Everyday Scientist

Cue your junior high-level humor

April 8, 2006 at 6:08 am | jordan | nerd, news

I keep having to check the dates on the recent science-oriented articles I find, just to make sure they’re not from April 1. The latest article was titled “Blue Ring Discovered Around Uranus.” What? Blue? Geez, what’s been going on there!? The astronomers seemed to expect the rings to be red, which is a rather common color for rings. But Blue? Uranus never surprised so many. Or smelled so much like Koolaid. (Bwa?) Source

Okay. And how about this one from a little while back: “Brain scan finds the penis at last.” Oh goodness. You need a brain scan for that? Just point the camera down a little, for crying out loud! This is junior-high-funny on so many levels. See, before this study, we knew what part of the brain we used when cognizing the arm, leg, foot, etc… but not the penis. So this German scientist (he had to be German) took a bunch of guys, stuck ’em in the MRI scanner, and “stroked parts of each volunteer’s body…using a soft brush.” I wonder if maybe the part of the brain that lit up wasn’t so much the penis part as it was the mommy-warned-me-about-German-men-like-you part. Even more, when the penis part of the brain was discovered, the scientists lamented that the “representation is very small.” Maybe on German penises! This is what happens when you don’t use black or Jewish subjects. Or maybe this is what happens when you don’t use female scientists to “stroke parts of each volunteer’s body…using a soft brush.” Source

This last one is not as funny, but it’s nevertheless worth mentioning. “Moderate Drinking Associated with Better Cognition in Women.” Um…it’s called “beer goggles,” isn’t it? If not, then here’s an alternative explanation. Fem-Drinkers show their cognitive prowess moreso than do sober women because men talk to the fem-drinkers more. Why? Because men need to constantly test these drinking women, to check if “they’re ready” . Tasteless. I know. And really, this puts a very misleading angle on the study. The women weren’t drunk during the study. They were sorted into categories based on their drinking history, then made to take a mental exam. The moderate fem-drinkers tested better. This is because the prize for winning was booze. Okay, that’s misleading, too. Nah, they probably tested better, well, because mormons and strict southern baptists (i.e., those comprising the non-drinker category) and biker chicks and soccer moms (i.e., those comprising the femi-drunks category) probably ain’t too brainy in the first place. Source