Last Minute Xmas Decorations. ☺️😀✨

Teenagers have been teenagers for thousands of years. About 4,000 years ago, a teenager in Mesopotamia faced a problem that is still remarkably easy to understand today: he was fed up with being embarrassed by the clothes he wore. His name was Iddin-Sin, and he decided to do something unexpected he wrote a letter to his mother, Zinu. He inscribed it on a clay tablet using the cuneiform script in the Akkadian language. While tablets from that era typically contain royal decrees, commercial records, or prayers to the gods, this particular tablet holds something far more mundane: a teenage son’s complaint to his mother for failing to send him new clothes. "Iddin-Sin sends the following message: May the gods Shamash, Marduk, and Ilabrat keep you in good health for my sake. Every year, the clothes worn by the young men here get better, yet you let mine get worse year after year. In truth, you persist in making my clothing poorer and scarcer. At a time when wool is consumed in our household as readily as bread, you have provided me with the clothes of a pauper!" (Apparently, his family was doing quite well.) The son of Adad-iddinam whose father is merely an assistant to my own father has two new sets of clothes, while you send only one for me. Even though you gave birth to me and his mother only adopted him, his mother loves him whereas you, you do not love me!" Iddin-Sin’s letter to Zinu is known by its technical designation, TCL 18 111. According to the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, the text is inscribed on a tablet excavated in Larsa, which is now housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

The fascinating and extremely rare congenital malformation syndrome known as ulnar dimelia, commonly called “mirror hand,” defies our usual understanding of human anatomy. This disorder is characterized by the duplication of structures on the ulnar side of the hand, resulting in a hand with two sets of fingers arranged symmetrically, as if one were a mirror image of the other. Unlike a typical hand, where each finger has separate functions and tendons, in cubital dimelia the tendons and muscles may be connected to one another, so that the movement of one finger is accompanied by a “mirror” movement in its counterpart. One of the most notable characteristics is the absence of a normal thumb, which alters typical grasping ability, and the presence of multiple fingers that, although they appear duplicated, often share bone and tendon structures. This pattern differs from simple polydactyly (having extra fingers), since here the duplication forms bilateral symmetry within the same hand. Ulnar dimelia is so rare that very few cases have been reported in the medical literature. Surprising.

When your cat (who has access to the outdoors) brings you “gifts” whether alive or dead this behavior is inherited from its wild ancestors. According to animal behavior experts, it may be a protective instinct toward you, as the cat wants to feed you, or it may mean that the cat feels your home is a safe place where it can store its food securely.