News You Can't Use: Goats Prefer to Interact with Humans who Look Happy

If you're like most healthy human units you probably spend a lot of time wondering how you can improve your interactions with goats. I remember when I was twelve my friends and I would run up on a goat kept by a local farmer, wave our arms and shout or whatever and than run off. What I'm trying to establish is that I'm an expert at wasting the precious gift of life. Fortunately, decades later, a solution has been reached by lying scientists. It turns out you can improve your time around the cloven-hoofed can-chewers that same way you connect with your fellow wise, wise men: by walking around with a rictus smile carved into your greasy bloated face.

Goats recognise and are attracted to happy humans, a study has found.

I'm not going to make the obvious joke, so don't even ask. The word choice in the very first sentence isn't helping, obviously.

Much like us, they seem to be drawn to smiling faces. But don’t expect to make friends with a goat if you scowl at it.

Time to win over this goat by making scary faces. Why isn't this working?

Scientists showed 20 goats unfamiliar photos of the same human face looking happy or angry.

A football team that went 4-8 and this nonsense is what your student loan debt is funding.

The research, conducted at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Kent, demonstrated that the goats preferred to interact with the smiling face.

So we're going to enter a goat sanctuary and hold up pictures of faces. Sold! Here's your grant money.

Released from a distance of four metres (13ft) they generally made straight for the happy image, exploring it curiously with their snouts.

Snout exploration is a good basis for any quality relationship, just like how snout-counting is the best way to elect our rulers.

This suggested that goats use the left hemisphere of their brains to process positive emotion, said the team from Queen Mary, University of London.

I mean, sure! Anything could be going on here.

Dr Alan McElligott, who led the research, said: “The study has important implications for how we interact with livestock and other species, because the abilities of animals to perceive human emotions might be widespread and not just limited to pets.”

Now when you're doing backbreaking and disgusting agricultural labor we'll force you to smile the whole time for the benefit of the livestock.

Co-author Dr Christian Nawroth, a member of the Queen Mary team now based at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology in Germany, said: “Here we show for the first time that goats do not only distinguish between these expressions, but they also prefer to interact with happy ones.”

Scratch a German and find precision.

 Now with scientifically accurate human emotion interaction DLC.

Sheep are known to possess a powerful visual memory and an ability to recognise human faces from photographs. 

Being called "sheeple" is actually a complement on your visual memory.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Out of Control Iguanas Infesting South Florida

South Florida’s not quite Jurassic Park, but it’s getting close.

This [societal problem and/or example of nature gone crazy] is sort of like [popular movie franchise].

Packs of green iguanas are swarming seawalls, roaming yards and parks, and leaving a path of destruction and filth in their wake.

Whenever you feel down and hopeless just take solace in the fact that you're currently not being terrorized by heartless reptiles who have zero respect for your precious seawalls and parks.

Like a shot of espresso, the hot summer sun has stoked activity in the cold-blooded creatures, which experts say may be at record numbers. 

Like an awkward simile this scaly plague is painful and annoying.

“This year is the most iguanas I’ve seen and I’ve been in business for nine years,” says Thomas Portuallo, owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Iguana Control.

I've been doing this for nine years, which is a long time, almost ten, and I can confirm that we are losing the Iguana control war that I foolishly volunteered for in my callow youth of nearly a decade ago.

The prehistoric populations are multiplying like rabbits, and causing internet, phone and power outages (barbecued lizard, anyone?), damaging landscapes, levees, seawalls, roofs and patios, and contaminating pools with poop.

Let's talk about how these critters have origins older than a few years ago (unlike their adversaries), mention the old lizard on a stick and maybe throw in some sort of reference to animal waste. Man, this journalism thing is a snap.

“There’s no real way to come up with a valid estimate of the number of green iguanas in Florida. But the number would be gigantic,” says Richard Engeman, a biologist for the National Wildlife Research Center.

We can't even get an ESTIMATE? Man, so-called science is thoroughly worthless. I have a doctorate in biology. The number is, like, totally huge, probably.

“You could put any number of zeros behind a number, and I would believe it.”

I mean, I went to college and nodded in bovine agreement while my professors were vomiting out one lie after another, so I'm not exactly the most rigorous thinker you'll ever meet.

In South Florida, iguanas are the second leading cause of power outages, behind squirrels. But that’s well behind power failures caused by vegetation, Beltran points out.

Before you get all nuts with your anti-iguana rhetoric let me remind you that lowly vegetation is the real criminal.

Grace DeVita, of Hollywood, says she can’t escape iguanas at home or work. A few months ago, internet and phone service at her office went down after iguanas climbed power lines and chewed through cables.

I tried hiding under my bed, but they were already there, waiting.

Get it? Haw haw!

“There was an iguana with a piece of wire hanging out of his mouth,” DeVita says. It took two days for power to be restored the first time, and then it happened again two days later. 

We were defeated by herbivorous lizards. All that remains is discussing the terms of the surrender.

The creatures can grow up to five feet long and are fast on land and in water, making them difficult to catch. They have no natural predators.

There is literally no way you can win.

Full Article.

Komment Korner   

They are so cute though!

We hired a company to get rid of over 60 iguanas a few years ago. They were doing a great job of riding us of the iguanas, until one employee was caught letting some of the iguanas out of the trap on purpose.

Here's how stupid the politicians are

I would bet 1 in 20 pellet gun shots is instantly fatal.

We have plenty of Canadians left to pay our taxes.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Scientists Plan DNA Hunt for Loch Ness Monster Next Month

If there's one good thing that came from the proliferation of camera phones, it's the destruction of goofy myths like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and politicians who actually care about you in any meaningful way. This almost offsets the thousands of negative aspects of living in a society where people take in reality through a filter that could also, at least theoretically, be used to make phone calls. Despite this, the "Nessie" true believers are not about to go quietly into the good night of "people like to make up stories and our five senses can be unreliable." No, we must scour every inch of Scottish water to find the shocking truth, namely "the results were inconclusive."

A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist. 

