The World’s Weirdest Deaths

In 1911, Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning due to a toe injury he received after kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination code.

Not a good entrance for this WWF Wrestler

In 1999, Owen Hart, WWF (now WWE) wrestler, died when he fell 78 feet while being lowered into the ring by a cable from the stadium rafters before an upcoming match.

Distracted by his wife, in the middle of World War I

In 1915, Luxembourgian Tour de France winner François Faber died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper.

Decapitated by his car’s drive chain, but it was worth it!

In 1927, British racing driver J.G. Parry-Thomas was decapitated by his car’s drive chain when it snapped. He was attempting to break his own Land speed record. Incredibly enough, despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph.

A homeless man killed to collect his life insurance

In 1933, homeless man Michael Malloy, was murdered by gassing after surviving multiple poisonings, intentional exposure, and being struck by a car. Malloy was murdered by five men in a plot to collect on life insurance policies they’d purchased.

He swallowed a toothpick on a party

In 1941, writer Sherwood Anderson, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis.

4 Weeks without water on the Libyan Desert

In 1943, Lady be Good, a USAAF B-24 bomber, lost its way and crash landed in the Libyan Desert. The Mummified remains of its crew, who struggled for a week without water, were not found until 1960.

The Jockey died but the Horse kept going … and WON!

In 1953, jockey Frank Hayes suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race.

The right song for his last performance

In 1960, famed baritone Leonard Warren collapsed on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera of a massive stroke during a performance of “La forza del destino” (The force of destiny).

Apollo 1’s deadly training exercise

In 1967, a flash fire began in the pure oxygen atmosphere inside the unlaunched Apollo 1 spacecraft, killing its crew during a training exercise.

The Prime Minister can’t swim

Also in 1967, Harold Holt, the serving Prime Minister of Australia, vanished while swimming on a beach near Melbourne. His body was never found.

“Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?”

In 1971, Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show. When he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped “Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?”. The show was never broadcast.

And this is Live News…

In 1974, Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter, committed suicide during a live broadcast. 8 minutes into her talk show, she drew out a revolver and shot herself in the head.

Assassinated with an Umbrella

In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by poisoning in London by an unknown assailant who shot him in the leg with a specially modified umbrella that fired a metal pellet full of ricin poison.

Decapitated by a helicopter blade

In 1982, actor Vic Morrow was decapitated by helicopter blade during filming of “Twilight Zone: The Movie” and was killed instantly, along with child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen.

A foil pierced his eyeball and entered his brain

Also in 1982, Olympic champion fencer Vladimir Smirnov died nine days after his opponent’s foil snapped during a match, pierced his eyeball and entered his brain.

Wasn’t that just part of the act?

In 1983, British magician Tommy Cooper died on stage at Her Majesty’s Theatre during a live television routine. Most of the audience and viewers believed it was part of his act.

The politician shot himself during a TV conference

In 1987, Republican politician R. Budd Dwyer committed suicide during a televised press conference. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the head with a revolver.

Teenager killed by a MiG-23 fighter jet

In 1989, a Belgian teenager was killed by a crashing soviet MiG-23 fighter jet, which was on autopilot after the crew ejected following a false engine failure alarm.

Brandon Lee and the magic bullet

In 1993, Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by a prop .44 Magnum while filming the movie The Crow. The scene involved the firing of a full-powder blank (full charge of gunpowder, but no bullet) at Brandon’s character. However, unknown to the film crew, a bullet was already lodged in the barrel.

As you said: “Too bad you can only live so long”

In 1996, Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack onstage at the New York Metropolitan Opera after delivering the line “Too bad you can only live so long” during a performance of The Makropulos Case.

Too much Viagra killed the dictator

In 1998, Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha died at his residence in Abuja of a heart attack, rumored to have been caused by the ingestion of large quantities of the drug Viagra in preparation for an orgy.

Prince of Nepal didn’t like his Royal Family

In 2001, on June 1, Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal, enraged from a dispute over his marriage arrangements (and possibly intoxicated), went on a rampage at dinner and massacred nearly the entire Royal Family, including his father the king. But in accordance with custom and tradition, Dipendra, then in a coma due to wounds sustained either from palace guards or a botched suicide attempt, became king for three days before dying on June 4.

