Slashdot Mirror
NTT DoCoMo Debuts Credit Card Phone
Scott S. writes "NTT DoCoMo Unveils its new phone allowing a simply wave to pay for items at the supermarket, rent movies, get airplane tickets and more. The i-mode FeliCa serves as a "mobile wallet" that detects weak electronic signals from a reader/writer and can be used when the phone is off. Credit card phones have been an idea in the past and leave it to the Japanese to make one."
True.
Origins: Although we can see a tremendous amount of variety in the plant and animal life all around us -- both within and between species -- many of us still find extremes in variety among human beings somewhat disconcerting. While an extraordinarily large dog or a cat with an unusually long tail may be regarded as nothing more than a momentarily interesting curiosity or a source of amusement, people who exhibit one of the extremes in human development -- whether it be in intelligence, height, weight, or some other feature -- have long struggled to avoid being identified as "freaks."
Perhaps the most discomfiting record of this nature involves the youngest person ever to give birth, reputedly a five-year-old girl -- not only because such a record posits that a child barely of kindergarten age (presumably involuntarily) underwent an experience we associate with physical and psychological maturity, but also because it implies the commission of an act now considered to be nothing less than child molestation.
Regardless of our squeamishness, we have to note that the claim of a five-year-old girl giving birth is apparently true. Her name was Lina Medina, a Peruvian girl from the Andean village of Ticrapo who made medical history when she gave birth to a boy by caesarean section in May 1939 at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days. Lina's parents initially thought their daughter had a large abdominal tumor, but after they took her to a hospital in the town of Pisco physicians confirmed that her abdominal swelling was due to pregnancy. Linda was eventually transferred to a hospital in Lima, where she delivered a six-pound baby boy by Cesarean section on 14 May 1939 (coincidentally the date on which Mother's Day was celebrated that year). Lina's father was temporarily jailed on suspicion of incest, but he was released for a lack of evidence and authorities were never able to determine who fathered Lina's child.
Lina's incredible story was documented in contemporaneous reports by Edmundo Escomel, one of Peru's preeminent physician-researchers of the period and a laureate of the prestigious French Academy of Sciences. Escomel's first correspondence to the editors of La Presse Medicale1 (which is undated but appeared in the 13 May 1939 issue) noted that Lina first came to the attention of Dr. Gérado Lozada, chief physician of the Hospital of Pisco, when she appeared at that hospital in early April 1939 for evaluation of what was assumed to be a massive abdominal tumor.
It soon became obvious to the stunned Lozada, however, that the little girl was pregnant. A medical history revealed that she had been having regular periods since age 3, but that she had stopped menstruating for the past 7½ months. Additionally, she had fully developed breasts. Further examination revealed a fetal heartbeat, and an X-ray confirmed the pregnancy. Escomel stated that Lozada had submitted a report about the case to the Academy of Medicine in Lima.
Escomel's announcement2 (dated 20 May 1939) that Lina had delivered a baby boy (on 14 May) appeared in the 31 May issue of La Presse Medicale. In addition to amending the age at which Lina began menstruating (to an incredible 8 months), Escomel submitted a photograph of the gravid 5½-year-old:
Lina Medina
At the end of his piece Escomel noted with some sadness that no one had yet discovered the identity of the father since Lina "couldn't give precise responses." He also stressed the importance of getting adequate care for the little girl.
Escomel's final report3 was published in the 19 December 1939 issue of La Presse Medicale. He commented on a biopsy of one of Lina's ovaries performed on a sample removed at the time of the Cesarean section and provided photomicrographs of the stained tissue sections. In the end, pathologists pronounced Lina to have the ovaries of a fully mature woman. Escomel posited that the reason behind her precocious fertility could not lie in the ovaries themselves but must have ste
what in blue blazes were the voters thinking? how he won a gold glove is beyond me
sup