Toothbrush injuries

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 2,953 Americans were treated in 2007 for toothbrush-related injuries. The odds a person will visit an emergency department due to an accident involving a toothbrush in a year are 1 in 99,340, making a toothbrush slightly more dangerous on average than a garage door.

So, what injuries might a toothbrush cause? It is an object designed for safety, after all. Today’s designs have reinforced handles to prevent snaps or breaks at stress points, and the long-traditional boar-hair bristles have largely been replaced by nylon filament, which breeds significantly less bacteria.

Still, toothbrushes—typically by dint of slips and falls—can cut gums or cheeks (from pokes), puncture palates or pharynges (from falling or passing out with a toothbrush in one’s mouth), and break teeth.

More details at the Book of Odds, via the New Shelton wet/dry.

Image credit Duncan Wright, via Wikimedia commons, with this notation: "Albatross bolus - undigested matter from the diet such as squid beaks and fish scales. This bolus from a Hawaiian albatross (either a Black-footed Albatross or a Laysan Albatross) has several injested flotsam items, including monofilament from fishing nets and a discarded toothbrush. Injestion of plastic flotsam is an increasing hazard for albatrosses."

Life underground in central Australia

A survey commissioned by the National Geographic Society has identified 850 new invertebrates living underground in the arid central region of Australia. It is believed that these creatures retreated to a subterranean environment about 15 million years ago when the continent's climate changed. They have survived in underground springs, aquifers, and "microcaverns."

Pictured above is a blind cave eel; other blind creatures discovered incude a spider, a fish, and a pseudoscorpion. A gallery of nine photos is available at the National Geographic website. See also related links here.

Photo credit Douglas Elford, Western Australian Museum.

Domestic dispute

I haven't posted anything in the WTF category lately...

Credit Bits and Pieces.

Marigolds for Diwali

"Schoolgirl Bhargavi, 7, arranges garlands made from marigold flowers at a roadside stall on the eve of the Hindu festival of Diwali in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad October 16, 2009. Flowers are offered to Hindu gods and goddesses on the occasion of Diwali, the annual festival of lights that was celebrated across the country on Saturday, October 17th." (REUTERS/Krishnendu Halder)

"October 17th marked the celebration of Diwali among Hindus and other groups around the world. Diwali is also known as the "Festival of Lights" (the name translates as "row of lamps" in Sanskrit). The festival marks the homecoming of Hindu God Rama to Ayodhya after a 14-year exile in the forest following his victory over Ravana, and signifies the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness. Celebrants observe Diwali with fireworks, colorful lanterns, lamps, garlands, sweet treats and worship."

The Big Picture has a photoset of 33 images related to Diwali.

"There's too many pigs for the teats"

So spoke Abraham Lincoln, besieged by officeseekers desiring jobs in the federal government, quoted by Shelby Foote in Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War.

Flammable tap water

This isn't a new event, but today Conservation Report has compiled a number of relevant references.

A paean to bad penmanship

Note from poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich to zoologist Edward S. Morse:

My dear Morse:

It was very pleasant to receive a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don’t think I mastered anything beyond the date, which I knew, and the signature, at which I guessed.

There is a singular and perpetual charm in a letter of yours — it never grows old, and it never loses its novelty. One can say every morning, as one looks at it, “Here’s a letter of Morse’s I haven’t read yet. I think I shall take another shy at it to-day, and maybe I shall be able in the course of a few years to make out what he means by those t’s that look like w’s and those i’s that haven’t any eyebrows.”

Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever–unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.

Admiringly yours,

T.B. Aldrich

(Found at the always-interesting Futility Closet)