CHELM-ON-THE-MED©, MAY 2013 COLUMN 1

DOES IT ROCK?

Is there a Stonehenge-era circular structure submerged just off-shore at the southern end of the Kinneret*?  Sonar revealed a 70 meter circumference 8-10-meter high circular pile of volcanic basalt boulders that archeologists believe** was made by human beings at least 5,000 years ago, during the Bronze Era. That was back in 2003 but the academic community only got around to publishing the find now, in 2013…

            If marine archeologist Dr. Yitzhak Paz from the Antiquities Authority can mobilize the money and personnel to examine the site more closely, it can not only shed light on sacred ceremonies in prehistoric times; the location seems to indicate that, with or without global warming, the Kinneret was once much much smaller or a lot shallower than we think, making it possible, most likely, for anyone to walk on water.

 

* The Sea of Galilee

 

 

BY THE SKIN OF THEIR TEETH

According to a Hebrew adage a very pregnant woman is said to “have her belly between her teeth.”  However, the woman who walked into Kaplan Hospital in Rechovot had something else between her belly and her teeth and wasn’t even close to her 9th month…

            She had swallowed her toothbrush after “trying to relieve an aggravating tickling sensation in her throat by sticking her toothbrush down her gullet…with wet hands, no less,” the mortified lass told Emergency Room staff  Aware that an x-ray was out of the question in her condition, gastroenterologist Dr. Daniel Keter, took her word for it. Under general anesthetic, he managed to locate and ‘lasso’ the wayward brush with a loop-like device.

            Strangely enough, this was not the only case of young sabras swallowing their toothbrushes! 

            Five months earlier, Bat-el Penkar walked into Ramam Hospital in Haifa with the same complaint…only she wasn’t pregnant.  When the plastic toothbrush failed to show up on x-rays, physicians suggested the patient must have imagined it all, and might consider seeing a psychiatrist. Several hours later Penkar had better luck at Carmel Hospital on Mt. Carmel. Having extracted some pretty weird objects from walk-ins’ digestive systems - from batteries to razor blades, staff ordered a CAT scan, which located the 20 centimeter-long toothbrush which by now was precariously-lodged longitudinally in her stomach.

            Gastroenterologist ‘Dr. Uri Segol  ‘fished’ the brush out of her stomach with a special basket-like apparatus before she herself became a basket case, but revealed:  First, he spent 40 minutes ‘practicing’ with his own toothbrush, which Penkar testified was similar in size and shape to her own.

 

 

SKIP THE SPAGHETTI?

Shelve your guilt for feasting on a baked potato or noodles in the evening.  It’s good for dieters!

            Following discovery that drinking Turkish coffee can reduce the havoc to your arteries from eating red meat, Israeli researchers* have discovered that eating carbohydrates in the evening reduces hunger pains the next day and should cause no guilt pangs.   

            The study of three protein hormones that affect appetite found ghrelin that’s responsible for hunger pains (normally high during the day) and leptin that’s responsible for feeling full (normally high during the night), ‘reverse’ the ratio after consuming carbs in the evening.

            So did the subjects raid the frig at 3 am? 

            Apparently not because the conclusion was that to loose weight, one should eat carbs in the late evening before going to bed… Left unexplained was why the six-month study conducted by Professor Emeritus Zecharia Madar and research student Sigal Soffer* used a research population of…78 cops.

           

* from the Hebrew University Faculty of Agriculture’s Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition

 

 

IDF ACE

Iyal Ashchar‘s pay doing his national service in the IDF amounts to a pile of beans: something like 350 NIS ($100)a month! So how does the lowly corporal manage to pay for his cool rooftop apartment just off base?

            Rob a bank? Sell military secrets?

            Nope, when off-duty, the 19-year-old assumes ‘another life’ as…an ace poker player who recently raked in 100,000 NIS ($38,461) in winnings during his rigilah (week of home leave)…spent participating in international poker tournament in southern Europe.   

 

 

A NOT-SO-SIMPLE STORY

Remember the touching 1999 Hollywood flick “The Straight Story.” about the old geezer who sets off on his lawn tractor to visit his estranged and ailing brother who lives 240 miles away in the next state? Well, here’s the sequel.  

             Yoram Doctori decided to commemorate in a unique way the life of his deceased wife Yael Meivar Doctori, who was killed 14 years ago by Palestinian terrorists. The moshavnik from Adanimtraversed the country from the Golan Heights to Eilat on an aging 1966 model Massey Ferguson 135 tractor that Doctori began overhauling five years ago as a form of healing therapy. 

            Last spring Doctori hit the road, 12 hours a day doing an average of 22 kilometers per hour, sleeping along the way in the homes of his reserve unit buddies and recalling Yael’s story to friends and countless total strangers he met on his 1,360 kilometer week-long journey, which was a form of closure. 

            Today, he has a new life partner and is the father of a 10-month-old baby.