Scientists Develop Eye-Drops That Could Repair Eye Damage, Make Glasses Unnecessary

Scientists at Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, in Tel Aviv, Israel, claim to have created some truly revolutionary eye-drops that can heal damaged corneas and improve vision.

Described as “a new concept for correcting refractory problems”, the nanodrops developed by ophthalmologist  Dr. David Smadja and a team of scientists from Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University have so far been tested on pigs with damaged corneas. During a recent presentation, Smadja said that the eye-drops repaired the pigs’ corneas, producing improvements in both short-sightedness and long-sightedness.

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Arizona Woman Goes to Bed with Bad Headaches, Wakes Up Speaking in Different Accents

45-year-old Michelle Myers, from Phoenix, Arizona, suffers from Foreign Accent Syndrome, a very rare condition that causes her to speak in various foreign accents – British, Australian, Irish – despite having never traveled outside of the United States.

Myers was diagnosed with the unusual condition in 2015, when, after going to bed with a pounding headache, she woke up unable to speak and with the left part of her body completely numb. She was taken to the nearby West Valley Hospital in Goodyear, where doctors said she was suffering from aphasia, loss of speech, symptoms associated with strokes or brain injuries. However, their diagnosis was turned on its head when the woman finally started speaking again.

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German Schools Use Sand-Filled Vests to Calm Down Hyperactive Children

200 schools in Germany have begun asking hyperactive children, typically those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), to wear heavy sand-filled vests to calm them down and keep them in their seats during classes. The controversial vests, which weigh between 1.2 and six kilograms (2.7 – 13Ib), have sparked misgivings among parents and psychiatrists.

There are plenty of advocates, however, who claim to have witnessed remarkable changes in behavior among the children who have worn them and insisted that they help curb restlessness. There has been a growing number of ADHD cases diagnosed in Germany each year, and schools that use the vest claim that they are a gentler and less complicated way to tackle the phenomenon than administering psychiatric drugs such as Ritalin.

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Man Ruptures His Throat by Stifling Strong Sneeze

In a report released on Tuesday, the journal BMJ Case Reports detailed the bizarre and somewhat frightening case of a 34-year-old British man who ruptured his throat by suppressing a particularly powerful sneeze. The man, described as “previously fit and well” attempted to politely contain his sneeze by “pinching the nose and holding his mouth closed”, which you are apparently not supposed to do.

The force of the sneeze backfired into his throat and perforated his pharynx, the part of the throat right above the larynx and esophagus. He was unaware of the damage initially, but after realizing that his voice had changed and his throat hurt when he swallowed, he knew something was wrong. His neck began to swell up as well, and whenever he moved his head, he experienced an unsettling sensation of popping and crackling.

The man went to the emergency department at Britain’s Leicester Royal Infirmary where doctors were able to diagnose his condition. X-rays revealed that the sneeze had ruptured his throat allowing air bubbles to make their way into the tissue and muscles of his chest, a condition known as subcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum, which caused the popping sensation from his neck to extend all the way to his rib cage. Doctors had to take action quickly as the rupture left the man at risk for complications such as deep neck infection.

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The Strange Case of a Family That Doesn’t Feel Pain

An entire Italian family suffer from a strange genetic mutation that makes them almost completely immune to pain. The condition is so rare that scientists have named it ‘The Marsili Syndrome’, after the family.

Letizia Marsili, 52, became aware of her immunity to pain in early childhood when she didn’t experience any particular sensation from burns or fractures. Five other members of her family, spanning at least three generations, also share this rare genetic anomaly that makes impervious to pain situations where an average person would require an anesthetic. The Marsilis have become the focus of researchers hoping to discover how their mutation works, in the hopes of developing new ways to treat pain.

