Vishnu, is that you?

Toddler with eight limbs branded 'reincarnation of Hindu god' to undergo life-saving operation

A toddler born with eight limbs and believed by some to be the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess Vishnu, is set to undergo a 40-hour operation to remove half of her limbs.

credit:ThisIsLondon

Four Legged Duck

Wis. farmer finds new calf has two noses

From the AP:

Mark Krombholz had to look twice at his new calf, Lucy — one time for each nose. "I didn't notice anything too different about her until I got her in the barn," Krombholz said, "and all of a sudden I went to feed her a bottle of milk, and I thought maybe she'd been kicked in the nose and there were two noses there."

The second, smaller nose sits on top of the first.

"It's a functioning nose because the middle of her second nose, the flap would go in and out when she drank out of the bottle like that," Krombholz said. "It was kind of funny."

Mutant ::: Super strong

Teacher With 'Superhuman Strength' Arrested By Cops

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A high school physical education teacher was relieved of duty Monday after police arrested him over the weekend for allegedly creating a scene outside of a downtown bar and fighting several officers who tried to arrest him.
Police first saw David McCann, 30, standing in front of a bar Saturday at 2 a.m., shirt unbuttoned and yelling he was "Luke Skywalker" at passers-by, according to the incident report. An officer asked him to leave after McCann allegedly got into a verbal confrontation with two women.
McCann then allegedly charged the officer, who sprayed him in the face with an irritant. Two officers tried unsuccessfully to handcuff him as McCann wildly swung his fists, the report says.
The incident further escalated, with McCann continuing to allegedly attack officers after he was repeatedly kicked and struck with a baton. Officers also used a stun gun to attempt to subdue him.
"He continued to attack with super human strength and made no attempt to escape," according to the report.
McCann was finally brought under control when two responding officers struck him three times with a Taser and another hit him four more times with a baton, according to the report.
He was arrested on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence and disorderly conduct. Three officers received bruises and other minor injuries, the incident report said.
The Orange County School District said McCann had worked there for two years, but the district already decided before the arrest not to renew his annual contract for next year.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.

Mutant Baby ::: Super Strong Boy

Reposted from MSNBC but from AP

Genetic mutation turns tot into superboy

4-year-old is first documented human case, scientists say

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:35 p.m. ET June 24, 2004

BOSTON - 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.

The discovery, reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, represents the first documented human case of such a mutation.

Many scientists believe the find could eventually lead to drugs for treating people with muscular dystrophy and other muscle-destroying conditions. And athletes would almost surely want to get their hands on such a drug and use it like steroids to bulk up.

The boy’s mutant DNA segment was found to block production of a protein called myostatin that limits muscle growth. The news comes seven years after researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore created buff “mighty mice” by “turning off” the gene that directs cells to produce myostatin.

“Now we can say that myostatin acts the same way in humans as in animals,” said the boy’s physician, Dr. Markus Schuelke, a professor in the child neurology department at Charite/University Medical Center Berlin. “We can apply that knowledge to humans, including trial therapies for muscular dystrophy.”

Given the huge potential market for such drugs, researchers at universities and pharmaceutical companies already are trying to find a way to limit the amount and activity of myostatin in the body. Wyeth has just begun human tests of a genetically engineered antibody designed to neutralize myostatin.

Dr. Lou Kunkel, director of the genomics program at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of pediatrics and genetics at Harvard Medical School, said success is possible within several years.

“Just decreasing this protein by 20, 30, 50 percent can have a profound effect on muscle bulk,” said Kunkel, who is among the doctors participating in the Wyeth research.

Slow wasting process

Muscular dystrophy is the world’s most common genetic disease. There is no cure and the most common form, Duchenne’s, usually kills before adulthood. The few treatments being tried to slow its progression have serious side effects.

Muscle wasting also is common in the elderly and patients with diseases such as cancer and AIDS.

“If you could find a way to block myostatin activity, you might slow the wasting process,” said Dr. Se-Jin Lee, the Johns Hopkins professor whose team created the “mighty mice.”

Lee said he believes a myostatin blocker also could suppress fat accumulation and thus thwart the development of diabetes. Lee and Johns Hopkins would receive royalties for any myostatin-blocking drug made by Wyeth.

Dr. Eric Hoffman, director of Children’s National Medical Center’s Research Center for Genetic Medicine, said he believes a muscular dystrophy cure will be found, but he is unsure whether it will be a myostatin-blocking drug, another treatment or a combination, because about a dozen genes have some effect on muscles.

He said a mystotatin-blocking drug could help other groups of people, including astronauts and others who lose muscle mass during long stints in zero gravity or when immobilized by illness or a broken limb.

Eventual health problems?

Researchers would not disclose the German boy’s identity but said he was born to a somewhat muscular mother, a 24-year-old former professional sprinter. Her brother and three other close male relatives all were unusually strong, with one of them a construction worker able to unload heavy curbstones by hand.

In the mother, one copy of the gene is mutated and the other is normal; the boy has two mutated copies. One almost definitely came from his father, but no information about him has been disclosed. The mutation is very rare in people.

The boy is healthy now, but doctors worry he could eventually suffer heart or other health problems.

In the past few years, scientists have seen great potential in myostatin-blocking strategies.

Internet marketers have been hawking “myostatin-blocking” supplements to bodybuilders, though doctors say the products are useless and perhaps dangerous.

Some researchers are trying to turn off the myostatin gene in chickens to produce more meat per bird. And several breeds of cattle have natural variations in the gene that, aided by selective breeding, give them far more muscle and less fat than other steer.