Bits and Bites > A Little Rapunzel in Dubai; Neanderthal Families of Southern Siberia

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Rapunzel Syndrome: Rat-shaped hair ball retrieved from five-year-old

Dubai girl’s intestine

In a rare condition, Indian expat girl used to ‘ingest hair strands when she was a baby’

Published:  October 27, 2022 09:37

Sajila Saseendran, Senior Reporter

Gulf News

  

Dubai: In a rare medical condition named Rapunzel Syndrome, a rat-shaped ball of hair — 20cm long and 4cm thick — was recently removed from the small intestine of a five-year-old schoolgirl in Dubai.

When KG student Diya Rajesh complained of stomach pain on October 15, her mother Mahalakshmi Rajesh thought her daughter had not yet completely recovered from the viral fever she had suffered three weeks ago following a bout of vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain.

However, along with acute abdominal pain this time, she kept vomiting in greenish yellow colour for three days. When the pain did not subside even after three days of symptomatic treatment from a clinic, Diya was rushed to NMC Royal Hospital in Dubai Investment Park, where doctors diagnosed her with Rapunzel Syndrome and retrieved a rat-shaped ball of hair from her small intestine.

Only few such cases have been reported in world medical literature, said Dr Venkatesh M Annigeri, a consultant paediatric surgeon whose team treated Diya.

The syndrome

The syndrome is named after the fairy-tale character Rapunzel who was known for her long hair. However, the condition is caused by the habit of eating or ingesting hair, usually found in young women.

On clinical examination after her admission in the emergency department, Dr Annigeri said Diya was diagnosed to have acute intestinal obstruction (complete block in the small bowel).

“With abdominal ultrasound and Contrast Enhanced Computerised Tomography [CECT], the child was diagnosed with a rare clinical condition — primary small bowel trichobezoar — which was causing acute intestinal obstruction,” he added.

He said trichobezoar or concretion of hair refers to a mass of hair accumulated within the gastrointestinal tract.

Rat-shaper-hair-ball-retrieved-from-the-small-intestine-of-Diya-1666849050408

Rare in young age

After an emergency abdominal surgery that lasted for an hour, the rat-shaped hair chunk was removed from Diya’s small bowel on October 18.

“It is a rare clinical entity. Over 90 per cent of trichobezoars are found in young women and girls between 15 and 20 years of age. Our case is very rare due to her very young age.”

Dr Annigeri said a trichobezoar occurs mainly in association with a psychiatric disorder affecting usually young women, having the tendency of pulling out their own hair (trichotillomania) and eating it (trichophagia), which then remains undigested in the stomach.

“Stomach is the common site of occurrence. Primary small bowel bezoar without associated gastric bezoar like in our case is very rare,” he pointed out.

How did Diya get it?

Speaking to Gulf News, Diya’s mother Mahalakshmi said her child had suffered from the hair-ingesting syndrome only when she was a baby.

“That was when she was six-seven months or so,” she said. Mahalakshmi said she was aware of pica disorder in babies due to which they eat non-food items.

“We had noticed that she was picking up hair from the floor and eating. I had to keep cleaning the house three-four times a day. She used to go under the cot and find out some strands of hair. By the time I catch hold of her, she would have swallowed it,” she recollected.

Mahalakshmi said she was hoping that things would be normal when Diya starts having solid food. And it did. “She stopped that habit when she started eating food after some months.”

However, she never expected that her child had ingested such a huge concretion of hair. “She did not know she had this syndrome. When she grew, she loved growing her hair and she doesn’t like to cut her long hair now. So, it was a big shock to us,” she added.

First 'concrete picture' of Neanderthal family revealed by DNA

Researchers focus on multiple Neanderthal remains found in the caves in southern Siberia

Published:  October 19, 2022 23:18

AFP

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal father and his daughter is seen in this undated handout photo provided by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Image Credit: REUTERS

Paris: The original Flintstones? The largest genetic study of Neanderthals ever conducted has offered an unprecedented snapshot of a family, including a father and his teenage daughter, who lived in a Siberian cave around 54,000 years ago.

The new research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, used DNA sequencing to look at the social life of a Neanderthal community, finding that women were more likely to stray from the cave than men.

Previous archaeological excavations have shown that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than once thought, burying their dead and making elaborate tools and ornaments.

However little is known about their family structure or how their society was organised.

The sequencing of the first Neanderthal genome in 2010, which won Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Paabo the medicine Nobel prize earlier this month, offered a new way to discover more about our long-extinct forerunners.

An international team of researchers focused on multiple Neanderthal remains found in the Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves in southern Siberia.

The scattered fragments of bones were mostly in a single layer in the earth, suggesting the Neanderthals lived around the same time.