Nasty weather for this environmentalist

In 2003, American environmentalist Timothy Treadwell, self-proclaimed “eco-warrior” that had lived in the wilderness among bears for thirteen summers in a remote portion of Alaska, was killed and partially consumed along with his girlfriend Amie Huguenard after they had been slated to leave due to the impending harsh winter in Alaska. A critically-acclaimed documentary about the incident, Grizzly Man, was released in 2005.

(Content By Dr. Mercola, Mercola)

Infections: 10 Facts

All organisms catch infections, from plants to whales. Even some bacteria can get infected.

1.Pathogen microbes are of three types: viruses, bacteria and protozoans. Not all the microbes are infectious. Most bacteria are inoffensive. Escherichia coli from our gut has a role in digestion. Diseases appear when our immune system cannot fight infectious microbes.

2.Viruses can barely be considered alive: they are made of genetic molecules (DNA or RNA) wrapped in proteins. They are exclusively parasite, infecting bacteria, plants and animals. The multiplying viruses kill the host cell.

3.Bacteria are larger; still 500 bacteria are no longer than 1 mm. They have various shapes (sticks, spheres or spirals) and most of them resist to extreme conditions through spores. They live everywhere: soil, air, water and especially dead and decaying organic matters. Some invade and kill directly cells, other by releasing toxins, like Colstridium

tetani.

3.Protozoans are unicellular animals, like amoebas. They live especially on water and wet environments, and the largest species are barely visible with the naked eye. Some move using flagella. Amongst the most dangerous are Plasmodium (causing malaria), Trypanosoma (causing sleeping disease) and Amoeba (causing dysentery).

4.There are also multicellular animals causing parasitic disease. Filariasis worms cause elephantiasis and river blindness. The worm called Trichinella enters the body by eating not properly cooked pork or beef, causing trichinosis. The worm Schistosoma causes blood urination and tapeworms and flukes attack the digestive system. Scabies mite lives in the skin. The parasitic diseases are not considered infections.

Instead, fungi infect human skin and mucosae. Tinea causes athlete's foot and mouth and vagina aphthas (white spots) are caused by Candida albicans.

5.The most vulnerable categories to infections are children and elders, those experiencing malnutrition, weakened organisms or which are at the first contact with a germ. Stress, tiredness, exhaustion represent risk factors.

Lack of hygiene, infested food and water, improper sewage and contact with infected persons increase the probability of catching an infection.

6.About 50 % of the infections enter the body through the respiratory ways, by breathing air loaded with mucus containing germs coming from coughing or sneezing of infected persons. Most of these infections, like colds, are not severe, but this is not the case of pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Other microbes enter with the food and water, resisting to the digestive juices and sticking to the walls of the stomach or gut. Such are cholera, typhoid fever and bacterial dysentery.

Contagious infections are transmitted through direct contact skin to skin (like a simple hand shaking or a kiss). The glandular fever is called “kissing disease” as it is believed to be transmitted just through kissing.

Infections transmitted through sex (sexually transmitted diseases) infect genital and urinary ways (but not only), like gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes and HIV.

7.Some microbes have vectors, another animal that carry them from human to human. The Anopheles mosquito transmits malaria, and the bed bugs, the Chagas disease, a type of Trypanosoma in South America.

Cuts and wounds are another entrance gate for microbes, like tetanus bacterium. Other infections can be transmitted from mother to offspring, like syphilis and smallpox.

8.The body has three defense mechanisms: skin, mucosae, sheathing respiratory and digestive ways. Chlorhydric acid produced by the stomach kills numerous germs; antiseptic chemicals are also found in tears. Mucus is also an anti-microbe barrier.

The second defense line is made by white cells, which attack and neutralize or digest microbes. The third defense is represented by the antibodies, proteins that attach to the antigen proteins on the surface of the germs, tagging them for the white cells.

9.When defense systems are overwhelmed, the infection spreads. Acute infections are rapid, in hours or days (like colds). Chronic infections evolve slowly and the first stages are hard to detect. They can persist for years, like TBC and leprosy.

