SIDELINES...

RUBBER GLOVE RAMBO

Rambo the Rottweiler had to be rushed to the vet for emergency surgery after he vomited a surgical glove. On being given an endoscopy his stomach was found to contain 29 more that had to be removed during a three-hour surgical procedure. His owner, Darren Coyne, kept a box of gloves in his car and said Rambo must have eaten them when travelling to and from walks. Vet Keith Leonard said though Rambo arrived “seemingly without a care in the world,” Mr Coyne’s quick thinking had “saved his life.” BBC News, 6 May 2021.

OUT OF PLACE PENSIONER

Elizabeth Mahoney, 89, spent 10 weeks in hospital battling Covid before being discharged, but her family grew worried after she did not arrive back at her home in Newtown, Powys. On investigation, she was found eight miles (13km) away, tucked up in bed in a stranger’s house. Her son Brian, 65, said “she tried to tell the ambulance workers this was not her house. They kept calling her Margaret.” It is believed her details had been confused with those of another patient who was being discharged the same day. D.Express, 19 April 2021.

POISONOUS PEOPLE

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan studying genomes have come up with the first solid evidence that venom glands in snakes evolved from early salivary glands and share a functional core with the salivary glands of today’s mammals. As a result, they speculate that “under certain ecological conditions” it would be possible for humans to evolve to produce deadly poisons in their saliva. D.Mail, 30 Mar 2021.