Tuesday 27 April 2010

Bits and Bobs & Bye-bye Greece

There was no really big thing to talk about today so I thought I'd treat you to some interesting bits and bobs from around the news.

The first pretty interesting thing I found was about a face transplant they performed in Spain recently, possibly the first full and most complex one that has been done to date. I say possibly because every time someone does a face transplant it's claimed to be the 'first' full one, before the next one comes along and is a bit more complicated. Still, I think it's fascinating that they can literally give you a new face taken from a donor and that it could function without massive scarring. Just to clear one thing up, when you get a face transplant you don't take on the appearance of the donor, a lot of how you look is down to your bone structure and other things which mean that you'll look different, no need to worry about the donor's family suddenly seeing their dead relative 'alive' again. There will have been a massive amount of work to attach every single blood vessel and nerve to the new face, and then to hide the scars, it's amazing what surgeons can do these days.

Another tid-bit, I don't usually indulge in these kind of stories but I thought this was pretty strange. It's a story from BBC about a mother whose baby is outgrowing her at the ripe old age of 13 months. The baby's not massive, she's just tiny - 3ft 1in. Now, when I first saw this I questioned one thing, how the hell did that woman give birth to any baby, she must have been nearly falling over from the weight of the foetus when it was growing. I don't want to put horrible pictures in peoples heads but, well, there must have been logistical problems (to put it one way) in getting that baby out of her. Kudos to her for being brave enough to carry on with the pregnancy but that must have been pretty dangerous, especially seeing as she apparently has brittle bones.

And my final bit of the day, I thought I'd bid a fond farewell to Greece. It might not have collapsed just yet but  today certainly wasn't a good day for them. They had their credit downgraded to 'junk', very nice of the credit people to put it in terms we can understand. Basically that's the credit agencies way of saying, 'Greece, you're fucked.' As if they didn't have enough problems with debt, now they've been told that it's very risky to invest in them and anyone that does lend to them is likely to demand massive interest, a bit like they got the money from Wonga.com. (See Liam's blog for the reason I referred to them :) )


I'll try and have something meaningful to talk about next time, promise.

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