After spending millions, we found this old wine bottle.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks.

The technology is completely legit, even if its current deployment isn't.

Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine.

Nature sure is disgusting, am I right? Pave over everything.

“This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms,” said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand. 

I'm a little disappointed you didn't use the phrase "multiple organisms."

The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century.

How the Irish saved civilization. Using my monk powers I confined the creature to the water. Where it lives. No, really, I totally kicked its ass.

The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the “surgeon’s photo”, was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.

Time for the surgeon to operate. *attaches two toys together for low-energy hoax*

Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch.

Well, there's always room for one more good one.

I'm from a monastery, I'll handle this.

Gemmell’s team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt. 

We might learn a lot about fish excrement, but that's not how you convince a University to fund your monster hunt.

“While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness,” Gemmell said on his university website.

Unlike Murphy Lee, the lying scientists do need a fudging hook on this beat.

He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon.

When the pacific sends their salmon, they're not sending us their best, reveals study.

Full Article. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Study Uncovers Surprising Things about Squirrels

As the squirrel rotates a nut between its front paws, its brain is considering a variety of factors to reach the answer to a critical question: Do I eat this nut now, or do I store it for later?

As I rotate the obvious "Family Feud" joke response in my paws, my brain is considering a variety of factors. Do I go for the cheap obvious stuff right away, or store it for later? There are a variety of factors, as opposed to "many factors that are all the same, somehow," I guess.

That’s one of the conclusions of the most comprehensive study of the squirrels’ decision-making process – research that revealed that their behaviors are far more intricate than the casual observer realizes.

Look at you, Mr. Casual Punk Do-Wrong. Man, I bet you don't even realize how intricate the behavior of fluffy-tailed rats actually is, what with your appalling ignorance. You need to educate yourself.

An analysis of fox squirrels on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, by psychologist Mikel Delgado found that the rodents consider several variables when deciding whether to store food, or save it for later.

"I'm hungry, me eat now," but not even close to that level of complexity is now considered a variable by an academic con artist.

Squirrels assess the characteristics of food they find, such as its perishability and nutritional value. They also consider the availability of food at that time and the presence or absence of competitors.

Their entire lives revolve around incredibly basic food and mating issues, but if you want that research money you better "discover" something other than that.

“What’s cool is that these animals are solving problems right under our feet and most people don’t realize it,” said Delgado, whose Ph.D. dissertation was on the complexity of squirrel behavior.

It's really radical, bro-ham.

Delgado, a Maine native, said she has always been obsessed with animals and was interested in better understanding what they do instinctively in the wild. 

"Hey, remember that crazy squirrel girl from high school?" says a Pine Tree State Chad. "Yeah, you'll never guess what that psycho is up to now!"

She has a background in cognition, which deals with problem-solving, memory and thinking, and had worked with pigeons and zebrafish.

Feathered rats are apparently a lot less interesting.

She chose to study the larger fox squirrels, which are more comfortable in the open and therefore easier to observe, rather than the smaller gray squirrels, which prefer more cover.

That's racist.

To better understand how the squirrels make caching decisions, she conducted a series of experiments using basic equipment. For identification, squirrels were marked with a nontoxic dye that disappears with molting.

So cool it with your "animal rights" outrage, all right?

Undergraduate assistant Simon Campo spent 2 1/2 years helping the research lab. He said the different personalities of the squirrels sometimes made the field work challenging.

I was out-smarted by a rodent. Still, less embarrassing than the day I agreed to that student loan...

Caching food for future use is important for survival for all species when food is scarce. They use one of two strategies: larder hoarding or scatter hoarding.

These strategies are really fascinating...hey! Come back!

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

Yes, this article is so bush league that a request to edit out several boring paragraphs about old Nutter Butter was not only ignored, but somehow kept in the finished product.

 Now here's something we hope you'll really like.

Delgado’s experiments were conducted in the summer and fall. Food is more abundant in the fall.

I can't believe my idiot editor wanted me to remove this elite tier prose. 

“It’s really interesting to see that different brains solve the same problem in different ways and that evolution is extraordinary for preparing brains to deal with what environmental conditions they live in,” MacDonald said.

A blind, aimless and incredibly wasteful imaginary process trusted with a zealot's faith by lying scientists "prepares" things.

While researchers previously thought squirrels use chunking, Delgado’s work was the first documentation of it.

I proved there was "chunking" reads the text on my Nobel Prize medal.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Bus-Sized Asteroid Heading for Earth TODAY

I wish I had something more relevant to herald my triumphant return from another long absence, but instead it's just a dull piece about our impending destruction by space rocks. We're staring down the barrel of mass extinction events, the end of civilization and the very real possibility of losing cell phone coverage. Luckily, it actually isn't going to happen, but hey, everyone enjoys sensationalism and literal "sky is falling" over-reaction, right? Hey, come back here!

The newly-discovered space rock – named Asteroid 2017 TD6 – is expected to zoom past our planet at around at around 7.53pm. 

Maybe the headline shouldn't have strongly implied it was going to hit us in light of this new revelation, but on the other hand I'm sure relieved. It's like the end of one of those 20/20 pieces about people dying in public pools and I realize I never go in pools, ever, and a sort of catharsis occurs. Yes, like that.

It will be travelling at a distance of 191,000km away from civilisation.

Since I'm an American I have no idea if that's close or not.

According to NASA the chunk of rock is a whopping 22m wide.

After several hours of researching the so-called "metric" system I can now inform my beloved readership that 2017 TD6 falls into the "no big deal" category.

Last week another asteroid made a close shave with Earth, as it soared past at a distance of just 27,000 miles above the surface. And experts have warned a second bus-sized asteroid will zoom past our planet again today at half the distance between the Earth and the moon.

If I'd known you'd do the conversion for me in the very next sentence I could have saved a lot of time. Also, Europe, are we talking one of those red-double decker deals or a normal correct bus with only one floor like it's supposed to be?

But thankfully, experts predict there is no threat of it hitting out planet.

This is great news. I really didn't want to miss out on the College Football.

