Monday, 31 October 2016

Francisco Domingo Joaquim

“World’s Widest Mouth Ever” by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Francisco Domino Joaquim’s mouth is so wide that he can squeeze a whole can of soda pop into his jaw without any hassle at all!

Francisco Domino Joaquim’s chops measure 6.69 inches across, and his super rubbery yap has propelled him into the public consciousness as the Guinness Book of World Records has now recognised it as being the widest on the planet.

Aged just twenty, Francisco Domino Joaquim was known for a long time in his country as the Angolan Jaw of Awe.

But he never really had to test his elastic skills until he entered the Big Mouth competition held annually in Rome.

In Big Mouth, participants have to stuff their gobs with numerous everyday items that range from coffee cups and saucers, to beer bottles and cans of pop.

And indeed nobody could beat the Angolan Jaw of Awe who managed to squeeze an entire can of coke in his cake hole sideways.

Francisco Domino Joaquim - who is known by his “stage name” Chiquinho - first found fame locally when he performed his talent on the streets of Angola. He became a minor star on YouTube, and it was here that Guinness Book of World Records found out about his astounding feat and got in touch.

But it was really on Italian TV when he shot to global fame. He managed to pop a can of soda in and out of his mouth an incredible fourteen times in a single minute.

Friday, 28 October 2016

Teenager has tongue is the size of a TENNIS BALL

A teenager with a tongue the size of a tennis ball fears going to sleep every night - in case he chokes to death on the huge organ.

Krzysztof Wegrzyn, from Grojec, Poland, was born with a haemangioma - a benign tumour in the blood vessels of his tongue.

Two attempts were made to remove the growth when he was a child but both had to be called off because of massive blood loss.

Condition: Krzysztof’s tongue is the size of a tennis ball

Struggle: The teenager is hoping to have life-changing surgery on his tongue

Now 18, Krzysztof’s tumour has grown so large it is close to blocking off his airway and he is struggling to speak.

But despite his problems there is still a chance he could live a completely normal life.

Krzsysztof explained: “I saw a boy from Norway who underwent an operation there and he looked great. You could not see that he had ever been ill.

Growth: Krzysztof’s condition makes it difficult for him to breathe

"This is my biggest dream but I do not want to be disappointed.”

His family are now trying to raise £48,000 for a trip to the Zentrum Klinik fur Vasculare Maltformationen in Eberswalde, Brandenburg, Germany, where specialist doctors can remove the tumour.

If he gets the life-changing treatment, Krzsysztof said he would want to finish his studies, pass his driving test and see his dream of becoming a chef come true.

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Julie Pastrana

An indigenous woman who toured Europe as “the world’s ugliest woman” was recently buried in her home nation Mexico - an incredible one-hundred and fifty years after she died.

Throughout her life, Julie Pastrana struggled with a genetic condition that deformed her looks and landed her circus work as a freak of nature.

When she died in 1860, her husband continued to tour with her embalmed body.

Born in 1834, Julie Pastrana’s face was covered with hair.

She also had a jutting jaw, and was mocked for begin an “ape woman” and a “bear woman.”

“Imagine the aggression and cruelty of humankind she had to face, and how she overcame it. It’s a very dignified story,” commented Sinaloa Governor Mario Lopez.

In 1850, Julie married an American impresario named Theodore Lent, who got her jobs in freak shows, in which she would dance and sing for audiences.

She died just a years later, not long after giving birth to a son who inherited her condition, and who survived just a few days.

Despite her death, Lent refused to give up on the income her looks were bringing in and he toured with both his wife and his son’s dead, embalmed bodies.

The gruesome tale didn’t end there. During a stay in Norway, the corpses were stolen and dumped.

The police recovered them and they were placed in storage at University of Oslo.

It was in 2005 when Julia Pastrana’s story came to the attention of Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata, who began a campaign to bring Julia’s remains home.

“I felt she deserved the right to regain her dignity and her place in history, and in the world’s memory.”

Crowds gathered to witness Julia Pastrana’s homecoming. “A human being should not be the object of anyone,” said Father Jaime Reyes Retana in an address to mourners.

Sadhu Amar Bharati

26. Sadhu Amar Bharati

We’ve all felt a bit of arm ache after carrying heavy bags of shopping over long distances, but maybe few of you will complain less about muscle burn after reading about Sadhu Amar Bharati, an Indian holy man who says that he has held his right hand aloft since 1973.

This means that his hand has been held in the air for an incredible forty-three years.

After being held aloft for so long, his hand has turned into a scrap of skin and bone - and is completely useless.

Despite this, it Shiva worshippers have turned it into a symbol of discipline and devotion.

Until the start of the seventies, Sadhu Amar Bharati was just a middle-class Indian who lived a regular life like everyone else.

He had all the usual things: A wife, a home, a steady job.

He even had three children.

But all of this paled into insignificance when one day he woke up and decided he needed to leave it all behind to dedicate his life to Shiva, a Hindu god.

From then on, he wandered the roads of India, wearing nothing but simple clothes and carrying only a metal trident.

