New Case of flesh-eating bacteria occurred in USA

After a case where student of psychology at the University of West Georgia was found infected by  the flesh eating bacteria known as Aeromonas hydrophila, A new case was seen in the USA and this time its New Mother.

   Lana Kuykendall is a paramedic, so when a rapidly spreading red and black bruise appeared on the back of her leg after giving birth to twins, she knew something was wrong.

She and husband, Darren, raced to the hospital and within 90 minutes, the new mother was having surgery for necrotizing fasciitis, a rare but potentially deadly infection also called the flesh-eating bacteria.

“She’s still critical,” Darren Kuykendall told GreenvilleOnline.com. “It’s been a nightmare.”

After a normal pregnancy, the Piedmont couple welcomed their twins, Abigail and Ian, on May 7 at an Atlanta hospital, he said. Except for Lana needing blood, the delivery went normally and the babies were fine, he said.

  Lana Kuykendall with Her Husband

But he said by the next day Lana, who had begun having leg cramps the night before, was weak. She couldn’t stand or walk. When tests revealed nothing wrong, they returned home Thursday.

By Friday morning, however, Lana, 36, discovered the strange lesion on the back of her left leg.

“That scared her. She thought it was a blood clot. So we rushed immediately to Greenville Memorial Hospital,” Darren Kuykendall said.

“And the longer she sat there, the bigger that spot got. It was initially the size of a 3-by-5 index card. But it got bigger and bigger. It moved a quarter of an inch in half an hour. Then the high-risk OB physician had a suspicion of what it was.”

Limbs Infeccted after Flesh eating bacteria attack it

Necrotizing fasciitis is a bacterial infection that often occurs in an arm or leg after a minor trauma or surgery, according to the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation. Group A Strep is most often responsible in minor traumas, the group reports.

People have developed the condition through a host of experiences, including a C-section or natural childbirth, abdominal surgery or a scratch, a broken leg or a cut, according to the group.

A recent highly publicized case involves Aimee Copeland, a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student who got the infection after suffering a cut in a zip line accident, according to The Associated Press. Doctors had to amputate her left leg and may still have to remove her fingers, her father said.

The disease occurs when bacteria enter the body and emit toxins that destroy the soft tissue, which becomes infected and must be removed, according to the NF foundation. Along with surgery, treatment includes antibiotics and other medications.

If it spreads, it can cause systemic shock and death within days.

In Lana Kuykendall’s first surgery, doctors removed the dead skin and tissue, her husband said. A little more tissue was removed during a second and third surgery, but no more infected tissue was found in the last operation Monday, he said.

Group A strep caused the infection, which also spread to her blood, and she is being treated with antibiotics, he said. She was still on a ventilator in the intensive care unit on Tuesday and sedated.

Kuykendall, 42, has no idea how the infection occurred.

“They are saying things are leaning her way. Her vitals are good and her lab results are looking good,” he said. “But this could go either way at any given time.”

Married for four years, the couple met at the scene of an accident — he’s a firefighter and she’s a paramedic with Greenville Hospital System. The twins are healthy and being cared for by family and friends, he said.

Read More

College Girl Battles With Flesh Eating Bacteria!!!

A student of psychology at the University of West Georgia met with an accident when homemade zip line snapped and led her left calf open. Aimee Copeland, 24, received 22 stitches, but weeks after it was found that she has contracted the flesh eating bacteria known as Aeromonas hydrophila.

Aimee Copeland

She has lost her left leg and a part of abdomen and it is suspected that she will lose her hand fingers as well. Aimee's Father Andy Copeland said that Aimee is having remarkable recovery and instead of looking at the dark side of the story, they have been focusing on the brighter side.

Andy further affirmed that it feels great when they get to listen from doctors that Aimee is recovering well. Even doctors are shocked to see the determination of Aimee and they have affirmed that this determination is helping her to recover so well.

Aeromonas hydrophila  Image Taken from Electron Microscope

Dr. Buddy Creech, who is an Assistant Professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said that the bacterium starts destroying the tissues that surround as it looks for nutrition. Destroying process leads to inflammation and swelling and once it comes, then it gets very difficult to control the infection.

"When it gets into those deeper tissues, it has a remarkable ability to destroy the tissues that surround it in sort of this hunt for nutrition", said Creech.

Affect seen After Bacteria slowly eat Muscles Tissue

Read More

Robotic prostitutes will change the sex industry

Two Kiwi researchers have envisioned what the sex industry would be like in the year 2050, when the prostitutes would be replaced by robots. Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars of the Victoria ManagementSchool in Wellington, New Zealandbelieve that this science-fiction-style vision could become reality within 40 years. 