The asteroid was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey in Hawaii last Wednesday.

A talent agency, by the sound of it.

While 2017 TD6 is expected to miss our planet, if it did hit Earth, experts believe it would be worst than the impact of the 59ft asteroid that hit the city of
Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013.

It might break a few windows and knock some icons off the wall, in other words.

During its journey, the asteroid narrowly missed communications satellites orbiting 22,236 miles above Earth.

The nightmare of losing Instagram and the latest "hook up" "apps," narrowly averted. 

But in one of its next passes with Earth, experts suggest that 2012 TC4 may not miss.

This is not helping our "Why are all scientists liars?" problem, let me tell you.

The near-misses coincide with end of the world fears. Doomsayers believe a huge alien world called Nibiru or Planet X is hurtling through space towards us – and will hit tomorrow.

This is the kind of thing a, for example, Hawaii observatory or perhaps the naked eye, would be able to notice, but on the other hand think of the awesome cognitive dissonance these true believers have to look forward to.

The planet will cause devastation on Earth with a direct hit or catastrophic near miss, believers warn.

We needed an extra paragraph for this article, so here's some totally inane Chicken Little drivel. 

Full Article.

Komment Korner

What is it with your obsession regarding the end of the earth stories EVERYDAY. Why don't you give us all a break and report some REAL news.

I'm more worried about the 18 wheelers that that are near misses or collisions on the interstate highways each and everyday.
 
This site needs an editor that understands english spelling and grammar

Why have you used miles away for one and kilometer away for the other?

Space junk debris constantly flames out in the atmosphere.

OK.  So much for scientists.  I would have rather not known.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: The Antarctic is Turning LUMINOUS GREEN

Spring is almost here, as evidenced by the piles of freshly fallen snow, high scathing winds and massive freeway pile-ups caused by "white outs." Yes, it's hard not to get that fever. Especially since the green is returning. By that, of course, I mean sickly looking glowing ice in the South Pole that has confused hapless scientists and prompted all sorts of wild speculation. This one is clearly going to be a huge deal, so let me help you get in at the ground floor.

The luminous-looking green ice already covers about 650 square miles (about 1000 square kilometres) – and it is growing by the day.

How can we stop this? Will giving up my car, flush toilet and light bulbs help? Please say it will.

NASA scientists who spotted the bizarre green ice among the thousands of routine survey pictures taken from 700 miles up by US satellite Landsat 8 are baffled.
 
"We were just doing some routine ice surveillance, funded with your tax dollars. I was all, 'Yup, that's ice, too' when I saw the freaky green, man."

As ever aliens have been blamed by online conspiracy theory forums. 

Is such a thing even possible?

But of course NASA boffins have offered more credible alternatives.

You boffin m8? That ice science is just extra, innit?

The best theory climate scientists have come up with is that the freakish green-tinged ice is probably due to a massive bloom of phytoplankton.

Just like in our new food substitute, the one that is definitely not people. This does make more slightly more sense than "random vandalism from saucer overlords."

Mmmmmm, tasty phytoplankton.

 Marine glaciologist Jan Lieser of Australia's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center reported to NASA's Earth Observatory that in 2012 a team had recorded an enormous bloom in late February and early March.

I guess we got you all excited for nothing. Sorry about that.

Scientists on an expedition to observe the green swirls found that the bloom was not free-floating algae, but green sea ice, or sea ice with algae growing on it.

Sorry, what? I kinda nodded off while you were explaining.

The pictures were snapped by the space agency's Operational Land Imager (OLI) on their Landsat 8 satellite.

I hope you liked it, you paid for it.

Full Article. 

Komment Korner   

I saw this movie. It's "Alien vs Predator" and the Alien is escaping from the sea at the antarctic.

Some Irishman got there with some green dye.

"mysterious object under the Pacific Ocean" Duh it's Captain America  

Uh oh, that's what happened in the northern hemisphere arctic before Godzilla busted out of the ice.

May be aliens are growing their  own weed.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

News You Can't Use: Scientists Want to Bring Back Extinct Caspian Tiger

It's hard out there for a tiger. Your life revolves around eating your own young, eating other animal's young and the dream of getting a taste of hairless walking ape. Then throw in Tiger selfies from "gym and tanning" scumbags, vanishing ecosystems and humiliating cereal and college sports mascots and disaster, even extinction, soon follows. That's not even the end of the story. It appears scientists are taking a break from lying about magnetic effects to engage in their other favorite activity: playing God with disastrous results, e.g. swarms of deadly bees or evangelical atheist conventions. Can these charlatans save a vanishing tiger population, or is this just the first act of another horrible 1970s "nature run amok because of the hubris of humanity" movie. You can probably guess which one I'll be wagering on.

They were once one of the world's largest tigers.

As opposed to those miniature ones owned by Russian oligarchs.

Until recently, the tigers roamed Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea to north-west China, before struggles that included loss of habitat robbed them of their prey.

Silk Road wasteland nearly devoid of humanity somehow becomes hostile to animals. How are we gonna blame this one on oil companies, internal combustion and the flush toilet?

Ever since Caspian tigers disappeared, biologists and conservationists have tried to come up with a strategy to bring tigers back to Central Asia.

So far dressing up dogs like a Chinese zoo exhibit is their best plan.

It's not clear exactly when the Caspian tiger died out.

I sure don't know, so stop asking.

Between 2010 and 2012, scientists conducted studies that showed that Caspian and Amur tigers were almost identical in their genetic structure.

Two types of tigers are similar, great job science. I can't believe it's not Amur!

Scientists now want to reintroduce tigers in Central Asia using Amur tigers from the Russian Far East.

I feel really cheated by this big reveal after the title promised us some Jurassic Park style shenanigans.

Researchers from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and State University of New York (SUNY) say they have found two spots in Kazakhstan to reintroduce the extinct enormous cat.

Local peasantry is less than thrilled, but these guys defeated Pro Wrestling dirtballs, what chance do you have?

Experts have been discussing the plans for nearly 10 years, explained study co-author Mikhail Paltsyn, of SUNY, in a statement.

