US frequent flyer reaches 10 million miles

It took Thomas Stuker 29 years to reach the milestone with United Airlines

 

A US businessman has been rewarded for his loyalty to one single airline company after accumulating 10 million air miles.

Thomas Stuker, a sales consultant, reached the milestone after a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago.
He has boarded 5,962 United Airlines flights and flown the equivalent of 400 times around the globe.
As a reward he will never have to queue at airports, always get upgraded and has even had a plane named after him.
Flying evolution Mr Stuker reached the milestone after arriving to his native Chicago on Saturday.

It took him 19 years to accumulate his first five million miles and another 10 years to double the mileage.

"So we figure that we're going to be here in five years when you hit 15 million miles, because you're cutting it in half every time," Martin Hand, United's Vice-President of Customer Experience, was quoted as saying by NBC.
Before boarding the flight to Chicago, Mr Stuker admitted that many years ago he was scared to death of flying.
"I couldn't get on an aircraft, it really bothered me," he told America's National Public Radio.
"But now it's evolved to a time where if I go a week without a flight something's not right."
Mr Stuker has now enough reward points through the airlines' frequent flyer programme to take several foreign holidays a year - assuming he can find the time.
A few years ago George Clooney played the role of a man who had achieved the same feat in the film Up In The Air.

Eighty million years without sex

Asexual organisms are usually short-lived

The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists.
A Cambridge team says the creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for its prolonged celibacy.
Many asexual organisms have died out because they cannot adapt to changes in the natural world.
But an evolutionary trick allows this pond-dweller to survive when conditions change, researchers report in Science.


The animal is a tiny invertebrate known as a bdelloid rotifer. It lives in freshwater pools. If deprived of water, it survives in a desiccated state until water becomes available again.
The secret to this novel survival mechanism lies in a twist of asexual reproduction, whereby the animal is able to make two separate proteins from two different copies of a key gene.
Prolonged celibacy
Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, who led the research, said his team had been able to show for the first time that gene copies in asexual animals can have different functions.
"It's particularly exciting that we've found different, but complementary, functions in genes which help bdelloid rotifers survive desiccation," he explained.
"Evolution of gene function in this way can't happen in sexual organisms, which means there could be some benefit to millions of years without sex after all."
The researchers discovered that two copies of a particular gene, known as LEA, in the asexual pond-dweller are different - giving rise to proteins with separate functions that protect the animal during dehydration.
One copy stops other essential protein molecules from clumping together as the animal dries out, while the second copy helps to maintain the fragile membranes that surround the creature's cells.
Genetic diversity
Humans and most other types of organism reproduce sexually. The union of sperm and eggs results in two copies (or a pair) of genetic instructions within a cell, one copy inherited from each parent.
This produces two nearly identical copies of each gene in each cell, and therefore two nearly identical proteins.
The "re-shuffling" of genetic material over many generations allows sexual animals to adapt to changes in their natural environment.
In contrast, many asexual organisms have died out because their rigid genetic make-up means they are unable to adapt in this way.
The latest discovery explains why the bdelloids have likely escaped this fate with their mechanism for generating genetic diversity in the absence of sexual reproduction.
The study reported in Science magazine was conducted on a species of bdelloid rotifer known as Adineta ricciae.

Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant

 

The replacement windpipe was grown in the lab

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.

Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.
Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.
The 36-year-old cancer patient is doing well a month after the operation.
Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Italy led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital.
In an interview , he said he now hopes to use the technique to treat a nine-month-old child in Korea who was born with a malformed windpipe or trachea.
Professor Macchiarini already has 10 other windpipe transplants under his belt - most notably the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on 30-year-old Spanish woman Claudia Costillo - but all required a donor.
Indistinguishable The key to the latest technique is modelling a structure or scaffold that is an exact replica of the patient's own windpipe, removing the need for a donor organ.
To do this he enlisted the help of UK experts who were given 3D scans of the 36-year-old African patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene. The geology student currently lives in Iceland where he is studying for a PhD.
Using these images, the scientists at University College London were able to craft a perfect copy of Mr Beyene's trachea and two main bronchi out of glass.
This was then flown to Sweden and soaked in a solution of stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow.
After two days, the millions of holes in the porous windpipe had been seeded with the patient's own tissue.
Dr Alex Seifalian and his team used this fragile structure to create a replacement for the patient, whose own windpipe was ravaged by an inoperable tumour.
Despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer had grown to the size of a golf ball and was blocking his breathing. Without a transplant he would have died.
During a 12-hour operation Professor Macchiarini removed all of the tumour and the diseased windpipe and replaced it with the tailor-made replica.
The bone marrow cells and lining cells taken from his nose, which were also implanted during the operation, were able to divide and grow, turning the inert windpipe scaffold into an organ indistinguishable from a normal healthy one.
And, importantly, Mr Beyene's body will accept it as its own, meaning he will not need to take the strong anti-rejection drugs that other transplant patients have to.
Professor Macchiarini said this was the real breakthrough.
"Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week.
"This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation."
He said many other organs could be repaired or replaced in the same way.
A month on from his operation, Mr Beyene is still looking weak, but well.
Sitting up in his hospital bed, he said: "I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die."
He says he is looking forward to getting back to Iceland to finish his studies and then returning to his home in Eritrea where he will be reunited with his wife and young family, and meet his new three-month-old child.
He says he is eternally grateful to the medical team that has saved his life.