They focussed on Amsterdam’s Red Light District and envisaged how the most popular brothel in the city will work.They call this imaginary brothel the Yub-Yum, and describe it as ‘modern and gleaming with about 100 scantily clad blondes and brunettes parading around in exotic G-strings and lingerie’, the Daily Mail reported.

Read More

Hen in Sri Lanka gives birth to chick without egg

The Mystery now has been solved as hens come before egg. A hen in Sri Lanka gave birth to a chick without an egg, veterinary officials said. Instead of being laid by the hen and incubated in the nest, the egg was incubated inside the hen for 21 days and then the chick hatched inside the mother. The chick is normally formed and healthy, veterinarians say, although the mother hen died. The government veterinary officer in the area, P.R. Yapa, said he had never seen anything like it before, the BBC reported.

An examination of the hen's carcass showed the fertilized egg had developed within the hen's reproductive system but stayed inside the hen's body until it hatched, Yapa said.

The examination showed the hen died of internal wounds.

The story has made headlines in Sri Lanka, the BBC said, with one Sri Lankan newspaper carrying the headline: "The chicken came first; not the egg."

Read More

Doctors battle to save baby born with SIX legs

Pakistani doctors are battling the odds to save a newborn baby born with a rare genetic condition that has left him with six legs. 

The one-week-old boy is believed to be one of parasitic twins. 

His conjoined twin was born prematurely and incompletely developed, which resulted in the second child having the extra legs, said Jamal Raza, director of the National Institute of Child Health in Karachi, to News.com.

Doctors at the institute are fighting to save the newborn, who remains in an intensive care unit ward. 

Baby born with six legs 

Raza added that they were planning to operate on the boy and were considering asking for help from foreign experts with more experience in the rare disease, believed to afflict just one in one million babies. 

He tried to clarify that the baby did not have six legs – he had two legs and the other four belonged to the other twin.

'Operating on such a baby is not an easy task as proper assessments need to be done first,' he said. 'We need to figure out whether the baby has his twin’s limbs or his own. We also need to consider how much the internal organs have developed as the latter could complicate matters and decrease the baby’s chances of surviving.'

Baby boy born with six legs to be names Umar Farooq

Speaking to the news site, the baby's father, Imran Shaikh, made a plea for help from the government and charities.

‘I can’t afford to visit Karachi and get treatment for my baby,’ said the X-ray technician, who earns the equivalent of $66-a-month. ‘I appeal to philanthropists and the government to come forward for the treatment.’

Shaikh and his wife of four years live in Sukkur, around 280 miles north of where his son is being cared for. His wife is reported to be recovering well from the birth and in a good state of health. 

His wife - who is also his cousin - has been unable to travel because she had a caesarean section delivery.

He said they were planning on naming their son Umar Farooq.

Muhammad Qaisar, a doctor at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, told allvoices.com he was certain the boy could be successfully operated on. ‘It is perhaps [the] first child in the history of Pakistan having six legs,’ he said.

‘The case will also be a test for doctors and we hope for the better,” he said.

Since Shaikh made his public plea for help, the Sindh Governor has come forward and directed officials concerned to make sure the child receives all the medical care he needs, Pakistani-based The Nation reported. 

Read More

Research:Drinking beer makes men more intelligent !!

It is common knowledge that alcohol damage judgement - if consumed in sufficient quantity. But are you fond of drinking beer but afraid of being alcoholic? If yes just don’t get worry as  a recent study published by the University of Illinois in Chicago claims that drinking only a few beers may, in fact, make men more intelligent. 

The researchers who conducted the study devised a game for participants comprised of word association.

Half the participants in the study drank two pints of beer before answering questions, while the other half abstained.

The participants were asked to answer a range of questions, such as finding a word to fit a particular pattern; for example, blue, cottage, Swiss [cheese].

The results of the test were quite interesting to say the least. Participants who consumed two pints of beer finished their problems in a cool 12 seconds, compared to non-drinkers who required 15.5 seconds.

"We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks," psychologist Jennifer Wiley explained.

"We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving," she continued. "But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted."

The study participants who drank beer also solved 40% more of the problems posed to them compared to non-drinkers. "Sometimes the really creative stuff comes out when you’re having a glass of wine over dinner, or when you’re taking a shower," Wiley added.

Read More

'Dead' baby found alive in morgue coffin after 12 hrs

A stillborn baby girl in Argentina was discovered breathing 12 hours after she was buried in a coffin.

