Rat-Eating Plant Discovered

The famed TV naturalist Sir David Frederick Attenborough, who has spent half a century as the respected voice and face of many natural history programs for the BBC was honored by having a recently discovered species of the pitcher plant named after him: Nepenthes attenboroughii

"It's just a compliment," Attenborough told The Times of London, "but it's very nice to receive compliments."

However, Nepenthes attenboroughii, discovered on the Philippine island of Palawan, is no ordinary pitcher plant. It is carnivorous and big enough to capture and devour rodents.

View Palawan, Philipines in a larger map

Rodents and insects that fall into the "pitcher" can be trapped and slowly consumed by its flesh-eating enzymes. That ability has led some headline-writers to dub the plant a "Venus Rat-Trap."

In fact Nepenthes attenboroughii appears to be a close relative of another pitcher plant:  Nepenthes rajah from Borneo. Nepenthes rajah is thought to be the only species of pitcher plant larger than the newly named Nepenthes attenboroughii.

Nepenthes attenboroughii was discovered on Mount Victoria on the Philippine island of Palawan. The first reports of its existence came from two Christian missionaries who in 2000 attempted to scale Mount Victoria. They got lost for 13 days before being rescued, but they reported seeing the giant pitcher plant.

Three pitcher plants experts: Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robinson from Britain and Volker Heinrich from the Philippines heard these reports and in 2007 set out on a two-month expedition to find this exotic new plant.

On their way to Mount Victoria they discovered strange pink ferns, a new species of sundew and blue mushrooms which they could not identify. During the expedition, the team also encountered another pitcher plant, Nepenthes deaniana, which had not been seen in the wild for 100 years.

As they neared the summit of Mount Victoria the forest thinned out until eventually they were walking among scrub and large boulders.

"At around 1,600 meters (almost 1 mile) above sea level, we suddenly saw one great pitcher plant, then a second, then many more," McPherson recounts. "It was immediately apparent that the plant we had found was not a known species."

“The plant produces spectacular traps which catch not only insects, but also rodents. It is remarkable that it remained undiscovered until the 21st century,” McPherson was quoted as saying.

This pitcher plant does not appear to grow in large numbers, but McPherson hopes the remote, inaccessible mountain-top location, which has only been climbed a handful of times, will help prevent poachers from reaching it. The team has placed type specimens of the new species in the herbarium of the Palawan State University.

Follow me on Twitter

A Tale of Child Abuse

This is about two abusive adults: Jesse Pacheco and Jessica Arrowood both 27 years old of Harmony Drive in Greenwood, Ind. But then again it is not really about them, it is about the terror and brutality that they inflicted upon two innocent children: 4-year-old Alea and 5-year-old Raymond Arrowood. Raymond was beaten unconscious almost to the point of death. Alea was choked until turning blue and then violently thrown across a room.

The reason why these kids were so viciously manhandled may surprise you. It was nothing that the kids did themselves. It was because when the adults were angry with each other they took out their frustrations on the kids.

"When (Pacheco) was mad at (Jessica Arrowood), he would beat the one child," Prosecutor Brad Cooper said. "When she was mad at him, she would beat the other."

Jesse Pacheco was charged with battery resulting in serious bodily injury to a person younger than 14. He remains in the Johnson County jail with a $60,000 bond. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Jessica Arrowood was charged with battery resulting in bodily injury, neglect of a dependent and two counts of strangulation. Her bail was set at $15,000. She faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

It all began when Pacheco was at home with Arrowood's four kids while she was at work. He told the kids to go and play at a nearby park so that he could have the house to himself. When 4-year-old Raymond said he didn't want to go, Pacheco became enraged.

He picked the boy up by his throat and began to slam him several times into a carpeted floor without any padding beneath. While he was slamming the boy into the floor, Raymond was crying  "Stop, Stop, Stop." Pacheco, however, did not stop until the boy was unconscious. According to authorities, Pacheco left the boy to vomit and urinate on himself for several hours.

When Arrowood returned home she took her unconscious son to Community Hospital South and he was immediately airlifted to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. It was from there that the authorities called the Indiana Department of Child Services and Greenwood police.

Pacheco tried to cover up what he did by telling the other children to lie for him. He told them: "...if the cops come, tell them we were just playing around." The kids did no such thing.

Chief Joe Pitcher of the Greenwood Police Department said the children actually helped crack the case. "They're the ones who said the boyfriend told them to lie and said if he went to jail, they would loose their Xbox and toys," said Pitcher.

