Imagine losing control over everything. You can’t move on your own. You can’t scratch an itch. And worse still, you can’t tell anyone around you that you have an itch. You can feel pain, hunger, loneliness, and fear, but you can’t react to those sensations. You are totally aware of your surroundings, but you can’t communicate your feelings or desires, or even your basic needs. The term for this horror is locked-in syndrome . Someone with locked-in syndrome suffers from paralysis of all voluntary muscles except for those that move the eyes. This can be caused by neurological disease such as ALS, strokes, injuries to the brain stem, or drug overdose. The term locked-in syndrome has only been in use since the 1960s. Before that, people who suffered such traumatic injuries generally died from them, or else they were considered to be brain damaged. Here are the stories of eight people who have lived this nightmare.
Julia Tavalaro
One of the dangers of lock...
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Cursing God: Mark RothkoFrom: mentalfloss.com
Post Date: 2008-09-25 18:30:05
Today marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of Mark Rothko (1903-1970), a Latvian-American artist who believed “pictures must be miraculous.” In honor of Rothko, and at the request of reader nikki, today we’ll take a look at Rothko’s life and art. (Shown above is his 1938 “Entrance to Subway,” part of his Subway Scenes series.)
1. Mark Rothko was born Marcus Rothkowitz to a highly-educated family fluent in Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew. At the age...
more Students + LittleBigPlanet + 24 Hours = AmazingFrom: mentalfloss.com
Post Date: 2008-09-25 10:55:59
What can a team of design students create in just 24 hours? How about a complete video game level, crammed with animation, danger, and innovative art?
Last weekend, students from New York City’s slightly awkwardly-named Parsons The New School for Design divided themselves into teams to design levels for an upcoming PlayStation 3 game called LittleBigPlanet . In the game, the player controls a little “sackboy” (with what appears to be a hacky sack for a head) as ...
more Subterranean Rivers of Note: the River FleetFrom: mentalfloss.com
Post Date: 2008-09-25 10:17:06
I have a weird fascination with underground rivers, be they natural, man-made, or just plain awesome. In a recent post about phobias, many people expressed fear of things lurking beneath murky bodies of water; what could be darker, or stranger or scarier than something lurking in a body of water that is itself lurking underground? There are many in the world: here’s one of our favorites.
London’s River Fleet
The largest of the so-called “lost” tributaries of the Tham...
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