"First we had to identify how many individuals we had," Stephane Peyregne, an evolutionary geneticist at Germany's Max Planck Institute and one of the study's co-authors, told AFP.

'Seem much more human'

The team used new techniques to extract and isolate the ancient DNA from the remains.

By sequencing the DNA, they established there were 13 Neanderthals, seven males and six females. Five of the group were children or early adolescents.

Eleven were from the Chagyrskaya cave, many of them from the same family including the father and his teenage daughter, as well as a young boy and a woman who were second-degree relatives, such as a cousin, aunt or grandmother.

The researchers also worked out that one man was a maternal relative of the father because he had a genetic phenomenon called heteroplasmy, which only passes down a couple of generations.

In this photo provided by Bence Viola, researchers excavate a cave in the mountains of Siberia, Russia.

Image Credit: AP

"Our study provides a concrete picture of what a Neandertal community may have looked like," Max Planck's Benjamin Peter, who supervised the research along with Paabo, said in a statement.

"It makes Neandertals seem much more human to me," he added.

Genetic analysis showed that the group did not interbreed with its nearby relatives such as humans and Denisovans, hominins discovered by Paabo in caves just a few hundred kilometres away.

However we know that Neanderthals did breed with homo sapiens at some point - Paabo's research also revealed that almost all modern humans have a little Neanderthal DNA.

Except Africans!

Rampant inbreeding

The community of around 10 to 20 Neanderthals seems to have instead bred largely among themselves, displaying very little genetic diversity, the study found.

Neanderthals existed between 430,000 to 40,000 years ago, so this group was living in the twilight of its species.

This photo provided by Bence Viola shows the Chagyrskaya Cave area in Siberia, Russia. Image Credit: AP

The study compared the community's level of inbreeding to endangered mountain gorillas. Another explanation for the inbreeding could be that the Neanderthals lived in an isolated region.

"We are probably dealing with a very subdivided population," Peyregne said.

The researchers found that the group's Y-chromosomes, which are inherited from father to son, were far less diverse than its mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from mothers.

This suggests that the women travelled more frequently to interact and breed with different groups of Neanderthals, while the men largely stayed home.

Travelled!???!! Does that mean something like kidnapped?

Antoine Balzeau, a palaeoanthropologist at France's National Museum of Natural History, said that fossils found in the Sidron Cave in Spain prompted suggestions of a similar Neanderthal community there, but far less complete genetic material is available.

Balzeau, who was not involved in the latest study, said it was "a very interesting technical feat".

But "it will have to be compared with other groups" of Neanderthals, he added.

Love, Marriage & Divorce in 15 Minutes in the Gulf States

Groom divorces bride 15 minutes into marriage

Gulf News
Bassam Za'za', Legal and Court Correspondent

Dubai: The marriage between a couple lasted less than 15 minutes following a misunderstanding between the groom and his father-in-law, who was in a rush to collect his daughter’s bride price.

The newly-married man divorced his wife within 15 minutes after signing the marriage contract after he felt demeaned by his father-in-law who did not want to wait for him to bring part of the agreed-upon money from his parked car.

The man was believed to have an agreement with the bride’s father to pay Dh100,000 (about $27,000 USD) for the marriage and mention the amount in the contract, an Arabic news report said on Tuesday.

According to the father-husband agreement, the man was supposed to pay Dh50,000 at the time of signing the contract inside the Sharia judge’s office and the remaining amount upon leaving the court building.

Family members and friends accompanied the bride and the groom to the Sharia judge’s office to witness the signing of the marriage contract.

The groom paid the bride’s father Dh50,000 in the judge’s office at the time of signing, according to the news report, and as the bride, groom and attendees walked out, the bride’s father asked his son-in-law to pay the rest.

The groom asked his father-in-law to wait for a few minutes and assured him that the other Dh50,000 was in his car.

The woman’s father insisted the groom pay up immediately, even though the groom told him that he would get the money within five minutes after leaving the court building.

The father-in-law then told the man to send a relative or friend to get the money, a lawyer who is handling the case confirmed to Gulf News on Tuesday.

The lawyer, who wished not to be named, added, “The groom felt insulted and demeaned by his father-in-law. He told the bride’s father that he did not want his daughter as his wife and divorced her in less than 15 minutes from signing the marriage contract.”

I wonder if that was the real story? I wonder if the bride's father suspected that the groom would run off with the bride without paying the remaining Dh50,000? In fact, I would bet money that such was the case which just goes to show you what kind of man the father was selling his daughter to. I presume the father kept the first Dh50,000. 

UAE Starts Air-Bridge to Supply Syrian Refugees as Winter Storm Hits, but...