After infection, there is an incubation period, which can be from hours (colds) to years (HIV). Meanwhile, germs multiply, but the person has no symptoms and can infect others too. Then follows the prodomal period, when characteristic symptoms install (like fever or sweating), when a diagnosis can be given.

10.Patients need medical care, resting, warm, proper liquid consumption and healthy food. Antibiotics work against bacteria, while antivirals against viruses. A preventive method is vaccination against viruses.

If a person was infected once with a disease, it can be subsequently protected against it. This immunity appears because white cells remember the structure of the infecting germ's antigen. Next time, they will rapidly recognize them and produce quickly the right antibodies, the germs being neutralized before multiplying.

Vaccines work the same way, by injecting germs (or parts of them) which are dead or weakened. The immune system reacts like in the case of real microbes, but these germs cannot trigger disease. In case of real infections, immunity is already formed. The problem is that many viruses mutate, and so does their antigen. That's why, even if being vaccinated against a strain, a different strain can cause disease. This is common with cold and flue viruses.

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HIV and AIDS Explained to You

AIDS was first time spotted in 1981, causing confusion and speculation. Medics in Europe and North America detected patients whose organism did not fight germs.

They died of various infections, like pneumonia.

The disease was clearly infectious and was characterized by a series of symptoms, due mainly to the ruin of the immune system. It was a syndrome, named AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). By 1983 American and French researchers detected independently the virus causing the disease. It was called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Today, it is the most investigated virus. Its detailed structure has been investigated and a map of its genes has been made. In fact, there are several types of HIV, which modifies continuously, turning difficult the development of a vaccine.

HIV is a retrovirus. It contains a central RNA molecule (not DNA), which is wrapped in a mosaic of various proteins. Inside the human host cells, RNA passes into DNA which is used as a mold for multiplying the virus.

Unlike other viruses, HIV is difficult to transmit. It cannot survive out of the body and its warmth and liquids. That's why it cannot be transmitted through air. Normally, HIV cannot be transmitted through coughing, sneezing, insects (like flies or mosquitoes), or collective use of towels, cutlery, or other objects.

HIV is transmitted through three ways, all involving blood or liquid exchange. People can get HIV when blood or a liquid (like semen) from the infected person enters into contact with the blood or inner liquids of another person. HIV is transmitted through sex, heterosexual and homosexual, and also oral or anal. It goes from one partner to another through the body fluids.

A second way is from the mother to the child found in her womb. The virus can enter the child's blood before birth or during the birth. Breastfeeding too can transmit the virus. The third way is through injections involving blood or body fluids. Before the rule of testing the blood (the test was developed in 1985) was active, many persons got infected through blood transfusions. The virus can be also transmitted by an unsterilized hypodermic needle or a not sterile syringe already used by an infected person.

High risk behaviors for getting HIV are drug use with not sterile needles, frequent change of sexual partners and unprotected sex. HIV is encountered in the saliva, but it is believed it cannot be transmitted through kissing.

Inside the body, HIV attacks certain types of immune white cells of the blood. As the immune system gets gradually weakened, white cells lose ability to fight germs. Microbes usually easy to neutralize stay in the body and multiply. AIDS is not caused by the HIV itself, but by the impairment of the immune system it causes.

The first symptoms of the HIV infection appear in 5-10 years. When the person gets infected, the virus rapidly multiplies and can be detected in the fluids around the brain and spine. The person may not be affected during this stage or it can have flue-like symptoms, like nose flow and fever, skin eruption, swelling of the axillary glands or frequent headaches.

These symptoms and the high levels of the virus disappear after a few weeks, when the infected person feels good again. The virus is present, but inactive, and the person can transmit unconsciously the virus to others. Later, sometimes including several years, the virus reactivates and starts multiplying again. This time AIDS installs.

It is still not very clearly known how HIV destroys the immune system. The virus attacks lymphocytes and other immune cells. Usually, when a germ enters the body, the immune system synthesizes special molecules called antibodies that fight with it. Antibodies float in the blood and body fluids sticking to microbes, destroying them or turning them inoffensive. The same happens when HIV enters the body, and a blood analysis detects anti-HIV antibodies. But, meanwhile, the “sleeping” viruses hide and constantly modify inside the cells, untouched by the antibodies.