The parents of the girl, who was born three months premature, revealed that they found she was alive when they went to the local morgue to bid goodbye.

Analia Bouter insisted that she never got a chance to look at her baby after the birth as she had been sedated by staff at the hospital in Chaco, northern Argentina.

“At the time of birth I don’t remember much because I was put to sleep,” Sky News quoted her as saying.

“Rather, they never showed me the baby.”

Born at 10.24am, the infant was taken directly to the morgue after apparently being pronounced dead.

Still Born baby who was found alive in Morgue

Bouter and her husband, Fabian Veron, visited the morgue afterwards where they say they forced open the tiny coffin to look at their daughter.

“The baby was there and they put the little casket on a stretcher. We looked for a bar to prise it open. The casket was nailed shut,” Veron said.

“I started to prise, took a deep breath and took the top off. My wife was the first one to look at the body and she uncovered it slowly.

Mother of Baby

“She saw the little hand and then uncovered the face. That’s when it let the first little cry out. My wife jumped back, like saying, ‘This must be my imagination’.”

The baby girl, born a week ago, was reported to be in stable condition on Tuesday.

The parents had initially planned on naming her Liliana Abigail but have instead called her Luz Milagros - which means Miracle’s Light.

“I went back to look again and she was moving. So I started to uncover the face and it was like she was just getting up, waking up,” Veron said.

“And that’s when the lady from the morgue grabbed her and brought her,” Veron added.

Provincial health officials have confirmed that they are investigating the incident

Read More

A living robot who smiles, sings like a girl!

Have you watched a movie made by Rajnikant named Robot? If yes the imagination made on the movie was almost came true as a Japanese company has created a robot with 65 facial expressions which can talk, sing and can easily be mistaken for a real-life girl at first sight. The Geminoid F can create smiles and even enigmatic, quizzical expressions, using mechanical actuators underneath her rubber ’skin’, the Daily Mail reported.

Real women or Robot

She can smile, furrow her brows and move her mouth - although she often looks rather dazed. It can also talk and sing - playing recordings, or ‘mouthing’ other people’s voices.

Geminoid F has been produced by Hiroshi Ishiguro, a renowned robot designer at OsakaUniversity in western Japan, whose androids (designed to resemble a human) come with a steep $1.2 million price tag.

But Geminoid F is cheaper — $110,000 — which Ishiguro hopes may take the technology closer to the mainstream. Her creator says his goal is to create a robot that can fool people into believing it is a human being.

Geminoid TMF is equipped with 12 motorised actuators, powered by air pressure, which allow her to ‘copy’ human facial expressions.

Ishiguro, who has designed several robots made to look like humans in the past - even building one in his own image, says the day is not far when robots could fool us into believing they are human.

“Please define ‘what is human’, and we will make a copy,” he says.

Read More

Soon, eat your bottles once you've drunk what's inside

People will soon be able to eat their bottles after they have finished their drink - thanks to an avant-garde edible material developed by scientists. The product, a membrane created using a biodegradable plastic combined with food particles, could either be peeled off or potentially eaten as a whole and can taste like the drink inside.

Until now, experts at Harvard University have filled an orange membrane with orange juice, a tomato-flavoured enclosure with gazpacho and grape packages with wine.

They have not yet created a bottle with WikiCells - the edible material- but biomedical engineer Dr David Edwards hopes to craft a prototype soon.

"In the near term, we will be encountering WikiCells in restaurant settings' as a novelty item," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

After that, Prof Edwards plans to expand WikiCells to speciality stores and supermarkets.

Eventually, he plans to develop a WikiCells machine that would allow individuals to produce their own edible bottles.

"The idea was to try to create a bottle which was based on how nature creates bottles," he told the Harvard Crimson.

"People in a village in Africa could become plastic bottle-free and make things for themselves. It's really exciting from a humanitarian point of view," he added

Read More

Students hack school website to skip class

A group of students hacked their school website so their parents could not find out a message assuring parents that it will remain open despite snowfall. The Jewish Free School posted the message on its website after snowfall began in Harrow, in northwest London, Feb 4, Daily Mail reported Saturday.

Just to make sure they wouldn't get sent to school, the hackers are then said to have sent a fake email purporting to come from the school and telling parents that the school would be closed because of the heavy snow.

Jewish Free School

The email even provided a link to a cloned version of the school's website.

According to the Jewish Chronicle many older pupils stayed away from the school on the following Monday, owing to the success of the hack and the spreading of the fake email.