We just threw in this embarrassing detail so you'd feel better about your own procrastination, laziness and failure.

The species would also need hooved-animals to prey upon and numbers of these in the area are still low.

I've got the solution! More discussions!

This is predicted to take at least 15 years.

Check back in 2032, I'll be sure to update this to tell you what happened.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Why Scientists Think Your Boss Should Play Music While You Work

I love to laugh. I enjoy having fun. I like mainstream popular culture, especially anything on the teevee. I enjoy corporate sporting leagues. I have an average physique (5'3", 270 lbs.). And, lest you forget, music is my life. Despite the fact that I don't play an instrument, can't read notation, am ignorant of even the most basic theory and don't really listen to anything that hasn't been auto-tuned six ways from Sunday. Obviously, taking this deep and abiding love for the auditory arts into the workplace just makes good sense and we've even deployed some lying scientists to prove it.

Companies have done a lot of work to optimize music in retail shops to encourage customers to buy more stuff — think of the smooth, just-quirky-enough tunes quietly playing at any given Starbucks, or whatever sonic garbage the Abercrombie store at the mall is always blasting when you walk by.

Wow and I thought I was a heartless elitist. I've got nothin' on this writer. You hear that "Abercrombie?" You're playing "sonic garbage." What do you mean you can't hear me over the ringing of the cash register?

But there has been less research done on the effect these soundscapes have on employees.

How does it impact the expendable warm bodies and hand-pairs responsible for folding the sweaters and stuffing the register we already mentioned? What do you mean you don't care?

So a group of Cornell PhDs got together and ran an experiment to see how different music types affected the collaborative behavior of different groups of people.

We were, like, just hangin' round at the Big Red and figured we'd, you know, get together and examine music and collaborative behavior or whatevs.

They recruited 188 undergrads to take part in a "voluntary contribution mechanism" (VCM) experiment, a well-established tool that researchers use to measure and manipulate cooperative behavior among research subjects.

Please watch this video of World War 2 atrocities while we play Beethoven and inject you with sickness chemicals.

Here's where things get interesting: Different types of music were randomly assigned to play for different groups of students. A third of the groups listened to a playlist of "happy" music while the experiment ran: "Yellow Submarine," "Walking on Sunshine," "Brown-Eyed Girl" and the theme from "Happy Days."

It's a sin! You can't use Vanny Morr in this! A sin! *vomits*

Another third listened to a playlist of two "unhappy" songs by relatively obscure metal groups: "Smokahontas" by Attack Attack and "You Ain't No Family" by Iwrestledabearonce.

Sorry Attack Squared, you're an obscure group making "unhappy" music.

"We found significantly and persistently higher levels of cooperative behavior by participants who were played Happy music when compared with the other two conditions," the researchers wrote.

It's appears you fragile and disgusting humans have so-called "emotions" that influence your ability to work with your fellow flesh sacks.

 No, this isn't a shampoo commercial for Generation Sissy.

The people listening to thrash metal, on the other hand, were only contributing 40 percent to the group. 

Yeah, trash metal. I honestly thought it was "Exodus" in that hair-care picture above.

It's worth pointing out that the task the students were performing was a fairly abstract one.

So let's not start burning Beatles records just yet.

Is it better to optimize for playlists that can get customers to buy more, or that can get employees to sell better? For that, more research is needed.

And, of course, more funding. 

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Goats are as Loving and Clever as Dogs, Say Smitten Scientists

We're definitely living in the age of the goat. First everyone's favorite can-eating symbol for the hell-bound enemies of God became synonymous with "The Greatest of All Time." Then a goofy video game, the highest honor anyone or anything can aspire too. As if that isn't enough, now the science that we all freaking love because having intense affection for a process is spiritually healthy has determined that nature's garbage disposal is in fact every bit as "loving" and intelligent as that other animal you allow to live in your house and ascribe human traits to for some reason.

They may seem an unusual candidate for the title of man’s best friend, but scientists have suggested that goats could rival dogs in forming an emotional bond with their owners.

After years of staring at goats, this is our amazing conclusion.

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London aim to prove that goats are much cleverer than previously thought and interact with people in a similar way to pets, having trodden a path of domestication for 10,000 years.

Well, it was that or try to cure cancer. We stand by our selection.

Their latest experiment, documented in Biological Letters, showed that goats will gaze imploringly at their owners when they are struggling to complete a task, a trait common in dogs but not wolves, for example, who have never learned how to co-exist with humans.

I think I'd rather hang out with the team of scientists that studies wolves, primarily by engaging in the last good fight against them.

The team has also demonstrated that goats can work out how to break into a sealed box using levers, a task used to gauge intelligence in apes.  

We tried this task on college students, but after an hour the box was still unopened and everyone was crying and begging for a safe space and for the government to come and open it for them. Better stick with apes and goats for this one.

“Goats gaze at humans in the same way as dogs do when asking for a treat that is out of reach,” said Dr Christian Nawroth, one of the study’s authors.

I spent countless hours exchanging loving gazes with cloven hoofed animals. Science!

In many countries, including Italy, and Germany the phrase “as stupid as a goat” is used as an insult.
 
In fairness the more correct translation of the German phrase is "As inefficient and lacking in will as a can-eating swine dog with horns."

“We know that in some areas goats are as intelligent as dogs, but there has been a lot more work done on dog behaviour and we are really just scratching the surface with goats.”

It's more likely to eat your slippers than fetch them, but it knows what it's doing.

“If we can show that they are more intelligent, then hopefully we can bring in better guidelines for their care,” Dr  McElligott said.

Why are all fudging scientists liars?

 The big brains of the animal kingdom.

In the most recent experiment the team trained goats to remove a lid from a box to receive a reward. In the final test they made the box impossible to open and recorded the goat’s reaction.

Someone is getting paid to mess with goats. Let this sink in for awhile.

The bemused goats turned towards their owners in a pleading manner, clearly asking for help in getting to the treat.

"I thought we were friends, baaaaa."

