Day: January 9, 2008

Celebrity geeks

Cracked.com routinely cranks out great articles, and their recent “8 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Geeks” is no exception. I first opened this up (courtesy digg) figuring it would just be of interest to me. But since the first celeb listed is the uber-sexay and even smarter Natalie Portman, I figured I could post here just so I could post an eye-candy pic of Ms. Portman.

natponerd3_clip.jpgWhen Golden Globe winner Natalie Portman was 10 years old, a representative of Revlon found her at a pizza parlor and asked her if she wanted to model. Portman turned her down and said that, all things considered, she would much rather act.

. . .

By the time she got her bachelor’s, she had studied four languages in addition to Hebrew, the language of her birth, had been published in professional science journals twice, killed an ass-load of aliens, and generally made us look like big human-shaped piles of poo. Seriously, when we were 10 years old, we wanted to be doctors or space cowboys or, at the very least, fire fighters. The closest we’ve gotten so far is one of those little shiny red fireman helmets.

I’ve been a fan of hers since watching Léon (aka The Professional for us in the US – which, BTW, is when I became a fan of Jean Reno as well). And I’ve long know she was intelligent. But I had no idea just how brainy she was. Smart, way damn sexy, so, so, so very pretty, and she can deal an alien ass-kicking to make your eyes pop out. And have I mentioned she super hot?

[tags]Natalie Portman, geeks, Stuff I want, Eye Candy[/tags]

Cyst removal

Shelley recently posted this snip about the removal of a parasitic cyst from a young girl’s brain.  She even included a video (which I’m not embedding due to my recent climax-like explosion of video posts) plus a bit of information on the nature of the cyst, the danger of removing, and just what happens to the brain around the cyst after it is removed.

The cyst is a hydatid cyst, which is the result of a parasitic infection by tapeworm larvae(Echinococcus). Generally speaking, it does not occur in the USA, but rather occurs in Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, the southern part of South America, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and southern parts of Africa. The cysts, which are initiated by one larvae, eventually come to house thousands of tapeworm larvae. So it is very important not to rupture the cyst during its removal, else the host could easily die.

I’m normally squeemish in regards to video of medical procedures, but this is just such an interesting procedure.  ScienceBlogs rock.

Now I’m hungry.  Be back after I fix a bite of early lunch.

[tags]Cyst, Parasite, Brain surgery, Hydatid cyst, Shelley, Retrospectacle, ScienceBlogs[/tags]