The school has identified a number of pupils it believes are behind the website's hacking and at least one pupil has been suspended. 

Read More

Now Robot artist to sketches portraits

Even the most dedicated techie can have an artistic streak - and that includes robots. And at CeBIT in Hanover next month, delegates are being offered the chance to have their portrait drawn by an industrial robot. The Fraunhofer robot first takes a good look at its model via its camera, then uses a pencil to knock out a sketch in about ten minutes. Edge-processing software seeks out the contrasts in the image and translates these into movements of the robot’s arm.

The main difficulty, says the team, was to adjust the algorithm for image processing so that the robot would overlook tiny wrinkles but still render the eyes - and deliver something that looked like a human-drawn portrait.

"We attach great importance to the artistic look of the drawings that results, but on the other hand, we have also equipped the robot with an automatic system that enables it to carry out all of the steps itself," says Martina Richter, a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB.

"With this installation, we have created an interface between art, science and technology."

For the robot, though, art is more of a hobby. It's normally used by IOSB researchers to analyze the optical reflection properties of various materials.

The robot’s arm circles a sample such as a a reflector of the kind mounted on children’s school bags, measuring how the object reflects light.

This helps design reflectors so that they return light in the most bundled way possible to the direction from which it comes – to a car driver, for instance. Then the reflector emits a bright flash that draws the driver’s attention to the child.

Read More

US scientists turn brain waves into actual words

What will you do if someone will know what you are thinking? The day is closer as scientists are now able to read the minds. A new study conducted in the University of Californiahas enabled scientists to find a way to decipher actual words from human brain waves.

A team of neuroscientists worked with a group of epilepsy patients who were under the treatment for difficult curable seizures.

They implanted the required electrodes deep in patients' brains to locate the source of seizures and help doctors remove the malfunctioning tissue.

Mind Reading Device

“During normal process about a week the patients are just sitting around in their hospital rooms and some of them were generous enough to participate in our experiment,” said study leader Brian Pasley of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

While the patients' brain waves were being recorded, researchers chased the waves through a program to translate the brain's electronic signals into actual sounds.

“Researchers are still a long way from actually reading people's minds, but it may be possible one day,” said Pasley.

Although the new research may sound like scary science fiction, it can have enormous positive uses for patients who have lost their speaking ability.

“If we are somehow able to encode someone's thoughts instantaneously that might have great benefits for the thousands of severely disabled people who are unable to communicate right now,” Pasley noted.

Read More

Italian man with two hearts suffers a double heart attack - and lives

In what can be called a medical miracle, doctors have managed to save the life of a 71-year-old Italian man who had two hearts and suffered double heart attacks at the same time.

At first, doctors thought they had a typical case of cardiac arrest – the man was short of breath, sweating profusely and his blood pressure was low.

However, they were in for a surprise when upon closer inspection it was found that the patient had been walking around with two hearts and had now suffered a dueling attack.

According to medical reports, the man wasn't born with two hearts but had undergone a rare heart transplant (called a heterotopic transplant) years ago in which a new organ was paired with the diseased one.

"You can develop two independent heart rhythms, especially in a scenario where one heart gets a little better," Rade Vukmir, professor of emergency medicine at Temple Universityand a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians told MSNBC.

This is apparently exactly what happened to the Italian patient.

After being admitted to the hospital, doctors administered drug therapy in an attempt to correct his dysrhythmia, only to have the medicine shut down both of his hearts.

Doctors then were able to successfully use a defibrillator to revive both hearts simultaneously. He's now reportedly doing well with his two functioning hearts.

Read More

Artificial Meat to come in market soon !!!

Are you fond of eating meat but afraid to eat meat because you don’t like animals to be killed? If yes, than your problem seems to be solved as scientists have discovered how to grow artificial meat in a laboratory and now working out how they can sell it in shops.

 The artificial meat is grown in Petri dish using muscles cells. It currently takes a long time to produce and is very expensive process. However nearly 30 teams around the world are trying to develop the project so that it can eventually be bought as easily as real meat from supermarket or shop.

 The discovery of artificial meat is not only good for environment but it reduces animal suffering. it can also solved the world hunger however it may affects the natural ecosystem at the same time. But it is always interesting to see whether artificial meats will be available in local market or not.

Read More

Soon, e-books to let you flip pages like paper-based magazines

Are you adapted to read on your computer? Of course its hard to read e-books than paper books. The problem has now been solved and you are able to read e-books easily in laptop, PCs or smartphone. Researchers have come up with a technology that will make reading on smartphone and tablet PCs easier than it is now.

