Look What I Can Pull out of my Mouth

This week we'll take a look at various things passing through various mouths.

First off, as of late I've noticed a pretty cool trend in the medical field - surgeons are using the oral cavity as an entry/exit to the abdomen in general, thus avoiding those unsightly post-op abdomen scars.  Recently at UCSD, surgeons utilized NOTES (Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery) to remove a gallbladder.  Very minute incisions were still made in the abdomen for a camera and light, but the organ was removed via the mouth.

NOTES has also been used at the UCSD medical center to perform a sleeve gastrectomy.  Basically, 80% of an obese lady's stomach was removed in order to help her feel full after eating less.  My recommendation?  Just imagine 80% of your stomach being removed through your mouth right before dinner and you'll lose your appetite without having to go through this procedure. 

Read more from the LA times and foxnews.com.

Our next story comes to us from Svalbard, which, surprisingly is NOT the name of a piece of quaint, affordable furniture from Ikea, but rather a place in Norway where Arctic explorer Sebastian Nissen recently awoke to discover his head INSIDE the mouth of a polar bear.  Gadzooks!  Either that bear was very gentle (or sneaky like a ninja) or Sebastien was a little to wasted to be off exploring the Arctic.  (Or maybe "exploring the Arctic" is just what the Norwegians call getting drunk in the wilderness).

Either way, the only insights we have into this episode are that Sebastian awoke, head in mouth, the bear then stood up, and Sebastian's friend shot the bear dead.  During the estimated 60 seconds spent inside the bear's mouth, our hero reached for his shotgun only to find that the bear had wisely snapped the weapon in half.  Again, I'm not sure if this supports the theory that the bear was a clever ninja or that Sebastian was drunk off his ÅNES.  (That actually is a piece of furniture from Ikea). 

Story from CBS.com

Lastly, here's a clip of the guy every dentist dreams about while extracting wisdom teeth or performing second-molar root canal therapy.  The guy with the flip-top head:




I could imagine this guy waking up to find his head inside of his own mouth.