Then, they start multiplying again, causing the first symptoms of AIDS. The axillary, neck and inguinal lymph glands swell and turn painful. This stage is called PGL (Persistent Generalized Lymphadenopathy), indicating that the immune system starts the fight, and the number of white cells from the blood is dropping.

The conditions caused by AIDS can develop gradually or in just a few weeks: infections of the skin, mouth, tongue and mucosae, like herpes, leucoplakia (white sores) and aphthae (white infectious spots) (the last two caused by fungi), while the organism can be defeated by diseases like tuberculosis or pneumonia, or infections and inflammations of the brain (meningitis and encephalitis). The brain inflammations cause confusion and mental issues. Sight impairment appears, as well as diarrhea and digestive conditions, and wounds with excessive bleeding. Other conditions that can emerge are: various cancer types and Kaposi's sarcoma, which causes severe skin wounds. In a few weeks or months, the patient enters the last state, as various conditions overwhelm the body.

Experience has improved patients' care and the treatment of the diseases and infections caused by AIDS. Some AIDS connected pneumonias can be treated with antibiotics and antivirals. Kaposi's sarcoma can be treated though radiotherapy (involving X rays). But currently there's no cure against AIDS and no effective treatment on long term. Also, there is no anti-HIV vaccine for impeding the evolution and spreading of the virus. Progresses in the anti-HIV fight are slow and difficult.

The difficulty comes from the fact that the virus breeds inside the host cells, hard-to-get targets. Zidovudine slows down AIDS evolution in some persons, but it can have severe secondary effects: vomits, nausea, weakness, and it can attack the bone marrow. Researchers focus on impeding the HIV to stick on the cells' surface.

By now, the condom and information are the main protections against HIV.

Where did the virus come? There are similar viruses in monkeys, called SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus). Now, it is believed that people got the virus through hunting apes (gorillas and chimps) for bushmeat, when the hunters got in contact with the blood and fluids of these species. In humans, the virus has an age of up to 100 years, but no less than 30 years. It spread from Africa due to the intensification of humans' movement around the globe. A new research showed HIV entered US Haiti, brought by just one person around 1969, much earlier than previously thought! That was the HIV-1 type, and it entered the U.S., from where it spread worldwide. Haiti was the stepping stone the virus took when it left central Africa.

The strain reaching U.S. in 1969, HIV-1 group M subtype B, is the HIV type found, and it is the culprit of HIV epidemics in most countries outside sub-Saharan Africa and south of Equator Africa, while HIV-2 is limited to West Africa.

About 4 million people got infected with HIV in 2006 and another 3 million died of it. Till now, about 25 million people have died of AIDS and other 40 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, most of them in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Russian scientist says Earth could soon face new Ice Age

Temperatures on Earth have stabilized in the past decade, and the planet should brace itself for a new Ice Age rather than global warming, a Russian scientist said in an interview with RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"Russian and foreign research data confirm that global temperatures in 2007 were practically similar to those in 2006, and, in general, identical to 1998-2006 temperatures, which, basically, means that the Earth passed the peak of global warming in 1998-2005," said Khabibullo Abdusamatov, head of a space research lab at the Pulkovo observatory in St. Petersburg.

According to the scientist, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen more than 4% in the past decade, but global warming has practically stopped. It confirms the theory of "solar" impact on changes in the Earth's climate, because the amount of solar energy reaching the planet has drastically decreased during the same period, the scientist said.

Had global temperatures directly responded to concentrations of "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere, they would have risen by at least 0.1 Celsius in the past ten years, however, it never happened, he said.

"A year ago, many meteorologists predicted that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would make the year 2007 the hottest in the last decade, but, fortunately, these predictions did not become reality," Abdusamatov said.

He also said that in 2008, global temperatures would drop slightly, rather than rise, due to unprecedentedly low solar radiation in the past 30 years, and would continue decreasing even if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide reach record levels.

By 2041, solar activity will reach its minimum according to a 200-year cycle, and a deep cooling period will hit the Earth approximately in 2055-2060. It will last for about 45-65 years, the scientist added.