"Smart E-book System", developed by Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) headed by Howon Lee from the IT Convergence Research Institute, allows users of smartphones and tablet PCs to effortlessly flip through the pages of an e-book or cross-reference its contents, just as they would with paper-based books and magazines.

Unlike conventional displays and user interface technologies, where users' finger movements are locked within the screen of display, the Smart E-book System recognizes finger touches made beyond the screen.

In other words, this algorithm-based conversion technology detects "touch and entry events" on the circumference of smartphones and tablet PCs and connects them with the "events" occurring within the screen, thereby preserving compatibility with traditional e-book interfaces while providing users with new functions.

Therefore, users can readily flip the pages of an e-book from the start-up screen without entering any function keys or touching the screen.

Skimming through the pages of a book, a feature that was previously unavailable with e-books, is also possible through 3D rendering of the contents on the pages being flipped.

A bookmark function allows users to conveniently go back and forth between pages of interest. In addition, the system has a "multi-touch" function as well as a smart capability of recognizing dragging time, finger pressure, and finger gestures.

"I hope that our technology will accelerate the wider use of e-books and contribute to Korea's endeavours to lead the development of software application technology for mobile devices," Howon Lee said.

Lee and his research team have filed 11 patents for the Smart E-book System in Koreaand abroad.

Read More

Internet addiction damages brain 'just like drugs'(Read it if you are addicted to internet)

How much time do you spend in internet? One hour a day, two hours a day or whole day! Internet addiction may be a disease and it may cause severe damage Internet addiction disorder may be associated with abnormal white matter structure in the brain and may be as fatal as craving for drugs, researchers say.

Previous studies of Internet addiction disorder (IAD), which is characterized by an individual's inability to control his or her Internet use, have mostly focused on psychological questionnaires.

Internet addiction

The current study, on the other hand, uses an MRI technique to investigate specific features of the brain in 18 adolescents suffering from IAD.

The researchers, led by Hao Lei of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences in Wuhan, found that IAD is characterized by impairment of white matter fibres connecting brain regions involved in emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making, and cognitive control.

They also suggested that IAD may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of impulse control disorders and substance addiction.

The study has been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. To check whether you are interned addict or not please click the link below!!! Click  here to test the internet addiction test !!!

Read More

Baby born with organs outside body undergoes rare surgery

A baby born with his organs outside his body has undergone an exceptional surgery to put them back inside his abdominal cavity.

Hayes Davis' first ultrasound results seemed to take longer than the others during the routine 12-week visit. As moms came in and out of the waiting room, elated by the first grainy images of their growing babies, Daviswas anxious as she waited for the results.

The doctors finally told her that the baby's organs were developing on the outside of his body.

Hayes Davis before his remarkable surgery on Friday

The condition, known as an omphalocele, is a birth defect in which the fetus' intestines and other abdominal organs stick out from the belly button.

"Once we heard the word, 'omphalocele,' it was our world," ABC news quoted Davis as saying.

A thin membrane that keeps the organs intact usually covers the omphalocele. While the condition can range in size and severity, the intestines, and sometimes the liver and spleen, protrude outside the baby's body.

About one in 10,000 births result in some form of an omphalocele, and about 25 to 40 percent of infants with an omphalocele have other birth defects, as well. Heart defects are common in children with omphaloceles. It is unclear why omphaloceles form in some babies.

While it is normal for organs to develop outside of the abdomen of the foetus up until the 10th week in utero, an omphalocele might develop if they do not return to the abdomen after that initial period.

After a pregnancy with seemingly endless appointments and ultrasounds, Davis gave birth to Hayes on 25th March, 2011, via Cesarean section at Children's MemorialHermann Hospitalin Houston, Tx.

Kelly Davis

"I was so excited to meet him, but the anxiety was almost overwhelming," she said.

"I didn't know if he would breathe on his own or eat on his own or whether the omphalocele would stay intact," Davissaid.

The nurses secured the omphalocele after delivery and immediately took Hayes to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. During the weeks that followed, Davis and her husband learned how to take care and treat the omphalocele.

Hayes was luckier than many babies born with the condition. He did not have a heart defect or other birth defects in relation to the omphalocele.

Kuojen Tsao, professor of pediatric surgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said that it was bigger than most omphaloceles and there is usually not enough tissue to surgically put the organs back in the body and sew the skin up.

"We can do an operation known as component separation," Tsao said.

"It's not necessarily a new technique, but it is new to these problems in babies," Tsao said.

