Author: Dotan Dimet

Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5, he can hold seven-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat. DNA testing showed why: The boy has a genetic mutation that boosts muscle growth.

According to the original article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the mutation is in a gene called Myostatin, which halts muscle growth.

Via Didi, Warren Ellis and Ezrael.

Comics

Androids vs. Boom-Boom Girls

Post author By Dotan Dimet
Post date June 23, 2004
1 Comment on Androids vs. Boom-Boom Girls

Four color carnality: A Study of Superhuman Sensuality by “John Jones, Manhunter from Marathon, IL” surveys the state of romatic superhero literature throughout the ages:

To sum up the 70s, then… At DC, it was still, for the vast most part, business as usual, meaning, all their characters might as well have been genderless androids. At Marvel, on the other hand, gorgeous women were screwing waterfowl, Vietnamese boom-boom girls were joining the Avengers, female vampires were starring in their own horror series and using sex appeal to lure hapless male victims to the slaughter, and cheesy warlords from alternate futures were showing up with raging woodies for captive super-heroines. Everybody, even the morose, petulant Peter Parker, was getting laid.

Found via John Jakala’s Grotesque Anatomy.

Oddities

Tolkien’s hobbit hill up for sale

Post author By Dotan Dimet
Post date June 22, 2004

Telegraph : Tolkien’s hobbit hill up for sale at £500,000

It dominates views of the surrounding countryside and is credited as the inspiration for Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and now the Wrekin, a 1,300ft hill, is up for sale.
It is deemed one of the most important of mid-Shropshire’s heritage sites.
…
The Wrekin, which overlooks Telford, is so well known locally that it has entered the language of the Midlands people.
The expression “All round the Wrekin” means “going the long way” or “not explaining something clearly and directly”.

Compare:

The Werkin

Oddities

Now the drugs don’t work

Post author By Dotan Dimet
Post date June 22, 2004

Nature – Virus robs addicts of their high: Transgenic carrier inactivates cocaine in rat brains.

The treatment was developed by Kim Janda, a chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and her colleagues. They gave eight rats nasal injections of the virus twice a day for three days and compared them to eight rats that did not receive the treatment. On the fourth day, they gave both groups a dose of cocaine.

The untreated rats behaved in a characteristic way after receiving the drug: sniffing, standing up on their hind legs and rocking backwards and forwards. But the rats that received the virus showed much less severe behaviour.

“If they are not demonstrating this activity, they are probably not feeling the high,” says Janda.

Blather

Guardian short short story contest

Post author By Dotan Dimet
Post date June 22, 2004

Kinnblog reports of a Short short story competition at the Guardian: Stories of up to 400 words, with the title To The Point, submitted by Friday, July 23rd.