Curious
Times
Trippy News from a Dysfunctional Planet
Thursday, October 26, 2006
By Andreas Ohrt
www.CuriousTimes.com
A TINY
LITTLE SPEEDBUMP ON THE ROAD TO APOCALYPSE
Hey! Maybe humanity isn’t entirely insane! Last week the company
which had been offering to clone your cat for a cool 50 grand closed
its doors due to lack of interest. The biotech firm Genetic Savings
and Clone announced the end of business in a press release which explained
that they are “unable to develop the technology to the point that
cloning pets is commercially viable.” What they meant to say is
that they couldn’t find enough suckers to spring for a cloned cat
even after they dropped their price to $32,000 per cat. Since opening
for business in 2000 the company has created five cloned cats and sold
only two. Animal rights activists were elated to hear the news. “We’re
very pleased that Genetics Savings and Clone’s attempt to run a
cloning pet store was a spectacular flop,” said Wayne Pacelle,
head of the Humane Society of the United States. “It’s not
just a bad business venture, but also an operation grounded on the misuse
of animals.” (AP)
ALL THIS FOOD TASTES EXACTLY THE SAME
The bad news is that if nobody wants a cloned animal as a pet then we’ll
be forced to have to eat all the clones they’re breeding. The Food
and Drug Administration announced last week that they are very close
to approving meat and milk from cloned animals and are currently reviewing
plans on how to regulate the products once they are approved. The FDA
press release claimed that their studies “show that the meat and
milk from cattle clones and their offspring are as safe as that from
conventionally bred animals.” Despite protests from consumer groups,
surveys carried out by the biotech industry has discovered that most
people won’t give a crap as long as the price is right. “We
feel like the average consumer is going to accept this technology as
we move forward,” said a spokesperson for the Biotechnology Industry
Organization. “There will not be a label that will indicate this
is anything other than healthy meat and milk.” (AP)
MEN ARE ALL ALIKE, EVEN IF THEY’RE FISH
From the extremely strange scientific experiments department comes news
that researchers at a Swiss University have concluded that fish can
be turned on by fish pornography. The scientists (if you can call them
scientists and still keep a straight face) showed 17 male stickleback
fish two different films, one showing a flirtatious courtship between
a male and female stickleback, the other simply showing a male caring
for his brood. After the foreplay, the researchers found that the fish
who had seen the "soft porn" ejaculated much more sperm than
the fish who watched the boring film. Unfortunately, they didn't explain
how they managed to get a fish to watch the film, nor where they got
a hold of that hot fish porn.
WOMEN ARE ALL ALIKE, EVEN IF THEY’RE FISH
But wait, there’s more from the “Scientific Research That
Smells Fishy” department. According to a book about strange animal
behavior, brown trout sometimes fake orgasms in order to force their
male partners to ejaculate prematurely. They do this, supposedly, in
order to fool the male into thinking he has successfully mated so that
the female fish can ditch him and go find a sexier male for some real
action. No word on how (or why) researchers figure this shit out...
FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU -- FOOL ME FOUR TIMES, GO TO JAIL
A Spanish woman who managed to successfully cheat her ex-husband out
of over a million Euros in ransom money for three faked kidnappings
of their son was finally arrested after letting her greed get the better
of her. According to Spain’s El
Mundo newspaper it was during the fourth faked kidnapping that the
father got suspicious and hired a private detective to unravel the scheme.
The woman was arrested last week along with five accomplices including
her 15-year-old son who had played along by calling his father and begging
him to pay the ransom money.
GRANDPA DOESN’T HAVE ALZHEIMER’S, HE’S JUST STONED
Good news for aging potheads. Research published in the science journal
“Molecular Pharmeceutics” has found that smoking marijuana
may help stop the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The study found
that marijuana’s active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol
(THC), was able to preserve the levels of a neurotransmitter which is
vital for brain function as we age. Researchers also found that THC
blocks clumps of protein which inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s
patients. The strangest thing about this news is that Alzheimer’s
patients suffer from memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished
language skills, which are exactly the same side-effects of getting
baked. (CNN)
JUST TOSS YOUR DIRTY GINCH ANYWHERE
The
good folks over at UrbanJunkie.co.uk
now sell the ultra-convenient Laundry Rug. “Since you’re going
to throw dirty clothing on the floor anyway, throw it in the general
direction of the Laundry Rug!” explains the web. “When you’ve
accumulated a decent pile of dirty laundry, just pick it up by the side
handles. A drawstring around the edge converts the rug into a bag, as
you head to mom’s house… or the laundromat.”
I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
Nine out of 10 parents admit to stealing their children's Halloween
candy.