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Twisted Mother Put Healthy Son through 323 Hospital Visits and 13 Surgeries for No Reason

We’re constantly told that parents know best and always act in the interests of their children. Except when they don’t, like Kaylene Bowen-Wright from Dallas, Texas, who subjected her son to 323 hospital visits and 13 major operations by convincing doctors that he was terminally ill. Now aged 8, Christopher has basically spent his whole life in doctors’ offices, and has undergone over a dozen surgeries that left him with several life-threatening blood infections.

The cycle began days after Christopher was born and continued until 2015, when physicians at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston noticed that his mother’s accounts clashed with the test results and overall visible condition of the young patient. They alerted Child Protective Services (CPS) and Bowen was arrested on charges of causing injury to a child. The 34-year-old woman admitted she had lied to doctors that her son was gravely ill, which resulted in numerous medical interventions.

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German Man Needs to Drink 20 Liters of Water Per Day to Stay Alive

German architect Marc Wübbenhorst has to drink at least 20 liters of water a day or risk dying from dehydration. The 35-year-old suffers from the rare metabolic disease Diabetes insipidus, which causes intense thirst and the frequent excretion of large amounts of diluted urine. If Wübbenhorst stops drinking water, his body starts to dry out, and he can die of thirst in a matter of hours.

Constant thirst has been a part of Marc Wübbenhorst’s life for as long as he can remember. It’s nothing like the thirst a normal person experiences, because it doesn’t go away after drinking a glass or two of water. His body can’t hold any water, as his kidneys eliminate the fluids almost as fast as he ingests them. Marc can never ignore his thirst for more than an hour, because he starts to experience severe symptoms of dehydration, like cracked lips, dizziness and confusion. These are symptoms that most adults experience after two or three days of fluids deprivation.

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New Laser Surgery Lets You Change Eye Color from Brown to Blue in Only 20 Seconds

Blue eyes have historically been a significant measure of attractiveness, and although they’re commonly found among actors and models, only 17% of the global population has them. For the majority of people, approximately 80% of the population, blue eyes have been attainable only with the aid of colored contact lenses or artificial iris implants. But that will soon change with the introduction of a new medical procedure, pioneered by California company Stroma Medical, that can turn brown eyes blue.

The laser procedure works by eliminating the melanin -, the pigment that also colors hair and skin – from the surface of the iris, which then allows light to enter and scatter in the stroma, the fibers seen in light-colored eyes. The effect is similar to Rayleigh scattering, in which wavelengths of sunlight hit much smaller molecules in the air and then scatter, which makes the atmosphere appear blue.

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Snowflake, Arizona – A Desert Refuge for People Allergic to Modern Life

A tiny off-grid community in Snowflake, Arizona has become a refuge for people suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Often referred to as Environmental Illness, (EI), the condition is a chronic disorder in which exposure to everyday chemicals and technology causes symptoms of varying intensity.

Some of the symptoms of MCS are merely annoying and range from muscle pain to general fatigue. Others are reportedly crippling, such as intense nausea, migraines, sudden panic, and even vertigo. Sufferers claim that their symptoms coincide with exposure to chemicals and technologies around them, such as fragrances, synthetic fabrics, pesticides, and Wi-Fi. Most doctors hesitate to legitimise the condition, citing lack of scientific evidence, calling it a psycho-social condition with acute physical symptoms. For this reason, sufferers, who typically are self-diagnosed, often have difficulty finding medical help for the disease and have to resort to alternative treatments.

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Rare Condition Causes Man to Hear England’s National Anthem Playing in His Head on a Loop

An 87-year-old British pensioner has developed an oddly patriotic condition in which he hears an auditory hallucination of England’s national anthem playing in his head on a loop.

Ron Goldspink of Bilton hopes to meet Queen Elizabeth when she visits his town next month to tell her that he has heard the anthem even more frequently than she has. He suffers from a rare condition called Musical Ear Syndrome (MES) and mainly, which affects those suffering from hearing loss, causing them to develop non-psychiatric auditory hallucinations. The cause and mechanism  of MES are currently unknown, but researchers believe it occurs when there is a lack of auditory stimulation. Sensory deprivation causes the brain to begin manufacturing sound, hence why it is common among people suffering hearing loss. Although it is still underreported, MES is believed to affect approximately one in 10,000 people aged over 65 in the UK.

