WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

OLL LEWIS: Good for the Sole?

In recent months people in the UK have been doing something a bit odd. They have been feeding themselves to fish.

The reason for this is not out of some sort of random philanthropy towards our finned friends but as a sort of 'natural' pedicure. The idea is that you put your feet or hands in a tank full of Garra rufa or doctor fish and they eat the dead skin from your feet. Although the procedure might seem to venture into 'alternative health' therapy the process is apparently well regarded by some scientists as a treatment for psoriasis and eczema much in the same way that leaches are used in some medical procedures.

The first public spas offering this fishy exfoliation opened in Japan and Croatia in 2006, with the first American spas opening in 2008. The first UK spas opened in 2010 and in a relatively short short space of time many spas have opened, including two in the same shopping arcade in Cardiff over the Christmas period, with many more spas planned.

However, in America and Canada Garra rufa spas have been banned in several states due to sanitary concerns by cosmetologists. They took the opinion that the process of fish pedicures should be banned since the fish could not be sterilised by heat after use or disposed of after one use. Other cosmetologists argue that the process is perfectly sanitary and a sanitary process is quite adequate in a situation like this when full sterilisation is not possible. No British politicians have expressed a wish to ban Garra rufa spas in the UK as yet but as this is a procedure that is becoming increasingly popular I expect this debate may well start here in 2011.

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