Symptoms of a goldfish who once was.

Condition:  Popeye.

Symptom:  Eyeball pops out from socket.

Prognosis:  Well, it depends on what has caused the ol' eyeball to be shoved from its home.  Piscine tuberculosis?  Parasitic or bacterial infection?  Trauma or extreme stress?  It seems, in the tiniest goldfish's case, the prognosis was not good.  Death occurred within thirty minutes of the discovery of the popped-eye.

History:  Tiniest goldfish was found stuck to intake filter of airpump on 9/11/06.  He was promptly removed from the filter, yet remained weak, sitting on the bottom of the tank.  His fins appeared to be covered with Ichthyophthirius multifilis ("Ich").  For those not in the know, Ich looks like small salt grains (cysts) stuck to a fish, usually on the fins and, if the infection is particularly nasty, or has gone on unnoticed for some time, covering the operculum.

It is possible that the opportunistic Ich took advantage of the tiniest fish, while he was under the stress of being trapped against the intake filter.  It is also possible that the tiniest fish was stressed in some other way, for example, infrequent water changes.  The tiniest fish, being the tiniest fish of the bunch, would be the hardest hit by high nitrate levels, and it may be that Ich took advantage of the situation, infecting and so weakening the tiniest fish to such a degree that he was unable to resist the pull of the intake filter.

The tiniest goldfish was placed in isolation, and treated with malachite green, tetracycline, and another antibiotic effective against gram-negative bacteria.

On day four, the tiniest goldfish was placed back into the community tank.  He sat on the bottom, looking sad, and was placed back into isolation.

Over the next two days, littlest, tiniest goldfish seemed to improve, swimming to the surface of the water to eat on the evening of the sixth day. 

On the seventh day, he seemed a bit sluggish and did not eat, but was returned to the community tank, since he had seemed so robust the day before.

He sat on the floor of the community tank.  He wrapped himself in the plants of the community tank.  He did not swim in the community tank.

On the evening of the seventh day, he was found to have popeye.  His right eye had popped from his eye socket.  He was still sitting on the gravel.  He was quickly transferred to the isolated hospital bowl and treated with tetracycline, tri-sulfa, and that other antibiotic that likes to murder gram-negative bacteria.

After thirty minutes, he was found to be dead.  Estimated time of death:  9:53 pm, PST.

He was observed for any remaining signs of life.  He was completely still.  He was no longer breathing.  His eyeball continued to protrude from its socket.

Photographs were taken.

He was flushed down the toilet.

And so ended the life of the tiniest goldfish.

And so ended the life of the tiniest goldfish.

And so ended the life of the tiniest goldfish.

Rod

My mind keeps returning to Rod Stewart, and I seem to hear his music from radios and car stereos alarmingly often.  I'm afraid that means he's going to die. 

Not that I'm a fan.

Response to Recent Inquiries

Hello.

Today, I was going through the list of referrers to this site, which I often do, to see what people are up to out there.  It occurred to me that a fun thing to do would be to address many of the questions asked by googlers of the worldwide web, the sorts of questions that direct people to my site.  While it may be too late for the googler(s) who originally asked the question, I feel confident that another googler will come along, and I'd like to provide some sort of answer.

Here are some recent inquiries:

"trichobezoar pictures"

Since I do not have a trichobezoar of my own, nor have I ever seen/photographed one, I've compiled a list of websites with rather exciting pictures of trichobezoars.

Brown.edu's bezoar

In German - scroll down and look along the right hand column

Various scans of bezoars (CT, ultrasound, etc.)

If you do an image search on dogpile.com, you can see some thumbnails of a pretty nice looking bezoar.  Sadly, the links do not work.

On to the next question!

"How to know sexy girls by bodily structure"

It's obvious to most that this is a matter of taste.  However, I will do my best, with my limited knowledge of sexual dimorphism in Homo Sapiens.

First - sexual dimorphism is a difference in physical characteristics between males and females of the same species.  One example - peacocks and peahens.  The boys (peacocks) have those pretty tails, to lure in the rather plain peahens for sex.  Such a display costs the peacock quite a bit of energy (it's not easy to make such a fabulous looking tail), and therefore suggests that a really fancy spread could only belong to a rather healthy peacock.  Although it may be inefficient, energy wise, to grow such a thing, and furthermore may put the peacock at greater risk of drawing the attention of a predator, one must assume that the cost and risk are worth it.  Otherwise, all of the pretty peacocks would be totally dead by now.  (Please see the theory of natural selection or, as many prefer, survival of the fittest).

Most sexual dimorphisms ultimately come down to mating.  Even those that have nothing to do with the other sex - say - big tusks and antlers on males, or super sexy muscles, used by males to fight other males - enable the male with the best rack, let's say, a better opportunity to mate with the ladies, since one is much more successful as far as mating goes if one is alive.

Male orangutans (They took away that g at the end of orangutang.  Did you know about that?  First the g, then Pluto - what's next?) - male orangutans have these large pads of fat underneath their chins.  The fatter the pad, the sexier the orangutan.  The fat pad is another example of an energetically expensive show-off.

Human ladies have a similar show-off of their own.  Can you guess where this extra adipose tissue may be?

The answer?  Extra fat over the mammary glands.  Very sexy.  Female H. sapiens generally have much more body fat than males, which leads to things like curvy hips.  Hot hot hot!

Other physical characteristics of women considered sexy by males include:

• Facial features which are reminiscent of the face of an infant, like large eyes and full lips.  Higher forehead, and a smaller nose and chin also help.
• Lighter hair (more suggestive of youth, unless we're talking white/grey)
• Symmetrical face (also considered attractive by...pretty much everyone, including babies)
• Things that suggest health and youth, such as clear, firm skin, good-looking teeth, and pretty hair
• A low waist to hip ratio.  A high-ish waist to hip ratio suggests problems with fertility.
• Make-up can help a lady look sexier, and fool gentleman callers.  For example - lipstick makes the lips look fuller (that whole infant deal), as well as more red (unless the lady is goth), something that might happen, say, if the lady is sexually aroused.  Eye shadow and liner, if properly applied, serve to give the illusion of larger eyes, and perhaps even dilated pupils (also a sign of arousal).
• Hair dye also tricks men, by covering grey or white hair, or by lightening the hair.

I swear.  I've seen these things, like, on the television.  And - here's a website that backs me up:  Transwoman.

That is going to have to do for now.  Sorry if it's a bunch of junk science.  I'm gonna work on this all at some point in the future, since I've been given permission to leave the cube.  I am going to take my leave of the cube.

More info to follow, sorry for the non-edited, half-written post.  At least it's some info on how to find a sexy girl, right?