians have described the episode as one of the most spectacular tragedies in Californian history and in the record of western migration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party