Bizarre pink worm in deep ocean has links to humans

A strange pink worm has been discovered 12,000 feet (3,658 metres) below the waves and may be one of our earliest ancestors.

It is among the four bright fuchsia flatworm-like animals found near hydrothermal vents, as well as on a whale carcass off the coast of California. This new species is the four-inch-long Xenoturbella churro — named for its resemblance to churros, a popular Spanish fried pastry. The experts used DNA analysis to identify this flatworm-like animal as the most primitive still-existing member of the group of animals that includes man, called deuterostomes.

The animal kingdom is divided into three main groups. The first, the ecdysozoa, includes insects and crustaceans. The trochozoa comprises the molluscs and earthworms. We belong to the last group, the deuterostomes, and strangely Xenoturbella also belong to this group.

The largest of the new species, Xenoturbella monstrosa, was found in Monterey Bay, off the coast of California and the Gulf of California, and measured eight inches in length while the smallest was only one inch long.

Indonesian known as ‘the tree man’ dies

An Indonesian known as ‘the tree man’ due to his scaly warts covering his body has passed away after a long battle with his rare and incurable illness.

Dede Koswara, 42, died in A hospital in Badung, Indonesia, last week. In the past three months, doctors said he had resigned himself to the debilitating illness which over several decades tragically came to cost him his family, job and independence.

Mr Koswara suffered from Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, a disease which results in uncontrolled human papilloma virus (HPV) infections and the growth of scaly warts resembling tree bark.

He died of a complicated series of health problems, three months after he had checked into hospital. In 2008, he had 13lb of warts surgically removed from his body. The operation was such a success that he could play Sudoku and wear flip-flops. But the growths continued to return, requiring two surgeries a year to keep the infections down.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 20th, 2015