Chinese Woman Performs Operation On Herself

Wu Yuanbi, a 53-year-old woman, from Chongqing, China, has recently performed operation on herself, with a common kitchen knife.

Wu, who works as a migrant worker, has been suffering from a persistent condition known as Budd-Chiari syndrome, for the last 13 years. This causes her stomach to slowly fill up with large quantities of fluid, rendering her unable to work and making it difficult to perform even the most simple tasks. Back in 2002, Wu and her family used all their life savings to pay for a medical procedure in which doctors removed 25 liters of fluid from her stomach. Unfortunately, a relapse of the condition followed, and the woman found herself in need of a second surgery. However, she and her family were too poor to pay the 50,000 yuan ($7,686) fee, so Wu Yuanbi was forced to do something really shocking.

One day, after her husband, Cao Yunhui, left for work, the woman slit her stomach open with a kitchen knife, frantic to relieve the pressure that had built up inside. She had to bear unbearable pain for several hours, until her husband came home and found her lying in a pool of yellow fluid and intestines. She was at once rushed to the hospital with a 10 cm-long cut across her stomach, and saved by the medical staff. Wu later said “If I had passed away, I would have at least spared my family the trouble of looking after me.”

After all the media coverage, Wu Yuanbi is at present being treated free of charge, at a hospital in Chongqing, but who knows what will happen the next time fluid builds up in her stomach. Chinese authorities say many rural families go penniless after this kind of expensive surgical procedures, simply because they don’t want to spend money on cheap insurance. But, according to Wu’s husband, this wasn’t an choice for them because government insurance simply didn’t cover the procedure his wife needed.

Outbreak Of E-coli Bacteria Kills 14

Europeans traded blame over the source of a strange bacterial outbreak that has killed 14 people and sickened hundreds across the continent and forced Russia to ban imports of some fresh vegetables from Spain and Germany out of fear they could be infected.

Russia has barred the import of vegetables from Germany and Spain because of an outbreak of E-coli bacteria in parts of Europe. The move comes as scientists try to recognize the source of the outbreak in Germany, where 14 people have died.

Hundreds of people in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain are also thought to have been infected. Suspicion has fallen on organic cucumbers from Spain imported into Germany, and then re-exported.

Spain denies its cucumbers are infected.

3-Foot Fossils Of Prehistoric Ocean Predator Discovered

Fossils of a meter-long (3.3-foot) prehistoric ocean predator have been found in southeastern Morocco.

The specimens comprise the largest yet of its kind and suggests the spiny, somewhat shrimplike beasts dominated pre-dinosaur seas for millions of years longer than thought.

Previous anomalocaridid fossils had shown the animals grew to perhaps 2 feet (0.6 meter) long, which previously would have made them the largest animals of the Cambrian period (542 to 501 million years ago)—an evolutionarily explosive time, when invertebrate life evolved into many new varieties, such as sea lilies and worms.

The new anomalocaridid fossils also gave scientists another surprise: They're surprisingly young. Dating back to "only" 488 to 472 million years ago, in the Ordovician period, the specimens hint that anomalocaridid species survived for 30 million years longer than earlier evidence had suggested.

Anomalocaridids are widespread in fossils from the Cambrian, "then they depart from the rock record at about 510 million years ago," said Briggs, who received funding from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration.

Eventually, though, anomalocaridids did go wiped out—leaving no modern descendants, Briggs said. "It most probably was ultimately replaced by fishes or other kinds of predators in later oceans," he said.

Chinese Two Headed Baby Born With One Body

A conjoined twins sharing one single body was born at Suining City Central Hospital in Sinchuan province, southwestern China, according to Ms Wang, a hospital staff

The babies were born by caesarean. The twins weighted 4 kilograms and measured 51 centimetres.

They have two spines, two esophaguses and share other crucial organs. Doctors said that it would be nearly not possible to separate them.

“It is hard to say how they will stay alive in the future but we will try the best to keep them alive at the moment,” said Pu Youhua, a doctor at Suining Hospital.

Ms. Wang said the parents, who are refugee farmers living outside of the southwestern city, did not know about the abnormality until two days before the mother was due to give birth.

Two ultra sound scans in September and February failed to disclose the two heads because the technicians were viewing the single embryo in profile.

The pair has now been moved to a hospital in nearby Chongqing for additional examination.

Lu Zhi-hao From China Named As World's Fattest Boy

A four year old boy from China, weighing 62 kilograms, has been named the world's heaviest boy.

Lu Zhi-hao, who is 110cms tall from Shunde, Guangdong, is being taken by his worried parents to Hong Kong to try and undertake his obesity.

Dubbed by Chinese media as China's "no. 1 fat kid" Lu Zhi-hao, known as Xiao Hoa, has been taken to numerous hospitals in Guangdong to find out why he's so fat, but doctors can only say that it is down to awful eating habits.