In 1973, after three years of wandering, Sadhu Amar Bharati decided he still had too many connections to the luxuries of modern life and decided he needed to make some sort of sacrifice.

That sacrifice was to raise his right arm - and keep it held aloft.

43 years on, Sadhu Amar Bharati is still dedicated to serving his god, and his right arm is still held in the air.

But even if he wanted to lower it and use it again, he can’t. It’s become completely useless.

Observers believe he rose his right arm in protest against all the destruction and chaos in the world, but he maintains that he did it as a symbol that he was ready to renounce his earthly possessions and serve his god.

Abigail And Brittany Hensel

Meet Abigail and Brittany Hensel, conjoined Minnesota twins who deal with more struggles in a single day than many of us do over a lifetime.

It wasn’t long after they were born that their mom and dad were given the devastating news that their twins were conjoined - and that they might not survive much longer.

The tenacious pair beat the odds, and are living happy lives aged 23.

Viewers have been given a portal into their world thanks to a TV show - Abby and Brittany - which shows viewers how tough living as a conjoined twin actually is.

Abby and Brittany are incredibly rare. Firstly, a person has a 1 in 40,000 chances to been born conjoined.

Secondly, only 1% of conjoined twins survive after birth.

The sisters, who have two years, an incredible four lungs, two spines and a shared liver, were became conjoined when a fertilised egg did not separate inside their mother’s womb.

It was a fluke of nature - and it’s a miracle that they survived it.

The girls can only feel one half of their body, but they are sill able to play the piano, volleyball, softball - and they can even ride a bike and swim!

Although they were born with three arms, one arm was removed when they were born. They have undergone surgery numerous times, but both girls are in good health.

Their mom and dad have always wanted them to develop their own unique personalities, but they still have to work as a single body - even though they would love to be able to eat and sleep at different times.

Abigail and Brittany have not only had to live with each other, but they’ve also lived a life largely in the media

Polydactylism

Polydactylism, or the disease where extra fingers or toes are present on the body, is considered to be one of the more common diseases within the development of birth. One out of every 500 children have Polydactylism. The extra finger or toe tends to be nothing more than soft tissue with no bone. Surgery to remove the extra digit is the only option.

Accelerated Aging Syndrome

Source

Progeria or the Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome 3 is a disease in which children begin to look elderly even before they’re two years old. There is no disruption in intellectual development or motor skill development and the effect are mainly physical.

Children with this syndrome develop characteristic prominent eyes, a thin nose with a beaked tip, thin lips, a small chin, and protruding ears. They start looking like old people as in hair loss, aging skin, joint abnormalities, and a loss of fat under the skin. They experience severe hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis) beginning in childhood that lead to heart attack or stroke at young age. Unfortunately, this is a life threatening condition.

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Rare ageing condition - Progeria

This newborn baby has the looks of an 80-year-old after being born with rare condition

A boy has been born with a rare ageing condition that makes him more like a pensioner than a baby.

The tot was born with progeria, which has left wrinkles on the boy’s face, hollow eyes and extremely shrunken body.

Doctors in Magura, Bangladesh, are stunned at the condition of the baby.

One said: “The baby does not look like a newborn at all.

“There are prominent sings of ageing such a excessive wrinkles and rough skin texture.”

Despite his unusual look, the boy’s parents are ecstatic with the birth of the “miracle” child.

Dad Biswajit Patro said: “We can only thank God. There is no need to be unhappy about the appearance of my son.

“We will accept him the way he is. We are so happy to have a baby boy in the house.”

He added: “We have been getting a lot of visitors. Relatives, neighbours and even people from neighbouring villages have come to see our son.

“We are happy to host them all.”

Biswajit and wife Parul Patro already have one daughter and hope their new addition will grow up to be a healthy boy.

Doctors say the boy will do well for the time being but they are unsure what measures will be needed in future to treat him.

Saturday, 18 June 2016

Macrodactyly

Macrodactyly or other wise known as local giantism is a condition in which a certain part of the body acquires larger than normal size due to excessive growth of the fatty tissue, tumors and inflammation. It is more common in fingers and toes. However in more extreme cases sometimes an entire limbs may be enlarged.

Neurofibromatosis

Though not many know of this health condition, Neurofibromatosis is a hereditary condition that carries higher chances of tumor formation in the nerves, particularly within the brain region. It is also the same disorder which the well-famed Joseph Merrick (AKA Elephant Man) was afflicted with.

Cutaneous horns

Cutaneous horns, also known by the Latin name cornu cutaneum, are unusual keratinous skin tumours with the bizarre appearance of horns. They are usually small and localised, but can, in very rare cases be much larger. Doctors are unsure of causes but believe they are linked to excessive exposure to radiation.

Tom Leppard, tattooed man – obituary

In 2001 Leppard (whose real name has been variously listed as Woolridge, Wooldridge or Woodridge), was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the most tattooed man on Earth. Although he subsequently lost that title to Lucky Diamond Rich from New Zealand, he retained the title of most tattooed male senior citizen.

Leppard’s entire body, apart from the insides of his ears and in between his toes, was covered in a saffron yellow design flecked with black spots. Even his eyelids were tattooed with piercing blue-green feline irises. To complete the leopard look, he had a set of fangs custom-made by a dentist.