Syrian children gather outside their tents at a refugee camp in Deir Zannoun village, Bekaa valley, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015. A snow storm is expected to hit Lebanon affecting Syrian refugees, many of whom live in tents without heating. The government estimates there are about 1.5 million Syrians in Lebanon, about one-quarter of the total population.

This is a great thing for the UAE to be doing and they should be applauded. However, it would have been better if they had started last week and it would be much better if the airplanes were not returning to Abu Dhabi and Dubai empty.

ABU DHABI: President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has directed the immediate start of an airbridge to send relief materials, including blankets, winter clothes and food supplies, to hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, in addition to those affected in Gaza and other Palestine regions.

With temperature dropping below zero, the entire Levant is set to be hit by a heavy snowstorm that will bring heavy rain, hail and snow in the coming days.

Shaikh Khalifa said: “The UAE will remain committed to its humanitarian message and continue to be a global humanitarian capital and a major hub for helping those in need."

He added: "To alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands of refugees during this winter is a moral obligation, an Islamic duty, driven by truly Emirati values that our founding fathers have instilled in all of us.”

The President has invited all organisations and national bodies in the UAE to participate in this nationwide campaign that aims to involve all citizens and residents to contribute to alleviating the suffering of refugees during the harsh winter.

Ankara, Turkey, Jan 6, 2015

He said: “The sons of the UAE are the sons of good and generous Zayed. We invite all our citizens and residents to participate in this national campaign to aid our refugee brothers and sisters suffering from harsh winter conditions in the Levant.”

Urgent relief
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has also directed those concerned to immediately start the airbridge to transport urgent relief shipments.

Shaikh Mohammad said: “The UAE, under the leadership of His Highness Shaikh Khalifa, has been and will always remain a great supporter of refugees, never abandoning its humanitarian obligations and duties under any circumstances.”

Shaikh Mohammad added: “We cannot forget all the humanitarian causes that Shaikh Khalifa stands for. His compassion towards suffering people has always inspired the people of the UAE, and his efforts to be the first to help other nations in times of need has granted the UAE global respect and appreciation.”

Shaikh Mohammad has also directed the formation of a special work force from the Emirates Red Crescent, Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment, the International Humanitarian City, and Dubai Cares.

Effective immediately, the work force is to start transporting urgent aid packages to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, in addition to those affected by the weather in Palestine and Gaza.

Dubai - Built by Slaves Living in Obscene Conditions, Trapped for Life

A snippet of an article about Dubai from the Independent, written by Dr. Subramanian Swamy:

Dr. Subramanian Swamy is a very influential writer, politician and economist in India. He frequently comments on foreign affairs.

There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here.

They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?

These living conditions remind me of the old walled city of Hong Kong.
Arguably the worst slum in the world until it was torn down in 1993-94.

Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says.

Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised.

If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.

Sahinal was in a panic. His family back home – his son, daughter, wife and parents – were waiting for money, excited that their boy had finally made it. But he was going to have to work for more than two years just to pay for the cost of getting here – and all to earn less than he did in Bangladesh.

He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. 

The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp – holes in the ground – are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is "unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night." At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.

The walled city of Kowloon, Hong Kong

The water delivered to the camp in huge white containers isn't properly desalinated: it tastes of salt. "It makes us sick, but we have nothing else to drink," he says.

The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."

He is currently working on the 67th floor of a shiny new tower, where he builds upwards, into the sky, into the heat. He doesn't know its name. In his four years here, he has never seen the Dubai of tourist-fame, except as he constructs it floor-by-floor.

Is he angry? He is quiet for a long time. "Here, nobody shows their anger. You can't. You get put in jail for a long time, then deported." Last year, some workers went on strike after they were not given their wages for four months. The Dubai police surrounded their camps with razor-wire and water-cannons and blasted them out and back to work.

The "ringleaders" were imprisoned. I try a different question: does Sohinal regret coming? All the men look down, awkwardly. "How can we think about that? We are trapped. If we start to think about regrets..." He lets the sentence trail off. Eventually, another worker breaks the silence by adding: "I miss my country, my family and my land. We can grow food in Bangladesh. Here, nothing grows. Just oil and buildings."

Since the recession hit, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."

This is all supposed to be illegal. Employers are meant to pay on time, never take your passport, give you breaks in the heat – but I met nobody who said it happens. Not one. These men are conned into coming and trapped into staying, with the complicity of the Dubai authorities.

Sahinal could well die out here. A British man who used to work on construction projects told me: "There's a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they're not reported. They're described as 'accidents'." Even then, their families aren't free: they simply inherit the debts.

A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.

At night, in the dusk, I sit in the camp with Sohinal and his friends as they scrape together what they have left to buy a cheap bottle of spirits. They down it in one ferocious gulp. "It helps you to feel numb", Sohinal says through a stinging throat. In the distance, the glistening Dubai skyline he built stands, oblivious.