The Blog by Ziyad Nazem

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Posts tagged pictures

Vintage Advertisements for Heroin, Cannabis and Cocaine

Drugs such as cocaine and heroin aren’t just glamorous because they’re illegal. Even when you could buy them at any pharmacy or grocery store, they still had a certain cool factor. Just look at these fantastic vintage advertisements for opium, heroin, coca-laced pop and “medicinal tonics.”

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What is it like to battle flesh-eating bacteria?

Redditor johnboy9210 retrieved a football from a stagnant koi pond one day and contracted necrotizing fasciitis, the infamous flesh-eating disease. Fortunately, we don’t have to experience the tissue-chomping bacteria first-hand, and can instead witness his photographic account from the early signs of infection through his multiple surgeries.

Just 36 hours after the bacteria first entered his body, johnboy9210 took a photo of his swollen, throbbing pinky finger. When his pinky started turning black, he rushed to the ER. At first, the doctors planned to culture the bacteria from his finger, but it soon became clear that he needed immediate surgery to remove the infected tissue. It wasn’t until after his first surgery that he received his diagnosis, and learned exactly which bug it was: Streptococcus pyogenes. And that proved just the beginning of his medical adventure.

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Spider Found Living In Woman’s Ear Canal

In what can only be described as a nightmare-come-true, a spider crawled inside a woman’s ear canal and lived there for five days before doctors extracted it.

The woman, referred to only as Ms. Lee, arrived at China’s Changsha Central Hospital of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery on Aug. 8, RedNet News notes. She complained of an itchy ear and was hoping doctors could treat her.

When Dr. Liu Sheng took a look inside, he found a spider living in the woman’s ear canal. Apparently, the spider had crawled into Ms. Lee’s ear while she slept.

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An Awake Craniotomy

The picture above shows an awake left parieto-occipital trephine craniotomy being done.

Here the trephined bone is being replaced, normally we do not fix the bone with anything however in areas like the forehead the bone must be fixed to give a good cosmetic look.

So, now you’re asking — an awake craniotomy?

In neurosurgery, more complicated techniques involve awake surgery where the patient is not given a general anesthetic. When doing such surgeries, the scalp can be made to be totally numb by using local anesthetic, and this is usually well tolerated.

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Are These Events Of ‘Global Weirding’ Related To Global Warming?

From raging heat waves to fire tornadoes and wildfires to massive floods and building-swallowing sinkholes, 2010 is quickly becoming known as the year of “global weirding.”

While scientists generally agree that no single event can specifically be tied to the increase of emissions in the atmosphere, it’s hard to deny that changes are quickly happening on our planet, whether it be the largest ice island to break off from Arctic since 1962 or strange ocean events like thousands of dead fish washing ashore and breakouts of oyster herpes.

Here are some of the natural occurrences causing deadly catastrophes worldwide. Are they mere anomalies, or is this ‘global weirding’ going to become the norm?