Traditionally, the condition requires several operations to tighten up the abdomen and bring the edges of the skin fully together, but Tsao believed the component separation was possible for Hayes because the doctors had waited several months for him to grow and develop more skin and tissue to work with in covering the organs.

"Surgery always has risk involved.

"We wanted to try and get back to doing just one surgery to fix the condition. Every time you go in again, there's risk of injuring the bowel and liver, there's blood loss, and then that baby is going under with anesthesia. We figured if we could do it once to fix the problem, we decrease the amount of risk," Tsao added.

Read More

Spareone's designed a mobile phone with a battery life of 15 years!

How long your mobile's Battery wll work for  May be maximum of three days or a week. But Spareone's has designed the Mobile phone with battery Life of 15 Years. 

SpareOne's mobile phone comes with a battery life of 15 years, whether you charge it or not and is designed for emergencies.

It runs on one AA battery, and claims to keep its charge for up to 15 years, something unthinkable for feature-laden phones with batteries that last only a few days.

The SpareOne can be programmed for instant access to phone numbers of key contacts, including emergency services in any location.

As the phone's developer, XPAL Power, says: "It's essentially designed to make and receive the most important calls, no matter what."

 mobile phone with a battery life of 15 years!

The SpareOne's is also able to automatically transmit its location via its mobile ID, plus has a built-in torch -- and unlike so many of today's gadgets, it even comes with the AA battery included.

The new phone, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is designed as a 'backup' phone you can keep in the glove compartment for emergencies.

Read More

Twins born five years apart (If you don’t believe read this article and see photo graphs)

It may seem quite unreal but a mother has given birth to twins 5 years apart with the help of fertility treatment.

Reuben and Floren Blake were conceived from the same batch of embryos, but born five years apart.

Reuben Blake five Holding his twin sister Floren (seven weeks)

Their parents Simon and Jody Blake began fertility treatment at a Bristol clinic in 2005 after trying to start a family without success.

Five embryos were created and two implanted in Jody, which led to the birth of 9lb 5oz Reuben on December 9, 2006.
 The remaining three embryos were frozen until the couple decided to try for another child last March.
 Only one of these three embryos survived the defrosting process and was successfully implanted.
Floren was born on November 16 last year – five years after Reuben – weighing 8lb 12oz.

Simon and Jody with their twins Ruben and Floren

“It does feel quite surreal,” the Daily Express quoted Jody, 38, a charity worker from Cheltenham, Gloucs, as saying.

“We obviously had nine months to get it straight and to think ‘Gosh, we’re having Reuben’s twin’ but it’s incredibly special.

“It feels like an absolute miracle really, and I think we’re incredibly lucky,” she added.

Reuben Blake, five, with his twin sister Floren

Read More

Do You Believe?: Male spiders sacrifice their lives for kids' health

What can you do for your offspring? Buy some expensive gift? Put them in good school? But Can you let your life go for your off spring? I guess no but Research has revealed that Male spiders sacrifice their lives for the health of their offspring, by letting their mates eat them after sex, a new study has revealed. Sexual cannibalism is the act of one partner eating the other after sex. In the orb-web spider Argiope bruennichi, the female tries to grab and wrap up the male at the onset of mating so she can snack on him during sex.
In the lab, only about 30 percent of the males survive their first mating, but by letting the female gnaw on them, the males prolong the sex act, making it more likely they will inseminate their partner.

Of these survivors, half go on to find a second mate, while the others try again for the same female. Due to the male's anatomy, two copulations is the limit.

Spider mating

"Two main hypotheses explain the evolution of sexual cannibalism," study researcher Klaas Welke, of the Universityof Hamburg in Germany, said.

The males might be offering themselves up "to gain access to mating opportunities and to prolong their mating duration."

Or, Welke said that it could be a "paternal investment into their own offspring, and they provide females with nutrients."

In the case of the orb-web spider, males tend to be much smaller than their mates; in this species, they are only one-tenth as heavy, and researchers were not sure how much nutritional benefit the females can gain from such pipsqueak partners.

The researchers thought that perhaps the nutritional bonus from multiple mates and meals would have an impact on females. But it did not.

"We were surprised, because we had expected that any effect of male consumption would increase with every additional male consumed," Welke said.

"Our findings suggest a paternal investment of males into their offspring.

"Sexual cannibalism may increase male reproductive success and may be very beneficial in a species with a high paternity insurance and a low rate of polyandry as found in Argiope bruennichi," Welke added.

The study has been published in journal Animal Behaviour

Read More