And now for something completely bizarre!

[matt]

This freaked me out just a little...

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/doctors-remove-foot-from-newborns-brain/2008/12/19/1229189857839.html

[Kevnool]

Poor little fella

[jungle11]

I wonder how that fits in the 'intelligent design' theory. :lol:

But seriously - poor kid

[Craig.a.c]

I was reading about that this morning, crazy stuff.

I wonder how much more of it would have developed if it wasn't found?

[PCH]

"You were always on my mind" would come to have a deeper meaning that's for sure.:P

[Ian Robinson]

You'd think it would have been reabsorbed or coated in calcium carbonate over time if they left it alone , probably would have effected brain development and caused all manner of nasty symptoms though.

Poor little kid .... he's probably doomed to spending the rest of his life in and out of hospitals.

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop: omg the poor little boy oh and not to mention what the parents would have been going through :sadeyes: well if he recovers fully to have a normal life he is going to have a few nicknames i think :lol:

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

That's a case of twin development gone wrong, called Vanishing Twin syndrome. It seems the incidence of twin conception, being about 1 in 8, is about 9 times as great as actual twin births, so it is common enough for Mother Nature to make a choice. There are implications for the survivor apparently.

I have twin boys, and every time we think of it we are thankful nothing went wrong.

[mellotron]

This kind of thing is really interesting. I would recommend the book "Mutants", by Armand Marie Leroi for more examples.

Pharyngula has good comment on the subject:

"We have a long history in developmental biology of studying the most amazing freaks of nature — damage to developing organisms can produce astonishingly ghastly results as the embryo tries to regulate and recover, yielding results that are almost normal. There's even a whole subdiscipline of the field, teratology, dedicated to studying aberrations of embryology. The word is perfect, since it is derived from a Greek root that means both "wonders" and "monsters"."


http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/awesomely_horrible.php

[jungle11]

Maybe you saw it on the news about 2 weeks ago - about a kitten with 2 faces. Obviously the VTS you're talking about. They want to keep the little guy alive, but i think it would be best to put him down.
It is interesting - the kitten uses both mouths to meow - but can only feed from one.

[xelasnave]

Some humans are two faced
alex

[garyp]

What a story.

Poor little man.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Yes, I feel so as well. Research has turned up otherwise unexplained feelings of grief and loss in such survivors when they are older.

Our twin boys occasionally say things which bring us up short, like

"I think I will go over to his place, he is not feeling good"

"Oh, when did you speak to him, what did he say?"

"I didn't, but he needs to have a talk"

It does certainly happen, we have seen it more than once, but we don't interrogate them on it, they don't like that.

Cheers