Full Story.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Free Will Could All Be an Illusion, Scientists Suggest

Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom! We are condemned to it, it is the heaviest burden imaginable and an endless torment as we face down the absurdity of nothingness and, according to lying scientists, it isn't real. What a relief! The grim existential slouch toward oblivion just got a lot more manageable, that's for sure. Thank you tenure-seekers who can't even adequately explain magnets for finally laying to rest the cruelest of all jokes.

Free will might be an illusion created by our brains, scientists might have proved.

The idea that you're likable and people enjoy hearing your rambling and unfunny stories is definitely an illusion created by your brain. Free will might have slightly better footing, but then again science has offered another barrage of useless speculation, so not so fast my friend.

Humans are convinced that they make conscious choices as they live their lives. But instead it may be that the brain just convinces itself that it made a free choice from the available options after the decision is made.

We're basically like autonomous cars with legs and arms. Stop sweating and stressing, your magic auto-pilot body will just keep on chugging along in a highly deterministic fashion.

The idea was tested out by tricking subjects into believing that they had made a choice before the consequences of that choice could actually be seen.

The idea to trick the subjects was also predetermined by the wind-up toy brains of the scientists, of course.

In the test, people were made to believe that they had taken a decision using free will – even though that was impossible.

I've always wanted to be in a psychological study (without wasting me time and energy on it, of course) so I could be that guy who goes off and quits after a profanity-laden tirade, ruining everything.

The idea that human beings trick themselves into believing in free will was laid out in a paper by psychologists Dan Wegner and Thalia Wheatley nearly 20 years ago.

They were forced to write that paper by our mechanistic universe and as such should receive no credit whatsoever for it.

They proposed the feeling of wanting to do something was real, but there may be no connection between the feeling and actually doing it.

In attempting to translate academic babble into normal English all meaning was lost.

The new study builds on that work and says that the brain rewrites history when it makes its choices, changing our memories so that we believe we wanted to do something before it happened.

It turns out the dirt bike punk I knew growing up who fell off said bike, bloodied himself, and then mumbled "I meant to do that" through dripping lips was actually being truthful. I'd feel bad about yelling "He's hurt, let's get out of here!" and then running off, but, again, free will is an illusion.

In one of the studies undertaken by Adam Bear and Paul Bloom, of Princeton University, the test subjects were shown five white circles on a computer monitor. They were told to choose one of the circles before one of them lit up red.

It's no giant maze, but it will have to do. 

Statistically, people should have picked the right circle about one out of every five times. But they reported getting it right much more than 20 per cent of the time, going over 30 per cent if the circle turned red very quickly.

This incredibly weak finding should now be used as a justification to tear down all our traditions and rebuild society from the ground up.

The idea of free will may have arisen because it is a useful thing to have, giving people a feeling of control over their lives and allowing for people to be punished for wrongdoing.

I mean, I guess it had some minor utility, but on the other hand some people exaggerated their circle-guessing skills so let's open up the prisons and let everyone out.

I had no choice but to post this lame image.

But that same feeling can go awry, the scientists wrote in the Scientific American magazine.

"Let's talk about our feelings," scientists wrote in Science Magazine.

It may be important for people to feel they are control of their lives, for instance, but distortions in that same process might make people feel that they have control over external processes like the weather.

One moment you have pride in something you worked hard to accomplish, the next moment you're trying to control the weather. It's a pretty natural progression when you think about it.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Obese to Wear Waist Sensors for Federal Study

Despite the seemingly endless run of that fat camp television show we've still got a big (haw haw) problem with obesity in America. Somehow watching food victims waddle up stairs to a giant scale for forty-five advertisement riddled minutes has done little to change the gorging and lazing habits that represent the closest thing we have to a shared national vision. Fortunately, our government is on the case and we've all seen their track record of success. We're going to attach sophisticated sensors to people with real bodies not like those Hollywood sticks and will, presumably, get real-time "Are you allowed to have a jelly doughnut?" updates or something.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending $1.7 million to monitor how and what obese families eat, tracking their eating via sensors they wear on their waists.

I guess we could just ask them, but you know how physical and moral failure walk arm-in-arm, so sensors must be deployed. Who is agreeing to this? "Hey fat boy, how would you like to wear an electronic device on your bloat that will document your pathetic lack of self-control?" Who could say no to that?

The research, conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Virginia, began this month. Families will be monitored for months at a time.

I...want...my...fancy...degree. Man, that ain't working, you do the research at the Uni-verse-it-tee. That's the way to do it, grants for nothing and unearned respect for free. Let me tell, them guys ain't dumb. Maybe get a blister on your sensor finger, maybe get some chocolate stains on your thumb. What's that? Obesity studies? He's banging on a table like a chim-pan-zee.

A leading researcher on the project said the study is a “novel” approach to fighting childhood obesity.

Yeah, I suppose that's one way to describe this massive waste of time and money that might, if we get lucky, reveal that obese individuals take in more calories than they expend.

“Recent advances in remote sensing have provided a new paradigm for tracking human behavior, but obesity-related efforts focused directly on diet and activity have been hampered by not only the accuracy of behavior tracking (especially dietary intake) but also the lack of behavioral theories and dynamic models for personalized just-in-time, adaptive interventions (JITAIs),” according to a grant for the project. 

Let's try to parse this word swamp into vernacular English. "The rise of big brother and 'we are the dead' technology is giving us new ways to treat people like lab rats but when it comes to fatties [impenetrable and meaningless academic babble] so please give us money." Sorry, that was the best I could do.

“Current behavioral science suggests that family eating dynamics (FED) have high potential to impact child and parent dietary intake and obesity rates.”

LOL., FED amirite? USC and Virgina, master trolls messing with old Uncle Sucker.

The project will use wearable wireless sensors to track the family’s eating habits, in the hopes of bring about “behavior modification.”

We'll play some Beethoven, show you a video of someone eating a cake and inject drugs that make you physically ill.

Maybe sensors could help explain it.

