In several regions of the African nation of Cameroon, parents try to keep maturing daughters off the market by “ironing” their breasts — pressing them with heated stones and leaves to make them flatter and the girls thus less desirable for sex.
The practice reached world media (and News of the Weird) in 2006 as part of a condemnation campaign by the United Nations, but apparently it continues unabated, according to new videos circulated this year and described in The Washington Post.
According to that writer, who interviewed numerous health officials in Cameroon, the practice apparently has little effect, in that the teenage pregnancy rate remains very high.
They just want
to get a-head
Alcor Life Extension Foundation makes the news regularly, as family dysfunctions occur when someone buys a contract to have his head frozen upon death so that someday, if the science advances, he can be thawed and brought back to life.
Typically, survivors with little faith in science prefer a more dignified disposal, as was the case with David Richardson, who had his brother Orville buried in February, 2009 despite Orville’s $53,500 Alcor contract.
Most such disputes are raised and decided pre-death or contemporaneous with death, but Alcor appealed an original Iowa court decision in David’s favor, and in May, 2010, the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed, ordering Orville dug up.
Alcor promotion materials say that, for best results, the head should be frozen 15 minutes after the heart stops beating.