Raymond remains in a coma. He suffered numerous injuries, including a blood clot on his brain, bruising to the left ear, a forehead abrasion and a bite mark on his stomach, according to court documents. Doctors performed surgery to relieve swelling on Raymond's brain but those close to his family say the child's prognosis remains grim.

Pacheco has admitted he's responsible for the boy's injuries. "I'm sorry for everything. I was stressed out. Me and Jessica were going through a lot," said Pacheco.

While investigating Jesse Pacheco, the police discovered that there was a lot more abuse going on in the household. Under questioning, Arrowood, who is pregnant with Pacheco's child, admitted to police that she snatched up her daughter by her hair about a year ago with so much force that the girl's feet were raised off of the ground during an argument with Pacheco.


Pacheco's cousin told police that he witnessed Arrowood last year pick her daughter up by the hair off the couch with one hand and squeeze her throat with the other hand until the child turned blue.

Alea Arrowood told police that Jessica Arrowood had choked her the day before Raymond Arrowood was airlifted to the hospital and that Jessica Arrowood had picked her up by the hair at least five times. On several occasions, the children also were forced to stand against a wall for up to an hour at a time for punishment for urinating the bed.

Jessica Arrowood was arrested on abuse, neglect and strangulation charges. Raymond Arrowood, Alea Arrowood and two other children have been removed from the home and placed in foster care.

Follow me on Twitter

Man Robs Same Bank Twice

John Millison, 45, of Drexel Hill, PA, would never be accused of being too smart. In fact it would be hard to believe that Millison even had a brain. It was on August 26, 2003, that he decided to rob the PNC Bank in Marmora, N.J.

He was arrested by Special Agent Joseph Furey of the FBI. He was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $27,072 in restitution. He was released on probation in November 2008.

Fast forward to the afternoon of July 27, 2009; John Millison, wearing a Phillies World Series T-shirt, puts a stocking over his head and decides to rob the very same bank that he went to prison for in 2003. Since the bank robbery went so well, he also hit the Pathmark Pharmacy in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. on the same day.

View Egg Harbor in a larger map

FBI Special Agent Joseph Furey working with Woodbine Station detective Michael Stewart on the case, noticed similarities with the 2003 bank robbery and reviewed surveillance photos of the man wearing a stocking over his head. He tentatively identified him as John Millison, the same person he had arrested before in 2003.

They also learned about the robbery at the Pathmark Pharmacy and, over the next week, State Police detectives worked with the FBI and the Egg Harbor Township police to build a case. In both cases no weapon was displayed, nobody was hurt and only a modest amount of money was stolen.

On Tuesday, Aug 4, 2009 at 1:15 p.m., John Millison was located and arrested at a vacant home in the 200 block of North Sacremento Avenue in Ventnor, New Jersey. Although no money was recovered, he was charged with two counts of robbery and placed in Cape May County Jail in lieu of $200,000 cash bail.

According to federal court records, on the day Millison allegedly robbed PNC Bank, he was supposed to submit to a urine test as a condition of his probation. He faces several probation violations for the robbery charges in which he is accused of leaving Pennsylvania without permission.

He also allegedly failed a urine screening, testing positive for cocaine, and missed six other toxicology tests and 14 dates with a court-ordered psychiatrist.

According to authorities, this area has been a frequent target of bank robbers in the past year.

Police are investigating the robbery of Sturdy Savings Bank on 34th Street in Ocean City about a mile from the Marmora bank. Ocean City police said the suspects in the two robberies had different physical descriptions.

Another suspect, Oliver Archer, 29, of Atlantic City, pleaded guilty Tuesday to robbing Ocean City Home Bank across the street from PNC Bank in Marmora on May 8. Ocean City Home Bank in Marmora was robbed a second time on May 11 by three suspects who await trial on that and other bank robberies.

Millison's family had a home on Bay Avenue in Ocean City. Neighbor Margaret Young said she knew an older couple named Millison but was not acquainted with John Millison. She said she was surprised by the high number of bank robberies in her neighborhood.

"To me it's the economy. It seems to bring out the worst in some," she said.

Follow me on Twitter

The 2-Headed Baby

It is extremely rare but a baby girl born at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in the Philippines Tuesday night (7/28/09) has two heads. Her name is Baby Girl Arciaga.

The infant has two spines, two brains and two hearts, encased in one cavity. She shares one liver, one stomach and a pair of kidneys.