The project, dubbed M2FED, is using a system of “in-home beacons, wireless and wearable sensors, and smartphones” to collect real time data of what the research subjects are eating. 

Everyone staring into tiny electronic devices is fixing every other aspect of our society so it makes sense to deploy it here.

USC has received $1,047,961 so far for the project. The University of Virginia received $689,315.

Thanks taxpayers!

“It is a pretty ambitious project, but the data that we accrue will be absolutely novel and informative,” she said. “We are going to learn many new things with this proposal about how family systems function dynamically around food and eating, and how this impacts eating behavior.”

Think of the "most of it actually gets into the mouth instead of flying off as crumbs" breakthroughs we'll be making!

Spruijt-Metz’s Obesity Research and Mobile Health Lab at USC uses technology to develop “culturally sensitive, evidence based approaches to promote health behavior change.”

It's like solving the world's hardest mystery, while walking on eggshells to avoid offending anyone.

Spruijt-Metz is also leading a $1,131,922 study for the National Institutes of Health that turned First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden into a video game.

Escape the Witch's Garden of Evil before she can seize our beloved grease food! Dodge foul-tasting "nutritious" government meals and earn big points for grabbing those yummy cheeseburgers!

Don't visit the ad-intensive source: http://freebeacon.com/issues/obese-to-wear-waist-sensors-for-federal-study/

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: There WAS Life on Mars but 'Catastrophic' Event Wiped it Out, Scientist Says

Gather round children, it's time to hear a fairy tale about things that happened long ago and far away, as told by the highly educated version of Mother Goose. Certainly the multiple advanced degrees will contribute to quality "just so" stories, or at least you would expect that. Let's tear into this speculation about things that might have happened, presented as set-in-stone fact, at least for the time being. Science is on the case, friends, and that should at least be good for a few chuckles and rueful shakes of the head before we're done here.

Life probably did start on Mars, but a catastrophic event must have completely wiped it out, a scientist has claimed.

The new scientific method. Step One: make some lazy observations or at least skim through what someone else observed. Step Two: Come up with various "Well, this seems plausible and doesn't appeal to any divine authority" just-so stories. Step Three: Big money, stories in British online news sources, horny co-ed debt victims breaking down the office door, etc.

Lewis Datrnelll, a UK Space Agency research Fellow, believes early microscopic forms of life may well have formed on Mars billions of years ago, but a major environmental event later made the Red Planet completely inhospitable even to the single-celled organisms that may have formed.

Believe in the possibility of microbes. If you have enough faith, poured enough money into the university swindle and are pure of heart it will become true. Also we butchered this guy's name, but it's understandable considering how exciting this all is.

Mr Dartnell, who is also author of The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch, a New York Times and Sunday Times best-selling book explaining how to rebuild society in the event of an apocalypse, said: "Something catastrophic has gone wrong on Mars environmentally."

We'll use the same nihilism, materialism and spiritual cancer that led to the apocalypse to rebuild society in our caves and mole-holes! Best seller!

He said the only life that would have developed before that would have been singled celled - "only the bacteria you would see under a microscope" - but whatever happened wiped out its chance of evolving into more complex creatures.

You can't see it because it's invisible and magical, but it was there, just trust me on this one. Then, because of original bacteria sin a great cataclysm occurred and the land was cursed forever.

He said: "The atmosphere has been blown into space. It is too cold and dry for any life now.

A wizard might have done that, we don't know.

"There were never any multi-celled life forms, animals or plants. The myths of canals on Mars will forever remain that."

If I lived 150 years ago I'd probably be promoting the canal myth, but here I am with some totally fresh tales from the imagination.

He was speaking during a debate on the search for extra terrestrial intelligent life at the British Science Festival in Bradford University.

There was a British Science Festival and I wasn't informed?

What do mean you don't see it? Come on, it's right there!

In both cases they were hailed as major breakthroughs and evidence that the red Planet once probably had continents separated by vast oceans which possibly contained some form of life.

Probably vast canals, Vrill energy, huge domed cities, domesticated dinosaurs and whatever else you want to throw in the "possibly" bucket.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

Time for this planet to get wiped out.

Shouldn't have been driving around in their little ameba SUVs. Climate change strikes again!

I blame George W Bush for the tragic loss of life on Mars all those millennia ago.

Another "scientist." *sigh*

21st century science: make s*** up and see if anyone believes it.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Homeopathy Conference Ends in Chaos after Delegates take Hallucinogenic Drug

We've all been to some wild homeopathy conferences. Who could forget the one where someone drank pure tap water and overdosed? Or that big seminar on how if Chiropractors can somehow obtain marginal legitimacy than it should be possible to convince people that these crazy ideas have some merit. Don't forget the time when the reflexologists were staying in the same hotel and the result was a weekend of crazy pranks involving the memory of fluids and the bottom of the foot. And, of course, today's subject where our favorite pseudo-scientists decided to take a drug that actually works, with disastrous consequences.

An alternative medicine conference has ended in chaos in Germany after dozens of delegates took a LSD-like drug and started suffering from hallucinations.

If there were any lingering doubts that "alternative medicine" was just code-word for snake oil scams and trying to find legal ways to drop acid I think we can lay them to rest.

Broadcaster NDR described the 29 men and women “staggering around, rolling in a meadow, talking gibberish and suffering severe cramps”.

These are the symptoms of what the medical-industrial complex that we heroically battle with our various frauds and trick bags describes as "tripping balls." And yes, don't forget the cramps, it's important to mention that tummy trouble when we've got Teutonic quack con-artists eating their own fingers and babbling incoherently in the world's ugliest language.

The group of "Heilpraktikers" was discovered at the hotel where they held their conference in the town of Handeloh, south of Hamburg, on Friday. 

"Heilpraktiker" sounds like someone who plays Hitler make-believe or maybe joins a neo-nazi group as undercover law enforcement (i.e. every single member) but the truth, as always, is even more amazing.

More than 150 medical staff, ambulances and police descended on the scene and took the raving delegates to hospital.
 