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This Boy Slept for 11 Days Straight and Doctors Have No Idea Why

7-year-old Wyatt Shaw, a 7-year-old boy from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, recently woke up from an 11-day slumber that left doctors scratching their heads. When he finally woke up, the second-grader had trouble speaking and moving around, but has since made good progress and is expected to make a full recovery.

After attending his aunt’s wedding and being the life of the party, Wyatt’s mother, Amy, expected him to sleep in the next day, but she never imagined that it would take 11 days for him to finally wake up. She tried waking him up several times, but Wyatt just couldn’t stay awake, and even though he sometimes opened his eyes, it just seemed like he wasn’t really aware of anything.

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Chinese University Requires Students to Lose Weight in Order to Receive Full Grades

In an attempt to tackle obesity on its campus, a university in Jiangsu, China, is offering overweight students the chance to enroll in a special weight-loss program, where they will receive their grades based on how much weight they shed and on how well they do in class.

Zhou Quanfu, a lecturer at the Nanjing Agriculture University, came up with the idea for the accredited weight loss program after learning that most of his overweight students didn’t exercise because they thought it was pointless. So he decided to motivate them by having their grades depend more on their physical shape than on their actual performance in school. Sixty per cent of each student’s grade is determined by how much weight they lose in a set period of time, with their curricular activity only accounting for 40 percent of the total score. Students enrolled in the program have to lose at least 7 percent of their original weight by the end of the semester in order to receive full grades.

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Woman Goes Blind in One Eye After Playing Mobile Video Game Almost Non-Stop

A 21-year-old woman from Dongguan, China, was recently diagnosed with with retinal artery obstruction in her right eye, after playing a popular smartphone game almost non-stop.

The woman, known only as Wu, apparently noticed that she couldn’t see anything with her right eye on October 1st, while playing her favorite mobile game, King of Glory. Thinking she was just tired, she went to bed, but when she woke up the next day, she was still blind in her right eye. Her parents took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a serious condition known as retinal artery obstruction. This usually only occurs in older patients, but doctors said that Wu’s eyes were incredibly fatigued by the stressed of constantly staring into the small smartphone screen.

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Boy Accidentally Swallows Party Toy, Makes Hilarious Sound When He Inhales

Ever wonder what you would sound like if you had a party hooter stuck in your trachea? Well, thanks to a viral video posted by a doctor in Argentina, you don’t have to try it yourself to find out.

Dr Santiago Gomez Zuviria, of Tucuman, Argentina, recently had to operate on an 8-year-old boy who had accidentally swallowed a small party hooter. It had got stuck in his trachea, so surgery was the only way to remove it, but before carrying out the procedure, the Argentinian doctor decided to film the poor kid as he inhaled, and posted it on his Facebook page as a warning to parents. Little did he know that it would end up going viral, with more than 9 million views, at the time of this writing.

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If You’ve Tried Everything, This Guy Claims He Can Cure Your Illness with “Star Magic”

Do you have stubborn migraines that just won’t go away? Maybe you’ve recently been in an accident or contracted some life-threatening virus? Have you tried everything Western and Eastern medicine has to offer? Well, in that case, maybe you should look to the stars for your next treatment and give Jerry Sargeant a call. All you need is £90 (about $120), 15 minutes, and an open mind – the rest is up to Sergeant, or, as he prefers to be called “The Facilitator”.

It all started one day in Romania when Sargeant was in a life-affirming car accident. His taxi allegedly crashed into two women who were crossing the street. Sergeant claims that one woman came through the window – causing him to hit his head and the last thing he witnessed was “her soul hovering over her body”. This was apparently what kickstarted his abilities and awoken Sergeant to the healing powers that have always resided within him.

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