April 25, 2005

Nocturnal explosions

In case the delicious beer and sausage weren't reason enough to plan your trip to Germany, maybe the unique wildlife will convince you.

"I have never seen such a thing," said veterinarian Otto Horst. So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed "the pond of death."

Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00 and 3:00 am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang."

January 31, 2005

Bubble Wrap Forever

Do you wish that you could pop bubble wrap at work?

You can.

December 19, 2004

Reunite Pangaea!

Matthew 17: 19-20 “Amen, I say to you if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

November 08, 2003

Life Imitates Art ... Again

Smooth and mild! Refreshingly addictive!

August 21, 2003

When I Said 'Freeze', I Meant It

"The device uses two beams of UV radiation to ionize paths in the air along which electrical current is conducted to and from the target. In effect, the beams create wires through the atmosphere wherever they are pointed.

"The current within these beams is a close replication of the neuro-electric impulses that control skeletal muscles. It is imperceptible to the target person because it differs from his own neural impulses only in that its repetition rate is sufficiently rapid to tetanize muscle tissue. (Tetanization is the stimulation of muscle fibers at a frequency which merges their individual contractions into a single sustained contraction.)"

July 26, 2003

Cancer Prevention, Rocket-style

Sad you can't prevent cancer during working hours? That's what the internet was made for.

Just help Sammy find his way to Planet Prostate and you'll be fine. Just fine.

July 03, 2003

The New Drinking King

For a long time, it was believed that certain species of dinosaur actually possessed two brains: that their sheer mass necessitated a secondary command center to keep their bodies functioning smoothly. Like so many other cool scientific theories, this has since been proven false. However, thanks to medical science, humanity has now come up with something even better: a super-being with hitherto unsurpassed capabilities for binge drinking.

Honestly, given their historical enthusiam for eugenics and legendary passion for alcohol, it's a wonder the Germans weren't doing this decades ago.

April 23, 2003

Oh, the Peepery!, Part 3

3) EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION ON THE AVIAN PEEP

Having proven conclusively that Marshmallow Peeps are both ill-suited for space travel and vulnerable to injury and death from severe blunt trauma, we moved on to our final, and most pressing question: how much alcohol can they drink?

To find out, we submerged a common Althaea gallus, or "avian" Peep, in a vessel containing approximately 180 ml of vodka, and left it for several hours to consume the solution at its leisure.

Fig. A: The test Peep after three hours. Judging from the original high-water mark, indicated by the red line, the Peep had by this point consumed roughly 60 ml of the vodka. Fig. B: Top-view shot taken at the same time. Note that nearly all of the Peep's natural pigment has bled into the vodka, dying it a sickly pinkish color.

We allowed the Peep another three hours to continue drinking, which resulted in comparatively little obvious change. Finally, after a total of six hours submerged in vodka, we decided to remove the Peep for closer observation.

Fig. C: The subject appeared extremely reluctant to leave the vodka vessel; its body became gelatinous, slippery and extremely difficult to grasp. It was not immediately clear whether this was some sort of natural defense against predators or an indication that the Peep was displaying early signs of alcohol withdrawal. Fig. D: Horribly, the Peep's eyes appeared to have somehow detached from the rest of its body during the period of alcohol exposure, coming completely off on a researcher's finger when the Peep was touched. Though some forms of alcohol have been found to cause blindness in humans, deformation on this scale has never been observed.

CONCLUSION: The grotesque effects of the vodka having become starkly clear, we chose to put the test Peep out of its misery in the most humane way possible: by immediately consuming it. In doing so, we discovered that the Peep had undergone acute physiological changes far more hideous than the simple loss of its eyes. Its body, once sweet and chewy, had become a viscous mass of utterly flavorless, frictionless ichor: a mouthful of Nothing! a soul-numbing taste of Entropy! Cackling maniacally, our lead researcher plucked out his own tongue before taking a flying leap from the balcony and landing, with a sickening crack, on the pavement two stories below.

There are, truly, some things that Man was simply not meant to know. The experiment is over, the Laboratory closed forever. May God have mercy on our poor, misguided souls.

April 22, 2003

Oh, the Peepery!, Part 2

2) PEEPS GONE WILD

At this point, sickened by the horrific results of our previous experiment, one member of the research team attempted to release the remaining Peeps into the wild. Although quickly apprehended, he did manage to free a number of test subjects before being tackled and restrained by his co-workers.

The well-being of the Peeps was no doubt foremost in his mind, but the results were predictably tragic: having been raised in captivity, the Peeps had no idea how to survive in a natural environment. They did prove resilient enough to survive the initial two-story drop without injury, but we found nearly all of their lifeless bodies squashed in the road the following morning.

Fig. A: This Althaea gallus has been badly mangled, possibly by a passing vehicle or hungry predator. We were forced to put it out of its misery. Fig. B: The only subject to survive the night almost entirely unscathed, this A. oryctolagus somehow made it across the street to safety. Fig. C: It is impossible to tell what species this unfortunate Peep once belonged to; or, for that matter, what fate befell it. The prevailing theory is that it fell victim to hungry birds. Fig. D: These stomach-churning remains are all that is left of an A. gallus unfortunate enough to land squarely in the middle of a busy intersection. More than a dozen direct hits from moving vehicles have rendered it completely unrecognizable.

CONCLUSION: Although wild Peeps undoubtedly roamed the planet at some point, it is now heartbreakingly clear that the average, run-of-the-mill domestic Peep is no longer capable of surviving outside of captivity.

April 21, 2003

Oh, the Peepery!, Part 1

The effects of various external stimuli on Marshmallow Peeps have been well documented over the years by numerous trail-blazing researchers. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we need no longer lie awake at night wondering what might happen should one of these sugary little monsters be inadvertently exposed to boiling water, radiation or bricks.

As with any field of scientific inquiry, however, there is always more research waiting to be done.

1) EFFECTS OF EXTREME G-FORCES ON THE COMMON MARSHMALLOW PEEP (ALTHAEA ORYCTOLAGUS)

Over the last few decades, a great deal of the American space program's budget has been spent blasting various other species into orbit, typically without much of a practical justification. Dogs can't do a whole hell of a lot in space, unless you count "dying". Ants recently one-upped the dog community by taking the whole "dying" thing to an entirely new level. And while chimps in space are a guaranteed source of amusement for the guys back at Mission Control, we now know that they represent a serious threat to humanity at large.

Peeps, on the other hand, would seem to be a perfect choice. Their boneless bodies and ability to survive without oxygen, coupled with their apparent lack of any motivation or ability to enslave humanity, makes them ideal candidates for space travel. But can they survive the harsh conditions of liftoff and re-entry? Using a state-of-the-art (assuming it's 1970) medical centrifuge, we attempted to find out.

Fig. A: The subject Peep is fitted with restraining gear prior to launch. Fig. B: Secured, the Peep is inserted headfirst into one of the centrifuge's containment cells. Fig. C: The speed of the centrifuge, and the resulting relative gravity, is gradually increased. Fig. D: Moments after achieving maximum velocity, the Peep's head is cleanly sucked off its shoulders, its body pulled violently after it and flattened against the inner wall of the centrifuge. Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful.

CONCLUSION: Sadly, it seems that Peeps are not as well suited for space travel as they appear. Despite their ability to survive in a sub-zero vacuum and lack of internal organs, their distressingly low body integrity makes them really, really easy to pull apart.