He would often be photographed with nothing on except a small pouch to preserve his modesty – except that it was also covered in leopard spots so that he gave the impression of being entirely naked.

His derelict bothy beside Loch na Beiste had no windows, electricity, heating or gas. The thatch had rotted away, and his makeshift metal sheet roof would not permit him to stand upright. He slept on a bed made from polystyrene board and cooked on a Primus stove, heating up tins of baked beans or ratatouille bought on weekly 5-mile round trips by kayak to the mainland. For 20 years he coped with freezing winters and plagues of midges in summer, but he insisted that life on the island suited him well.

The Leopard Man lived an apparently blameless existence and, though he claimed not to like people, appeared to be remarkably popular among the locals. Therefore it came as something of a shock in 2001 when it was revealed that a self-proclaimed vampire called Manuela Ruda, aka the “Bride of Satan”, then on trial for murder in Germany after sacrificing a man on an oak coffin in front of an altar of skulls, had stayed with him during a holiday in Scotland in 1996, claiming that she had been taught to worship the devil and drink blood during her visit.

Manuela Ruda was later convicted, and Leppard was appalled by the suggestion that he might have inspired her actions.

“She expressed an interest in me and told me she wanted to come and visit,” he told The Observer. “She seemed like an ordinary teenager.” He stoutly denied any satanic proclivities, explaining that he was a Catholic who prayed for three hours every day.

There is some mystery about Leppard’s early life, but it seems that he was born on October 14 1935, either in London or Suffolk.

Before his move to Skye, he spent nearly 30 years of his life in military service, first in the Royal Navy, which he joined aged 15, and later as a colour sergeant in the Rhodesian special forces. “I was based for a time in the Zambezi Valley which was the biggest open zoo in the world,” he recalled. “There were all sorts of animals there. Lions, elephants and giraffes, but no leopards.’

Interviewed in 2001, Leppard explained that after leaving the miltary, he found it difficult to mix with ordinary people: “I decided I wanted to be the biggest of something, the only one of something. It had to be a tattoo... I thought if I get the biggest of something and live in a strange way people might pay me.” The tattoos, etched on to his body over 18 months in the mid-1980s, cost £5,500.

He chose leopard spots not because of an interest in cats, but because they were easy for a tattoo artist to do: “It was a necessary evil to supplement my income support, or latterly my pension.” Despite his tattoos, Leppard felt “no affinity with leopards”.

In 2008, Leppard packed all his possessions into a couple of bin bags and moved into a care home in Inverness, admitting that he was getting too old for the weekly canoe trip to collect his shopping.

Tom Leppard, born October 14 1935, died June 12 2016

Thursday, 16 June 2016

Polymelia

Polymelia is a type of birth defect which occurs inside the mothers womb when the foetus is developing. Symptoms normally include developing extra parts of the body including deformed and shrunken limbs. Polymelia does not only happen in/on humans, but also in most species of land-dwelling animals. Polymelia is passed on through genetics, although it thank fully is an extremely rare condition.

Werewolf Disease

Werewolf disease is a very rare disease called Congenital Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa which causes excessive body hair growth. It is sometimes referred to as werewolf syndrome, because the appearance is similar to the mythical werewolf. There are two main distinct types, one which occurs over the entire body, and another that is restricted to a certain area. Hypertrichosis/werewolf disease can be either present at birth or acquired later in life.

Man With A Nose On His Forehead

This gentleman from China is undergoing a bizarre but revolutionary approach to surgical facial reconstruction. Due to a car accident the 22-year-old man suffered irreparable damage to his nose from a car accident and subsequent infection. In a new but strange idea surgeons came up with the idea of growing a nose on his forehead, which is apparently the perfect place due to the strong blood flow needed. The surgeons caring out this procedure say that the nose is in good shape.

Friday, 5 February 2016

Tree man' Abul Bajandar

Abul Banjadar — Image captionAbul Bajandar has epidermodysplasia verruciformi, a rare genetic disease that causes warts to form on the hands and feet

Bangladesh's government will pay for the treatment of "tree man" Abul Bajandar, who has a rare disease that causes warts to form on his body.

Health minister Mohammad Nasim made the announcement after visiting Mr Bajandar in hospital on Thursday.

Mr Bajandar has epidermodysplasia verruciformi, a genetic disease that makes a person susceptible to skin growth. It is popularly known as "tree man disease".

He first developed warts 10 years ago.

"Initially, I thought that they're harmless," Mr Bajandar told AFP.

"There are now dozens of two to three inch roots in both my hands. And there are some small ones in my legs," he said.

Mr Bajandar travelled to India to seek treatment, but his family could not afford the cost of operations.

Samples of his blood and skin tissue are now being sent to a laboratory in the United States, professor Abul Kalam, a plastic surgeon

He will be treated in Bangladesh when his diagnosis reports are available.

Mr Bajandar's is one of only three cases of "tree man disease" in the world, Samanta Lal Sen, director at Dhaka Medical College Hospital

"It is the first time we have found such a rare case in Bangladesh," he said.