Real Kato Blog: 2008 April

It's possible to be allergic to water. Sort of. Maybe.

Specifically, there's a very rare condition called aquagenic urticaria (water-related hives) that causes a person's skin to react to water with rashes and blisters.

Supposedly, there was a famous case of this some years ago, where a girl named Heidi Falconer was diagnosed with the problem; she had to be treated with a Swedish foam product that created a waterproof barrier for her skin, so she could do everyday things like taking a shower.

This smells a lot like an urban legend, and there's very little reliable medical information on this condition out there on teh Internets. So I'm not really sure how real this all is. "Aquagenic urticaria" is more of a symptom description than an actual disease, and some suspect that hypersensitivity to chlorine is a more likely cause of the problem than water itself. Also, it doesn't appear to be a histamine reaction, like most allergies. So "allergic to water" might be stretching the truth a little bit.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

Learn Something Every Day

Friday, 2008 April 4 - 1:48 pm

I'm a few days behind with factoids, so I'll post several today.

There's little scientific evidence that drinking 64 ounces of water every day is necessary or beneficial. No one is quite sure where the "8 8-ounce glasses" standard came from, but the new thinking is more like the old thinking: drink when you're thirsty.

The word "disquisition" means "an elaborate analytical or explanatory essay or discussion". I'm not sure if there's a Spanish translation for that word, but then again, NOBODY expects a Spanish disquisition.

There are three elements that begin with the letter "D": dysprosium (Dy), Dubnium (Db) and Darmstadtium (Ds). Of the three, only dysprosium occurs in nature. Also, there are no elements that begin with the letter "W", unless you count "wolfram", which is more commonly known as tungsten (W). These facts may help you if you're trying to name all the elements from memory.

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Posted by Ken in: interesting

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