Obese boy taken away from mother

Social workers take obese boy from mother's care

US: An eight-year-old boy who weighs 90kgs has been separated from his family by social workers. The parents have been told that they were not doing enough to bring their child's weight under control.

The Cleveland boy is severely obese and at risk from diseases as diabetes and hypertension, reports Plain Dealer newspaper.

The child has been put in foster care for weight-related issue.

The family lawyer claims the county over reacted and added that the medical problems the boy's at risk of developing are not yet yet 'an imminent danger'.

Learn from Shakespeare, study tells doctors

ENGLAND: Doctors should read up on Shakespeare, according to an unusual medical study that says the Bard was exceptionally skilled at spotting psychosomatic symptoms.

Kenneth Heaton, a doctor at the University of Bristol in western England, trawled through all 42 of Shakespeare's major works and 46 genre-matched works by contemporaries.

He found Shakespeare stood out for his ability to link physical symptoms and mental distress.

Vertigo, giddiness or dizziness is expressed by five male characters in the throes of emotional disturbance, in The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI Part 1, Cymbeline, and Troilus and Cressida.

Eleven instances of breathlessness linked to extreme emotions are found in Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Rape of Lucrece, Venus and Adonis and Troilus and Cressida.

Grief or distress is conveyed through symptoms of fatigue in Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Richard II and Henry IV Part 2.
Disturbed hearing at a time of mental crisis crops up in King Lear, Richard II and King John.

Meanwhile, coldness and faintness, emblematic of deep shock, occur in Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Richard III and elsewhere.

"Shakespeare's perception that numbness and enhanced sensation can have a psychological origin seems not to have been shared by his contemporaries, none of whom included such phenomena in the works examined," Dr Heaton observes.

Shakespeare can help doctors today who face patients whose physical state masks underlying emotional problems, he suggests.

"Many doctors are reluctant to attribute physical symptoms to emotional disturbance, and this results in delayed diagnosis, overinvestigation, and inappropriate treatment," Dr Heaton points out.

"They could learn to be better doctors by studying Shakespeare. This is important because the so-called functional symptoms are the leading cause of general practitioner visits and of referrals to specialists."

The study appears today in a British publication, the Journal of Medical Humanities. 

Elderly couple reunited, thanks to a Facebook campaign

PHILIPPINES: Luis Matias 78-year-old grandpa went missing in Philippines for two weeks. Aurelia Matias, 73, had almost given up finding her husband, an Alzeihmer patient, back, reported Herald Sun (https://bit.ly/teBDiS).

A Facebook user found Aurelia sitting on a street corner with a missing person poster of her husband stuck on her back. The sympathetic user, uploaded the image on his profile page and and it went viral on the internet. The post was shared by 61,000 users.

Within the next two days, Luis was found near his home in Manila when a passerby tipped out a radio station.

Vending machine offers DIY banners at airport

AMSTERDAM: Ever wanted to meet and greet your loved ones at the airport to be sure they don't miss you in the crowds?

Then try Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, which now has the world's first vending machine capable of printing out personalized giant canvas banners in just a few minutes.

You can pick your message, whether that is "Missed you Mummy," "I love you," "Will you marry me?," or anything else that makes you stand out from the crowd, choose the font and background design, pay between four and 15 euros ($19.98)depending on the length of the banner, and hit the button.

"We came up with the idea because when we were at the airport we'd see all these people welcoming their friends and family with their own banners made of bed sheets and we thought what a hassle using sheets, wouldn't it just be easier to make the banner at the airport," BannerXpress's co-founder Thibaud Bruna told Reuters Thursday.

Bruna's first machine, which was three years in the making, made its debut at Schiphol Thursday. If the waterproof banners prove popular, he hopes to install the vending machines in other locations.

"We hope have them in other airports, but also in stadiums for sporting and music events," Bruna said.

Nike creates jacket based on Ibra's tattoos

EUROPE: Zlatan Ibrahimovic has inspired sportswear manufacturer Nike to create a jacket based on the tattoos on the Sweden and AC Milan forward's upper body.

"Tattoos are an art form and were very suitable for this project," Nike Nordic PR manager Jeannette Francke told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

"It's a very personal jacket."

Ibrahimovic will get to keep one of the four jackets made with another going on display in a store in the Swedish capital Stockholm.

"To get a jacket like this is both unexpected and fun," said the striker.

The last two will go on display in Amsterdam, where Ibrahimovic once played for Ajax, and fashion capital Milan, both of whose clubs he has represented.

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