Odd News
Doctors find spider crawling in woman’s ear
A Spider
A woman went to a clinic after struggling to sleep for days – where doctors found a spider crawling around inside her ear.
The 64-year-old, from Taiwan, felt movement in her left ear for several nights in April, followed by clicking and rustling, before deciding to visit doctors.
Doctors then found a small spider moving around her ear canal upon examination. It had discarded its exoskeleton – otherwise known as its hard body covering – nearby.
Dr Tengchin Wang, director of the otolaryngology department at Tainan Municipal Hospital, told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News doctors then used a tube to suction out the spider and exoskeleton.
He added the woman “didn’t feel pain because the spider was very small” at around two to three millimetres.
But as it was the first case he had seen of an insect moulting inside a human’s ear, he wrote a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr Wang also urged the public to get checked if they have the same symptoms.
Dr David Kasle, a physician at ENT Sinus and Allergy of South Florida, said the image of the insect from Dr Wang’s report was “unusual and disturbing”.
But he added the average ear, nose and throat specialist will see “tens, if not more, of bugs or some sort of arthropod” in patients’ ears over their career.
—Sky News
A message in a bottle launched by visitors to Newfoundland’s Bell Island was found washed up on an Irish beach nearly 13 years later, after apparently crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Kate Gay said she was walking a Dingle Peninsula beach this week when she spotted the wine bottle with a sheet of paper inside.
Gay showed the bottle to members of Creative Ireland NeartnaMacharaí during a meeting at her house that evening, and they broke the bottle open.
The note, written by a couple named Brad and Anita, was dated Sept. 12, 2012. The letter described the couple’s day trip to Bell Island.
There was a phone number on the letter, but there was no answer when group members tried to call.
The Maharees Heritage and Conservation group posted photos of the bottleto social media on Monday, and within an hour group members were messaging with Anita.
Group member Martha Farrell said Anita reported that she and Brad had married in 2016 and are still together to this day. -upi.com
A Spanish woman who has been collecting egg cups for over 50 years earned a Guinness World Record when her collection was tallied at 15,485 items.
María José Fuster recruited two witnesses to help her tally her collection at a community center in her hometown of Campo, Spain.
Fuster’s collection includes multiple patterns, colors, designs and even novelty cups bearing the images of characters including Superman, Betty Boop and Garfield.
Fuster maintains two blogs related to her hobby — one to catalog each piece, and one to list the names of the people who have donated egg cups to her collection.
Some of her most prized egg cups, about 1,143 of them, are currently on display at a local museum.
-upi.com