The cruelest irony is that now conventional western medicine that actually works, the mortal enemy of the conference goers, is deployed to cure their freak-out instead of a glass of water seeded with half a drop of anti-crazy.

Tests on their blood and urine revealed they had all taken hallucinogenic drug 2C-E, which is known as Aquarust in Germany and has been illegal there since the end of last year.

"As I stand here, the Champion of the World, I want the kids to know they can achieve anything if they work hard and never stop believing in themselves. And kids, just say no to 2C-E.

No one recovered sufficiently to be interviewed by police until Monday, a spokesperson said.

Probably because traditional medicine is all about making money and not about THE PEOPLE, man.

“One has to assume that people were not told about the substance, its effects and risks before taking it.” 

Then again we're talking about a credulity conference, so who knows.

Police are reportedly looking into possibilities including the drug being taken as a joint experiment, or it being furtively given to conference participants as a prank.

Yup, the old "give dangerous hallucinogenic compound to eccentrics" prank, always a winner.

The Association of German Healing Practitioners (VDH), which represents homeopaths as well as other naturopaths, quickly distanced itself from the embarrassment.

Get ready for the "Ve ver juss followink ORDERS!" defense.

“The organisers of this obscure conference are unknown to us and such events will not be tolerated by our Association,” a spokesperson said.

Our goofy make-believe sessions are highly legitimate and fully certified by a panel of wizards and alchemists.

“Unfortunately, the conference in Handeloh has severely damaged the image of the alternative medicine profession…and we have clarified that such acts are not in the spirit of natural therapy, and contradict our values both morally and legally."

An unbelievably pristine reputation for competence and legality may have suffered a small ding.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

Wonder if you'd ever see real doctors popping a few chemotherapy tablets at a conference...

Man, that homeopathy kicks butt! 

I guess they took a very small dose to make it more potent

one doesn't 'suffer' hallucinations one ENJOYS them

Probably the same stuff Angela Merkel took last week.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Are These Mystery Radio Bursts Messages From ALIENS?

Space aliens are bad at communicating. Their current strategies illustrate this well-reasoned fact quite well: abducting and probing rural Americans, using their lasers to carve up our cattle and replacing our leaders with reptile shape-shifters. They apparently don't know what a phone is and so the above nonsense seemed the next best solution. Well, that and radio signals that seem to be just not-random enough to suggest some sort of intelligence.

In 1967 British astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell was left stunned by mysterious pulsing signals she detected coming from outside the solar system.

This was the sort of wicked sexy stuff I thought I'd be getting into when I took that "Space for Jocks" elective in college, but instead it was a bunch of math.

For months she suggested the signals could be of an extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but they were later proven to be rapidly spinning stars known as pulsars.

She then faded back into well-deserved obscurity.

However, a new series of mysterious signals, known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), has again got astronomers scratching their heads and wondering if, maybe, we’re picking up alien messages.

"Learning the obvious lessons of incidents from 1967" is not the strong suit of your average professional star-gazer.

The mystery stems from the fact it is not known what could produce such a short and sharp burst.

Let the wild speculation begin! By the time the unbelievably mundane explanation is revealed we'll all get some of that sweet, fleeting "Science Fame." 

This has led some to speculate they could be anything from stars colliding to artificially created messages.

Incredibly, the "stars colliding" explanation is arguably even less credible.

The radio emission was so dispersed, experts suggested it must have come from a great distance away, possibly billions of light-years.

My doctorate in "What Seems Possible Studies" lends extra weight to this just-so explanation.

Theories so far include flaring stars, white dwarfs merging, neutron stars colliding and – most intriguingly – alien signals.

Other possibilities include swamp gas, ball lightning, sleep paralysis, you were drunk/high, false memory syndrome, etc.

It would be fantastic if this was an alien signal as the knowledge that we are not alone in this vast universe would have a dramatic impact on our perception of our place in the scheme of things.

"We could start blaming the E.T. people for not preventing World War 2 and so on!"

It will take further studies and observations in future to truly determine where they come from, and what is causing them. Until then, it’s difficult to rule any particular theory out of the window.

Because a theory is an idea without physical substance and as such can't be put through windows.

Full Story.

Komment Korner

aliens dont exist, stop researching this and keep it hidden from the public

Silly atheist scientists, God only created life on one planet.

How can anyone believe in such rubbish. It's just a page fillet

We thought once that there was only this planet

I believe the aliens and martians can see how weak OBAMA is and are planning to attack.

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Naps Linked with Higher Risk of Death

Sometimes posting one of these is so easy it's like the work is already done before I start. Start with a poorly written article warning of the massive risks of ordinary behavior that cites no sources and contains literally nothing of value. Add something ridiculous like the "risk of death," as if some of us are going to get out of our shared fate by not sleeping except at approved hours. Top it off with tons of ads and the usual insightful online commentators and you've got some news that you can't possibly use.

New research shows middle-age and older adults who take naps may be at an increased risk of dying.

Older people less healthy, study finds!

Man, I really have to get in on this lying scientist racket. Get tax dollars to point out the obvious, yeah. That ain't working, that's the way you do it, put out the worthless study at the univer-sit-tee.

Experts discovered naps were linked with an increased risk of dying from respiratory diseases.

We never actually find out who these "experts" are, but hey, I'm in this science rip-off con to get PAID, not for silly fame.

Longer naps were linked with an even higher risk, so people whose daily naps lasted an hour or more were 32 percent more likely to die.

The biggest risk would be taking an insanely long eight hour "nap" every night. He used to sleep. Now he's dead. Clearly these two pieces of data are connected. Plus, look at how sleep even resembles death! It was right there in our face, all the time. It took the good people at *string missing* Institute to finally get at the truth.

Experts say it may not be napping that's unhealthy, but rather, that those who tend to nap also have undiagnosed medical conditions that affect their risk of dying.

So the entire thing is intentionally misleading nonsense. No, you can't have that grant money back. Sorry.

Resolved: The bottom third of the "Drudge Report" is not a good source of lifestyle advice.

Many factors were considered for this study such as age, gender, body mass index and whether participants smoked and how often they exercised.