Dr. Ruben Flores, Fabella hospital's director, said the baby's case is called dicephaly monozygotic conjoined twins, which, he said, is a very rare occurrence. It only happens in about 1 of every 80,000 live births. There are other types of conjoined twins but life expectancy is very low and depends upon the degree to which their organs are shared. Conjoined twins are also known as Siamese twins.

Conjoined twins results when the egg cell in a mother's womb encounter developmental problems. Twins result from the division into two of a single egg cell (identical twins), or the simultaneous fertilization of two egg cells (fraternal twins). Problems arise however when the egg cell fails to fully divide into two, which results to conjoined twins. Studies show that there is no direct cause for having conjoined twins.

 Baby Girl Arciaga was born by caesarean section and has been transferred to the Philippine Heart Center for better monitoring of the hearts while her mother remained at the Fabella hospital for full recovery from the operation.

Salvador Arciaga, tricycle (taxi) driver and resident of Mutinlupa City, said his wife, Chaterian, gave birth to "Baby Girl Arciaga" around 8:45 p.m. He said he last saw their baby around midnight at the hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit.

For the Arciaga family, it would not have been a complete surprise to have twins. Both sides of the family have twin members. However ultrasound images before the birth showed only one baby, so the couple did not expect twins, much less conjoined twins. They also have five other children. Salvador earns a meager income as a cycle-taxi driver. He appealed to the public for financial assistance.

"Please help our baby. Please support us and help us extend their lives," he said.

The Arciagas could only hope that their twins end up like Abigail and Brittany Hensel of Minnesota, who for 19 years have been living with one body. They can walk, run, ride a bicycle, and even drive. See them here.

Salvador and his wife remain hopeful that their daughters will survive.

"I hope she lives. Because if she does, we will do everything that we can to raise her well," said Salvador.

Follow me on Twitter

Dale Neumann Found Guilty

Dale Neumann, 47, was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide - just like his wife, Leilani Neumann - in the death of his 11-year-old daughter Kara Neumann.  They were both accused of failing to provide their daughter with proper medical care. They decided to pray for the sick little girl rather than getting her the medical attention she so badly needed.

"If I in a moment of crisis and in a moment of time, I went to anyone else but the Lord, it would not have been favorable to God," Dale Neumann said. "It would have been idolatry and sin because it is disobedience."

Madeline Kara Neumann of Weston, Wisconsin died of diabetic ketoacidosis in March 2008. For background details on this case click here and here.

During the trial, Dale Neumann took the stand in his own defense. He defended his actions by reading scripture to the court. He believed that Jesus never went to the doctor and that going to the doctor would be putting God second. It was clear that he did not think he made the wrong decision.

"If I go to any other source that's idolatry, I'm putting something else in the place of God. That is idolatry. That is sin." - Dale Neumann.

During the trial the prosecution contended that Dale Neumann recklessly killed the youngest of his four children by ignoring her deteriorating health. They claimed the girl was too weak to speak, eat, drink or walk and that Neumann had a legal duty to take her to a doctor.

Ariel Neff, Leilani Neumann's former sister-in-law, testified that she made three calls to the Marathon County Sheriff's Department on March 23, 2008, trying to get medical help to the girl on the day she died.

"My sister-in-law is very religious and is refusing to take her daughter to a doctor," Neff said in a recorded call that was played for the jury. "She believes in faith instead of doctors."

The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Wisconsin involving faith healing in which someone died and another person was charged with a homicide.

Emergency workers who rushed to the home testified Monday that the girl wasn't breathing and had no pulse, and that all repeated efforts to revive her failed. She looked malnourished, pale and "skeleton-like," paramedic Hayden Prausa said.

Hospital emergency room Dr. Choon P'ng said the girl reminded him of a cancer patient and that he had never treated anyone with such an advanced case of diabetes.

Both the Prosecutor, Asst. Marathon County D.A., Lamont Jacobson and the Defense Attorney, Jay Kronenwetter, make their closing arguments before the court in the clip below:



The trial itself lasted a week and the jury deliberated for 22 hours. They -  at one time claiming to be deadlocked - would ask the judge several times for clarification and direction before coming to the unanimous decision of guilty.



Both Dale Neumann and his wife Leilani Neumann are due back in court on Oct. 6 to appear before Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard who will decide their fate. They both face up to 25 years in jail.

Follow me on Twitter

UPDATE: 10/6/09

Judge Vincent Howard said the Neumanns were "very good people, raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision."

Dale and Leilani Neumann were each sentenced to six months in jail and ten years of probation.

See video clip here