The Mexican criminal who packed in too much

Mexican police foiled a prison inmate's attempt to escape folded inside a suitcase. How is that possible?

Inmate Juan Ramirez Tijerina curled inside a suitcase after he tried to escape from prison.
No wonder Mexican police were gobsmacked when they found an inmate trying to break out of prison – he was folded inside his partner's suitcase. Juan Ramirez Tijerina was found squashed up and wearing only his socks and underwear by officers suspicious after noticing the bulkiness of his girlfriend's wheelie case. But he's not the only criminal with baggage. A flexible 1.78m-tall thief repeatedly hid in a 90cm by 50cm wheelie bag to steal from tourists on a bus route in Spain recently. But how do you pack yourself so small? According to the Guinness Book of Records, American performer Leslie Tipton can be holiday-ready in just 5.43 seconds. While professional contortionist Rubber Ritchie from agency Contraband International can become a carry-on in just 30 seconds. He started his flexible career 10 years ago, after buying a book about yoga at university, and offers his top tips on how to stuff yourself into a suitcase (kids: don't try this at home!): 1 If you want to make ends meet, buy the biggest suitcase you can. I am quite an average-sized man, and not as small as most contortionists. My shoulders are quite broad so they are the biggest problem – you just have to try to curve them round as best you can. 2 Lie the suitcase flat on the floor and open it up completely. 3 Stand in one corner and lower yourself down until you are squatting into a foetal position, then lie on your side. 4 Tuck your head in and try to scrunch yourself up. Keep your arms and hands inside your bent torso – you could try putting them across your chest. 5 Get someone to zip you up. Don't do this all the way as you need some air in there. To be honest it's terrifying to be in there even for a minute, really claustrophobic. 6 There is another hazard that should stop you trying this at home – if you have ever been to a yoga class you know that any foetal position will release wind. Not great in an enclosed space.

Unnecessary Body Parts

We have a number of body parts that are, well, useless. Here are some facts about the body parts we don’t actually need.

38. Coccyx: This collection of fused vertebrae have no purpose these days, although scientists believe it’s what’s left of the mammal tail humans used to have. It may be useless, but when you break your coccyx, it’s still painful.
39. Pinkie toe: There is speculation that since we no longer have to run for our dinner, and we wear sneakers, the pinkie toe’s evolutionary purpose is disappearing — and maybe the pinkie itself will go the way of the dodo.
40. Wisdom teeth: This third set of molars is largely useless, doing little beyond crowding the mouth and sometimes causing pain.
41. Vomeronasal organ: There are tiny (and useless) chemoreceptors lining the inside of the nose.
42. Most body hair: While facial hair serves some purposes, the hair found on the rest of body is practically useless and can be removed with few ill effects.
43. Female vas deferens: A cluster of dead end tubules near the ovaries are the remains of what could have turned into sperm ducts.
44. Male Uterus: Yeah, men have one too — sort of. The remains of this undeveloped female reproductive organ hangs on one side of the male prostate gland
45. Appendix: Yep, your appendix is basically useless. While it does produce some white blood cells, most people are fine with an appendectomy.

Musculoskeletal System

Find out what you didn’t know about your muscles and bones.

31. Bones can self-destruct: It is possible for your bones to destruct without enough calcium intake.
32. You are taller in the morning: Throughout the day, the cartilagebetween your bones is compressed, making you about 1 cm shorter by day’s end.
33. 1/4 of your bones are in your feet: There are 26 bones in each foot, meaning that the 52 bones in account for 25 percent of your body’s 206 bones.
34. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile: Scientists can’t agree on the exact number, but more muscles are required to frown than to smile.
35. When you take a step, you are using up to 200 muscles: Walking uses a great deal of musclepower — especially if you take your 10,000 steps.
36. Your tongue is the strongest muscle in your body: Compared to its size, the tongue is thestrongest muscle. But I doubt you’ll be lifting weights with it.
37. Bone can be stronger than steel: Once again, this is a pound for pound comparison, since steel is denser and has a higher tensile strength.

Body Functions

The things our bodies do are often strange and sometimes gross. Here are some weird facts about the way your body functions.

24. Earwax is necessary: If you want healthy ears, you need some earwax in there.
25. Your feet can produce a pint of sweat a day: There are 500,000 (250,000 for each) sweat glands in your feet, and that can mean a great deal of stinky sweat.
26. Throughout your life, the amount of saliva you have could fill two swimming pools: Since saliva is a vital part of digestion, it is little surprise that your mouth makes so much of it.
27. A full bladder is about the size of a soft ball: When your bladder is full, holding up to 800 cc of fluid, it is large enough to be noticeable.
28. You probably pass gas 14 times a day: On average, you will expel flatulence several times as part of digestion.
29. A sneeze can exceed 100 mph: When a sneeze leaves your body, it does so at high speeds — so you should avoid suppressing it and causing damage to your body.
30. Coughs leave at 60 mph: A cough is much less dangerous, leaving the body at 60 mph. That’s still highway speed, though.