The Little Angel of the Sea
Shortly after the New Year, a group of sixteen people from the Dominican Republic boarded a rickety boat and headed out across Mona Passage, bound for a better life in Puerto Rico. In the dangerous currents where the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea meet, they soon realized that their compass was broken and they were lost, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

Food, water, and gasoline were gone within three days. Faustina Mercedes, mother of a one-year-old girl, prayed feverishly as dehydration worsened.

On the fifth day, Mercedes told her sister to try to suckle at her breast for nourishment. "That was God who put that idea in my head," Mercedes said. "He just worked through me." Her sister complied then fed the breast milk, by mouth, back to Mercedes. The sisters felt better immediately, so she offered her milk to all.

The eight men and seven women took turns suckling for seconds a day, each able to get enough nourishment to stay alive until the boat washed up on shore, back in the Dominican Republic, after twelve days at sea. Many are now calling Mercedes "The Little Angel of the Sea."

Of the moment the decision was made to seek sustenance from that unusual source, sister Elena Mercedes said: "At that point, there was nothing more than prayer and my sister's breast."

Where in the World Did You Get that New Liver?
The international human organ and tissue trade has a rich history of associated myth: the $5.7 million kidney offered for sale on eBay, which turned out to be a hoax, as well as a slew of urban legends about organ theft. One popular tale recounts the story of a lonely traveler, lured to a hotel room by a beautiful woman with the promise of a night of love, only to wake up in a bathtub full of ice the next morning to discover both his kidneys stolen.

Skeptics dismiss such stories, but this tale may have some basis in fact. The Chicago Tribune recently reported that two Russian travel agents were arrested for murdering their clients and selling their organs on the black market. Fyerututdin and Alima Karayev allegedly lured clients to their agency by promising trips abroad for just $200 and help in obtaining coveted Western visas. Mrs. Karayev, when not working as an organ-harvesting travel agent, was a surgeon at an area hospital. The Uzbek Interior Ministry said that when police in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, searched the couple's apartment, they found parts of six bodies, sixty stolen passports, and a large amount of American currency.

The Tribune did not detail the couple's operation(s). To recover viable organs, certain procedures need to be followed. Were, for example, instruments properly sanitized? Were the prospective tourist/donors tested for disease? How did the pair handle the complicated logistics of transporting human organs? The Tribune's discretion in this matter is to be applauded, as it will certainly help deter copycat crimes. Stories such as these do cause worry for organ recipients, however, who can never be sure exactly where their new organs have been.