If something is not done to decrease his weight, doctors predict Lu Zhi-hao's obesity will become life-threatening by the time he turns 20.

A Hong Kong weight-loss centre has offered to help Lu Zhi-hao lose weight for free. The centre, which has not given out its name, uses non-intrusive Japanese skill to help the body break down fat.

Xiao Hao's parents are now applying for a consent to travel to Hong Kong and hope to be here with their obese child in a couple of weeks.

"We hope there must be specialists in Hong Kong who can help us," says Lu Zhi-hao's father, Lu Ye-ming.

The mother and father of the child are both of normal weight, and obesity has not been a part of the family's health history. Lu Zhi-hao gradually ate his way to fatness.

He is now on a diet, which means reducing down from his regular three bowls of rice per meal to just one bowl.

The WHO says more than 20 percent of the populations in some Chinese cities are now obese.

Princess Diana’s Dress Sold For $276,000 In Auction

A pair of dresses worn by Princess Diana sold at a pop culture sale in Beverly Hills for a total of US$276,000 (NZ$349,000), a spokesman for the auction house has said.

The two dresses, which have been held in climate-controlled storage since her death in August 1997, were auctioned to a famous museum for US$144,000 and US$132,000, respectively, said Darren Julien, president and CEO of Julien's Auctions.

"We did have bidders from all over the world participating, and it's great to have them go to a museum where they are going to be on display and valued by the public," Julien said.

Julien said he could not name the museum without consent from officials there.

The dress that sold for US$144,000 was described by the public sale house as a black crepe evening gown that Diana wore during a state visit in 1992.

The princess wore the second dress, which is silk chiffon and strapless, to the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 as well as in a portrait sitting that year and to a 1989 presentation of "Miss Saigon" at Theatre Royal in London.

The two dresses had been auctioned by Diana for contributions three months before her death, Julien said.

The owners, WeTV and Wedding Central, decided the time was right to auction them again to match with the April 29 wedding of Britain's Prince William to Kate Middleton.

He said a portion of the income would be donated to one of Diana's charities.

Diana, who married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, died after a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Last Veteran Of World War I, Claude Choules Dies At 110

Claude Choules, the only lasting male veteran of World War I and one of the last people to have served in both world wars, died May 5 at a nursing home near Perth in western Australia. He was 110, and no cause of death was reported.

Mr. Choules was the last known existing combatant of the war. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women’s Royal Air Force.

He was wedded to the former Ethel Wildgoose, whom he met on the way to Australia in 1926. She died many years ago at age 98. They had three children, according to the Australian Associated Press. He lied about his age so he could join the British Royal Navy in 1916, two years after the Great War began. Enlistees were hypothetical to be at least 18 years old.

In 1926, he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy after working as a coach at a naval depot, according to the Worcester News. “I was nobody,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in 2009 of his years in England. “But I was somebody here.”

During World War II, he was a torpedo officer and was assigned to blow up the Australian navy’s ships in Fremantle Harbour, in western Australia, if Japanese forces invaded. Mr. Choules retired at age 55 after working with the Naval Dockyard Police.

He wrote a memoir, “The Last of the Last,” which was published two years ago.

He was married to the former Ethel Wildgoose, whom he met on the way to Australia in 1926. She died several years ago at age 98. They had three children, according to the Australian Associated Press.

Despite the fame his military service brought him, Mr. Choules later in life became a pacifist who was uncomfortable with anything that glorified war. He disagreed with the celebration of Anzac Day, Australia’s most important war memorial holiday, and refused to march in parades held each year to mark the holiday.

“I had a pretty poor start,” he told a reporter in 2009. “But I had a good finish.”

World's Biggest Bird In Threat Of Extinction

The Saharan race ostrich, largest representative of its species, has been extirpated across 95 per cent of its range. Within Niger, the bird is wiped out in the wild.

There are still roughly 100 pure-bred Saharan race ostriches in small privately-held imprisoned flocks scattered across the country. A land-locked country in Western Africa, the Republic of Niger is remarkably poor, but with some modest support those caring for ostriches can considerably improve the chances of these birds breeding fruitfully and rearing young.

Given how productive ostrich can be, there is every reason to believe that with the right material and technical support, Niger can breed desert ostrich and return them to the wild in relatively short order.

The Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) is now focusing on improving the diet and promoting natural incubation until such time as Niger has the ability to manage artificial incubation and chick-rearing operations. SCF, in partnership with the AZA Ratite TAG, has developed its Adopt-an-Ostrich Programme to maintain the acquisition, care and feeding of pure-bred Saharan ostrich in Niger; to help maintain the ostrich facilities; and to improve capacity for ostrich management.

‘With your help, we can get Saharan ostrich back on the road to recovery in Niger,' said an SCF spokesman. ‘This is a great opportunity for all of us to make a connection between our interest in the Sahara and the conservation of the largest bird on the planet.'