She is about to start driving and soon will be able to legally buy alcohol and get married, but Poppy Webb-Jones still looks and thinks like a ten-year-old girl. Unlike other 17-year-olds, Poppy is more interested in Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber than wearing make-up, experimenting with boys or staying out late. This is due to a rare condition which means she was born without any hormones, meaning she has never gone through puberty, never had a growth spurt and never thrown a teenage tantrum. To many parents of teenagers, Poppy must sound like the perfect child, but unbeknown to her or her mother Karen Webb-Meek, her condition posed a deadly risk to her health throughout her whole childhood. Poppy was born with a condition called panhypopituitarism meaning she lacks most of the hormones essential for life. Hypopituitarism is the decreased secretion of one or more of the eight hormones normally produced by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. If there is decreased secretion of most pituitary hormones, the term panhypopituitarism (pan meaning "all") is used. Poppy has no growth hormone, meaning her bones stopped growing around the age of 11, and she has no thyroxine, which regulates the metabolism and energy levels. In addition she has no oestrogen, which controls the onset of puberty and the development of secondary sexual characteristics.
PAWS for thought as you feast your eyes on this rare bear bathing session .
A DETERMINED great blue heron holds on tightly to its prey as the furry gopher attempts to wriggle free .
Primed and ready for action, this collection of striking images from the battlefield could be mistaken for authentic photos taking during World War II .
It's incredible to think anyone could live in such horrendous squalor - yet two men have been prosecuted for keeping their homes in such revolting conditions that it was no longer fit for their animals .
At least three people have been killed and more than 100 injured, some seriously, in two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon .
BREATHING life back into old photographs, these black and white images are transformed by colour .
FROM MRS Patmore to Lady Sybil, these barking mad illustrations show the WOOF-er side of some of our most loved Downton characters .
TUGGING at his exhausted mum's ears, a beautiful baby orangutan refuses to settle for a nap as he begins a game of peek-a-boo .
A BLIND man was battered with a brick in a sickening attack by two thugs .
The view from this rooftop pool is sure to make most holidaymakers envious .
A project to create an underwater tribute to the stone Moai statues of Easter Island ended in disaster when 15 replica structures were destroyed after toppling from a boat and into the sea .
SOARING through the air, a hungry white-tailed kite prepares to snatch a vole from his mother’s claws .