"We probably should have mentioned that five paragraphs ago."

Don't visit the spam-dominated source. http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25319794/study-naps-linked-with-higher-risk-of-death#axzz2ziwN6whz   

Komment Korner

Color me shocked that people who are 65+ are more likely to die in the next 13 years.

I will take a nap if I feel like it. I do expect to die some day.

All people who eat food end up dying, therefore, food kills people.

... especially if the napper doesn't wake up!

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: The Benefits of Eating Bugs

What happens when you combine fad diets, lying scientists and our good friend the insect? Well, you get today's article obviously, I don't know what you expected to happen here. Yup, it's all the fun of "gross" foods, evolutionary biology and her patented "It might have been like this, maybe, use your imagination" just-so explanations and maybe the occasional dig at feckless modern humanity. Let's solve all our problems by shoving handfuls of mealworms into our catcher's glove faces.

You've probably heard of the Stone Age diet craze known as the Paleolithic Diet, made popular most recently by Dr. Loren Cordain's best-seller The Paleo Diet.

Everyday is a battle against the urge to give myself a phony doctorate and promptly vomit out a book full of junk science that would kill you if you actually followed it to the letter. Luckily, knowing who reads those sort of books, there shouldn't be too many causalities to this outrageous fraud I've committed in my own mind many, many times.

It's the one time, it seems, that being like a caveman is a good thing. 

I mean you wouldn't want to emulate the self-reliance, independence or unapologetic masculinity. We need you in that cubicle, after all. Eat bugs, sure.

The theory goes (and archaeological evidence corroborates) that early hunter-gatherers, while they may not have lived as long, still had some major health advantages on most of us modern humans.

Much healthier than you, but dead by twenty from a wasting disease. Do you see the inherent contradiction here?

Higher levels of physical activity also played a vital role in cave people's vitality, and so did their high levels of wild food consumption: wild game meat, gathered greens and fruits, and healthy fats such as nuts.

This massive speculation is science.

Cordain suggests that prior to the agricultural revolution, early humans ate this Paleo Diet for 2.5 million years.

Long, long ago, in a magical kingdom far, far away...

"From the time mammals first appeared until 50 million years ago — a total of 150 million years, three quarters of the entire time mammals have existed — our ancestors were primarily insectivorous," write S. Boyd Eaton and Dorothy A. Nelson in their paper "Calcium in Evolutionary Perspective."

Take at seat and get comfortable kids, S. Boyd Eaton and Dorthy Nelson are going to tell you a fairy story about our lemur-like forebears and their calcium consumption during the time of the Thunder Lizards.

It's easy to observe this early pre-human diet in the wild today, since versions of this prehistoric bug-guzzler still exist in the form of bush babies, tree shrews, and similar small mammals.

And let's be honest here, you're basically a glorified shrew or bush baby.

It turns out that for a certain size of primate, bugs are one of the best things on the planetary menu. If we were still that size, that's pretty much all we'd eat, too.

But this is America and we've got curves and only dogs dig on bones and you can't even handle all of this I bet.

But for whatever reason, we grew, in both body and brain size.

Then something happened for no discernible reason and the bush babies of the Jurassic are now walking upright, using glory holes and writing erotic stories about the living dead.

The problem was not with the bugs themselves, but just that we couldn't find enough of them.

The problem isn't you, termite mound. The problem is me. We drifted apart. I've grown in brain and body size. It was fun, but it was over. Please, just be glad it happened instead of angry it ended.

This is one of the miracles and geniuses of being a primate: our innate adaptability to different diets, also known as omnivory ("omni" = everything, "vory" = eating). We adapted so that we could eat everything and anything and still survive.

We even adapted special motor scooters and wet rags on poles to support this "everything and anything" lifestyle.

The main reason for this is that insects are a much higher quality food compared to things like leaves, fruits, flowers, and even nuts.

Yeah, that fad diet scam is really starting to take shape in my mind. "Eat all the flowers you want!" maybe? "Leave the fat with leaves?" Still needs some work.

Nutrition is sort of like money: If leaves represent dollar bills, fruits are fives, nuts are tens, and insects and other forms of animal flesh are crisp fifty-dollar bills.

A somewhat decent pizza would be equivalent to winning the lottery.

When you think of the hallmarks of evolution, what image pops up?

Fraudsters attaching human jaws to monkey skulls.

But like a dog that stares at the pointing finger instead of the ball

We missed out on all the ball-related GLORY.

In fact, as it turns out, the skill of collecting termites is easier observed than done.

Here at Career Institute University Employment College we'll teach you real job skills like fixing submarine engines and termite collection.

"Termites are a valuable source of protein, fat, and essential amino acids, in the diets of both primates and modern humans," wrote Backwell.

Lift balls to the walls + eat the termites from said walls = massive gains.

Let's imagine you are an evolving proto-human, and you have this excellent source of protein

It's sort of like in Altered Beast, except it's horrific vermin making you bigger instead of flying blue orbs.

As the author of the blog PaleoVeganology quips, "It's as though someone took a big can of Raid to the authors'

See, this is why no one ever says things like "Man, that scientist party was awfully crazy."

So steeped are they in their Western food bias and paleofantasies that the possibility of Paleolithic man fulfilling his nutrient requirements with a diet of creepy-crawlies never occurred to them.

Stop using your so-called life experience and eat these grubs I found under a rock.

Oh, how times have changed: When an early female hominid saw a bug and shrieked, it was in excitement, because hey, lunch.

We know everyone stopped reading this article about ten paragraphs ago during that whole "150 million years ago!" mess so we might as well sneak in some casual sexism.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS CAN'T BE PASSED ON

I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterward) before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges/universities.

This gives me butterflies in my stomach.

I wonder how much PETA contributed to this article. I don't know where they find the time, I'm sure there's still some puppies and kitten that need to be killed in the back of a van somewhere

The way Lucifer Jr. is printing money & driving us into am imminent financial collapse, we will all be forced to eat grub, worms, & dirt.

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.