The Weird Week in Review

Baby Born with Intact Amniotic Sac

First off, little Silas Johnson is fine. He was delivered by Cesarean section three months early at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, still shrouded in the sac of amniotic fluid. Neonatologist William Binder snapped a picture of the unusual sight with his cellphone, then opened the sac so the baby could begin breathing.

The photograph shows the baby just seconds old. Until the bag was broken, the baby was still getting oxygen through the placenta. “It felt like slow-motion but really realistically probably about 10 seconds that we had to sort of quickly pause and be able to do this, because at the same time, we want to get the baby out of that sac, start helping the baby to begin breathing,” the doctor said.

The photo is a rare opportunity to see what a six-month pregnancy really looks like. And from the baby’s point of view, the trauma of birth didn’t happen until he was outside his mother. Despite his prematurity, Silas is doing well at ten weeks old and is expected to go home within a month. See a video report at CBS Los Angeles. 

Stolen House Found

On Tuesday, the sheriff’s department in Klamath County, Oregon, received a report of a stolen house. The unoccupied 1,200-square-foot log cabin was missing, taken completely from its foundation. Within a day, someone reported that the home pictured on the TV news had been in their neighborhood for the past year. After investigating, the sheriff’s department said on Wednesday that it was a case in which three parties claim to own the house. One of the parties sold the cabin to a fourth party, who then moved it. The investigation continues, in order to sort out who really owns the house.

A Dream Come True

Tuesday, the New York Times published an article that reviewed the new and improved restrooms at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. That’s only interesting if you live in New York City, but toward the bottom of the article, we learn that someone has fulfilled her lifelong aspirations.

A second person who checked out the women’s restroom — and who asked not to be identified because she has always wanted to be an anonymous source — reported her findings by email: “Black shiny granite-y sink. Arched faucets by Sloan. Tasteful slate gray and powder gray tiles.”

If you know who she is, please don’t tell anyone. We don’t want to crush the dream.

Tiny Pony Gets His Own Periscope

A Shetland pony named Pedro is so short he can’t see over the walls of his stable enclosure. Young members of the Ebony Horse Club  in Brixton, UK, came up with an idea to help Pedro see the world: a periscope, or “Pedroscope,” as they call it. Print and Cut, a local design firm, made the periscope with a 3D printer. Now Pedro can look through the periscope and see the horses outside and the people riding them.

Cyclists Dig 40-foot Tunnel Through Boston Snow

In Boston, snowplows are piling up what they scoop up. Ari Goldberger and Shadron Davis found their normal bike path covered with snow plowed from a parking lot. So they went to work last week, digging a tunnel big enough for bicyclists to ride through. The job took several men between eight and ten hours. The 40-foot tunnel allowed cyclists to avoid a busy intersection. However, Saturday night, someone collapsed the tunnel. So on Sunday, Boston cyclists gathered together to once again clear the snow. This time, it’s a completely cleared pathway instead of a tunnel, so it may last longer.