Cheese Rolling Derby

This video is sure to make you laugh and go, "OOOH!" I don't know if I can understand why people would do this to themselves but hey... a tradition's a tradition, amirite?

And this poor cat! This is why you shouldn't let your cat play with bees!

You can own a brahmin too!

No, not the Hindu brahmin (or brahman). I'm talking about the Fallout series mutant cows.

These Belgian cows were the results of a 19th century crossbreeding from the local cows and British cow, which apparently created a mutation in the gene for myostatin, a protein that regulates lean muscle growth.

Now we just have to figure out how to make them have two heads.



For more pictures

Best job ever.

Many of you have probably gotten the email about the Johnson and Johnson rectal thermometer being personally tested and how that's supposed to make you feel about your daily grind of a job. Despite the fact that that is a false claim, you laugh and think (lie) to yourself, "At least I have it better."

That is, unless you work for Canon. Hirashi Sakamaki, the president of Canon Electronics has some interesting theories about how save money, increase productivity, as well as enhance employee relationships.


Yes that's right, the answer is easy. You simply take away all the chairs in the office and make your employees stand for 8 hours a day. Oh but it doesn't end there. If you leave and go in the hallway, you better make sure you're walking at a rate of 5 meters every 3.6 seconds (or 4.5ft/s!!), otherwise alarms and flashing lights go off and everyone gets to make fun of you when they see you. And just in case you forget, there's a sign on the floor in the hallway that urges you to, "Let's rush: If we don't, the company and world will perish."

The best part is: the same principles don't apply to the big boss, as he gets to sit in a comfy chair in his office.

So the next time you think your (office) job sucks, just remember that you could be working for Canon.

Leave it to the professionals.

Today's moron of the day: (you can go ahead and fast forward to 0:39... this ain't no Ax Men)


Moron Cuts Tree and Crushes His Porch - Watch more Funny Videos

Remember kids, do not try this at home!

It's pretty awesome how sometimes we just don't think things through. Hey, think of it this way, at least 10 years down the line, they can laugh about it.

Torture me pretty

Here's the Made-Me-Chuckle story of the day:

Link

Out in the Time magazine today, according to former FBI interrogater, Ali Soufan, the most successful interrogation to date of an al-Qaeda operative required none of those hardass techniques.

All it took to get Abu Jandal to talk? A handful of sugar-free cookies because he had diabetes.

I shall forever remember him as the Cookie Monster.

What I learned from this story is that terrorists have to watch what they eat too.

Human Speech

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It would appear you have arrived at my humble blog and no doubt expecting some interesting read. So let's get down to it!

This story I will probably hold dear to my heart as it is the story that prompted me to start a new blog for the purposes of providing interesting and bizaare stories to you, the reader. Let's start off with a picture:

I trust that everyone remembers this (in)famous picture of what scientists do to animals. (I am neither condemning nor condoning--although I will say I fall more in the view that animal testings are okay, although I am conflicted when it comes to certain animals. I am a human being as you all are!)

So what has our esteemed scientists done now? Given mice speech.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30984848/

Okay, not really... yet. But we just may expect talking mice a few decades down the line. The story goes that apparently mice are very similar to human beings genetically, which is part of the reason we like to experiment with them. That and the fact that we can breed them like rabbits and human beings aren't as concerned with rodent cruelty as they are about primate cruelty.

"With this study, we get the first glimpse that mice can be used to study
not only disease, but also our own history."

Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthrophology (and colleagues) are conducting a study about the evolution of human speech using lab mice. Science Jargons alert! Basically, scientists have found that in humans, there are two amino acid substitutes on the FOXP2 gene compared to chimps. This changes became fixed after we humans split off from the chimpanzees in the great tree of "Where did we come from?". The reason they theorize that this gene is responsible for how we came to have speech is that people who carry a nonfunctional version of the FOXP2 gene have impairments in the timing of the facial movement required for speech. This in turn suggests the gene is involved in the motor control of the lips, tongue and larynx required for speech.

Enter stage right: genetically altered mice.

Unfortunately, we won't be hearing littel adorable mice talking about taking over the world any time soon, but maybe in a few 10000's of years! (Or decades, considering how much shorter each mice generation is.)

The brain circuitry of these new mice have started to show changes that were previously linkd to human speech. And--apparently little mice babies send out distress calls when you take them away from mommy--their ultrasonic vocalizations are already showing changes.

However, let's not forget that we don't know enough about mouse communication to really understand how these changes really mean.

Nevertheless, I shall hold out hope that a few escape mice will eventually give rise to a new world where we can learn "mice-an."

In other news, beware the wrath of a woman scorned: http://www.mosnews.com/weird/2009/05/25/1909/