Talking Point: Medical Facts, Tales and Trivia
Created | Updated Nov 28, 2008
The Internet is the ideal place for disseminating weird and wonderful facts and stories. You can find information on anything and everything out there, and this week it's your chance to add a little knowledge to the World Wide Web. We are looking for your medical tales and titbits. They can be obscure, esoteric or ludicrous.
For example, did you know that:
After three years, a third of the weight of a feather pillow can be dust mite droppings?
Smallpox only exists in designated secure laboratories around the world?
Daisies are being researched as a possible vaccine against HIV and AIDS?
Wild chimpanzee communities have designated 'doctors' who use the same local herbal remedies to treat infections as their human counterparts?
Medical Stories, Oddities and Urban Legends
We all have our own medical stories, sometimes gruesome, sometimes spooky, but more often than not they are hilarious. Now's the time to share your medical experience with other Researchers.
Just to start you off, do you know what causes the 'rotating belly-button' incidents that arrive in Accident and Emergency Departments?
Unusual Abilities
Some people can waggle their ears, others can voluntarily dislocate joints, or make their eyeballs bulge. Have you seen the guy on TV who has incredibly stretchy skin? What's your party trick? You know you want to tell us...
Medically Related Urban Legends
Have you read the h2g2 urban legends page about toxic spiders, swallowed snakes and cocaine babies? Have you heard a medical story that you think just has to be another urban legend?