Young Children In South Africa Eaten By Giant Rats
A chilling urban legend from New York City comes terribly true on the opposite side of the globe, as three-foot rats run amok, feasting on human babies. The Daily Mail writes:
Giant rats as big as cats have killed and eaten two babies in separate attacks in South Africa’s squalid townships this week.
Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was killed as she slept in her parent’s shack outside Cape Town and another girl was killed in Soweto township near Johannesburg the same day. Bukiswa Dwadwa, 27, said: ‘I can’t forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out. ‘She was eaten from her eyebrows to her cheeks, her other eye was hanging by a piece of flesh.’
Residents of South Africa’s impoverished townships say the giant rats grow up to three-foot long, including their tails, and have front teeth over an inch long. The suspects in the baby attacks are believed to be…
The Creepy World Of Adult Babies
National Geographic’s Taboo looks at phenomenon of people who choose to live their lives as “adult babies”. Is it a metaphor for the “nanny state” we live in? A retreat from the pressures of modern life? Or just the most disturbing subculture to ever emerge in history? (Scandinavian black metal can’t compete with adult infantilism.) Warning: this cannot be unseen.
Twins Mystery In Brazilian Town Solved
Cândido Godói, a Brazilian village with an extreme abundance of blonde twins, has long spawned conspiracy theories. Namely, that infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (who visited repeatedly in the 1960s and treated locals) created an “Aryan twin town.” However, the New York Times reports that scientists have identified a “twins gene” possessed by residents (who are mostly of German descent and have a high rate of inbreeding), likely putting the matter to rest:
For years, so many twins have been born in the small southern Brazilian town of Cândido Godói that residents wonder whether something mysterious lurks in the water, or even if Josef Mengele, the Nazi physician known as the Angel of Death, conducted experiments on the women there.
But a group of scientists now says it can rule out such long-rumored possibilities. Ursula Matte, a geneticist in Porto Alegre, Brazil, said a series of DNA tests conducted on about 30 families…
Over 2,000 Vaccinated Babies Dead: The Cost Of Doing Business
Neil Z. Miller writing for Natural News:
Earlier this month (March 2011), Japanese authorities ordered doctors to stop using pneumococcal and Hib vaccines because four children died after receiving the shots. However, the real news was never reported: more than 2,000 babies died in the United States after receiving vaccines for these very same diseases, yet authorities refuse to warn parents and halt production. A safety review is vital to determine whether a recall of the dangerous shots may be necessary to protect additional American babies from disability and death.
According to Paul Offit, media spokesperson for the vaccine industry, “the Japanese Ministry of Health was foolish to suspend the Hib and pneumococcal programs.” Offit thinks the deaths were probably caused by SIDS, or underlying conditions, or another cause – anything except the vaccines. Often, children get sick and die by chance.
William Schaffner, chairman of the department of medicine at Vanderbilt University…
Malaysia Opens “Baby Hatch” For Abandoned Babies
Malaysia’s answer to the high number of unmarried mothers and abandoned babies is an anonymous drop off service. Via BBC:
The cries of an abandoned baby boy echo in the nursery at Orphancare, a Malaysian charity that helps orphans find adoptive parents.
He is the only child here and does not have a name. But in many ways he is seen as one of the lucky ones.
He was left in a baby “hatch” – the first in the country – designed to allow mothers to leave their babies anonymously.
The charity hopes it will rescue more unwanted newborns, as the authorities seek to stem the rising number of abandoned babies.
Close to 500 babies have been found abandoned since 2005. Some were left in Muslim prayer halls, on doorsteps and even in rubbish bins. Many are found dead.
It is thought these children are mainly abandoned by single mothers. Having a child out of wedlock…
Baby Chaps: Eco-Friendly Diaper-less Baby Clothes
Source: Passed Ports blog
From the Passed Ports blog:
All over China little babies and toddlers are running around with their bums hanging out. It’s kind of hilarious. From Lhasa to Chengdu to Beijing, many people simply don’t use diapers at all. But, if you put an untrained, diaperless kid in regular clothes, there’s going to be a mess. So the solution? Tiny baby crotchless chaps.
The littlest babies have a one-sie version: imagine a long bib, with strings that tie around the waist, and strings hanging down from the bottom corners which tie around the thighs. From the back it’s nothing but strings. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of these.
It is socially acceptable for babies and toddlers then just do their business whenever/wherever they need to, so long as they are outside. However there comes a point when it is not so cute. Some might argue that when kids achieve a certain…
Babies Display Sense Of Good and Evil
Ever gaze into a baby’s eyes and think, “You are a little sociopath”? Thankfully, you’re wrong — a new study shows that babies as young as six months demonstrate a sense of morality, suggesting that we are born with the ability to know good from evil, and making it harder to train an army of evil babies. From PhysOrg:
The research was carried out by a team led by Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University in Connecticut in the US, and used the ability to differentiate between unhelpful and helpful behavior as their indicator of moral judgement. The results contradict the theories of Sigmund Freud and others, who thought human beings start out as “amoral animals”, or a moral blank state. Bloom said there is mounting scientific evidence that this may not be true and that “some sense of good and evil seems to…
‘Baby Einstein’ DVDs Do More Harm Than Good
Fiona Macrae writes in the Daily Mail:
Parents who buy educational DVDs to give their toddlers a head start may be doing more harm than good. A study of almost 100 boys and girls aged between one and two found that regularly watching a DVD from the Baby Einstein range did nothing to boost their vocabulary.
In fact, the younger the children were when they began to watch the programmes, the worse their word power. Researchers tested the children over six weeks. Half were given a Baby Wordsworth DVD, which their parents were told to play 15 times over six weeks.
The 35-minute disc, costing around £18, is part of the Baby Einstein range – popular with parents keen to boost toddlers’ IQs before starting school. It uses puppets and people to introduce 30 words for rooms and household appliances, including ‘fridge’ and ‘phone’.
The remaining children’s parents were told to ‘go about life…
Japanese Baby Simulator
Another in the long line of creepily amazing products from Japan — a glowing, sweating, simulated baby (with a large, cartoonish, orb-like head). Want something to love that you can also unplug? This is it.