"By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041," he said.

The Maunder Minimum occurred between 1645 and 1715, when only about 50 spots appeared on the Sun, as opposed to the typical 40,000-50,000 spots.

It coincided with the middle and coldest part of the so called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters.

"However, the thermal inertia of the world's oceans and seas will delay a 'deep cooling' of the planet, and the new Ice Age will begin sometime during 2055-2060, probably lasting for several decades," Abdusamatov said.

Therefore, the Earth must brace itself for a growing ice cap, rather than rising waters in global oceans caused by ice melting.

Mankind will face serious economic, social, and demographic consequences of the coming Ice Age because it will directly affect more than 80% of the earth's population, the scientist concluded.

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• Snow falls in Baghdad, first time in 100 years

• Snowfall and freezing weather claim 120 lives in Afghanistan

A cold spell soon to replace global warming

Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.

The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

This is my point, which environmentalists hotly dispute as they cling to the hothouse theory. As we know, hothouse gases, in particular, nitrogen peroxide, warm up the atmosphere by keeping heat close to the ground. Advanced in the late 19th century by Svante A. Arrhenius, a Swedish physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner, this theory is taken for granted to this day and has not undergone any serious check.

It determines decisions and instruments of major international organizations—in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Signed by 150 countries, it exemplifies the impact of scientific delusion on big politics and economics. The authors and enthusiasts of the Kyoto Protocol based their assumptions on an erroneous idea. As a result, developed countries waste huge amounts of money to fight industrial pollution of the atmosphere. What if it is a Don Quixote’s duel with the windmill?

Hothouse gases may not be to blame for global warming. At any rate, there is no scientific evidence to their guilt. The classic hothouse effect scenario is too simple to be true. As things really are, much more sophisticated processes are on in the atmosphere, especially in its dense layer. For instance, heat is not so much radiated in space as carried by air currents—an entirely different mechanism, which cannot cause global warming.

The temperature of the troposphere, the lowest and densest portion of the atmosphere, does not depend on the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions—a point proved theoretically and empirically. True, probes of Antarctic ice shield, taken with bore specimens in the vicinity of the Russian research station Vostok, show that there are close links between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature changes. Here, however, we cannot be quite sure which is the cause and which the effect.

Temperature fluctuations always run somewhat ahead of carbon dioxide concentration changes. This means that warming is primary. The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean’s surface warms up, it produces the “champagne effect.” Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.

Likewise, warm ocean water exudes greater amounts of carbonic acid, which evaporates to add to industrial pollution—a factor we cannot deny. However, man-caused pollution is negligible here. If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.

Carbon dioxide cannot be bad for the climate. On the contrary, it is food for plants, and so is beneficial to life on Earth. Bearing out this point was the Green Revolution—the phenomenal global increase in farm yields in the mid-20th century. Numerous experiments also prove a direct proportion between harvest and carbon dioxide concentration in the air.

Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence—not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect.

Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.

Earth is unlikely to ever face a temperature disaster. Of all the planets in the solar system, only Earth has an atmosphere beneficial to life. There are many factors that account for development of life on Earth: Sun is a calm star, Earth is located an optimum distance from it, it has the Moon as a massive satellite, and many others. Earth owes its friendly climate also to dynamic feedback between biotic and atmospheric evolution.

The principal among those diverse links is Earth’s reflective power, which regulates its temperature. A warm period, as the present, increases oceanic evaporation to produce a great amount of clouds, which filter solar radiation and so bring heat down. Things take the contrary turn in a cold period.

What can’t be cured must be endured. It is wise to accept the natural course of things. We have no reason to panic about allegations that ice in the Arctic Ocean is thawing rapidly and will soon vanish altogether. As it really is, scientists say the Arctic and Antarctic ice shields are growing. Physical and mathematical calculations predict a new Ice Age. It will come in 100,000 years, at the earliest, and will be much worse than the previous. Europe will be ice-bound, with glaciers reaching south of Moscow.

Meanwhile, Europeans can rest assured. The Gulf Stream will change its course only if some evil magic robs it of power to reach the north—but Mother Nature is unlikely to do that.

Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute.

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