Category Archives: Science

Did humans and Neanderthals interbreed?

October 28, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

LASCAUX TESCAUX, Town Centre, Saturday night (NNN) — Modern humans and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to Professor Svante Paabo, a political scientist researching the British National Party.

Prof Paabo will shortly publish his analysis of the entire Neanderthal genome, using DNA retrieved from fossils. He aims to compare it with the genomes of modern humans, chimpanzees and neo-Nazis to work out where it all went horribly wrong.

“What I’m really interested in is, did they have children back then? And did these children go on to form the English Aborigine population of 17,000 years ago? And did their pamphlets make any more sense back then, and when did they introduce a football game to their regular Saturday bloodbaths?”

Such an answer might ease the controversy over recent contradictory discoveries. Some specimens seem to have both modern human and Neanderthal features, some even managing to string words into apparent sentences on Question Time. Some cave paintings of the time appear to be condemnations of “mud people,” particularly smart and beautiful ones who patronise them in public appearances.

“I used to believe Neanderthals were primitive,” said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, “but in the last ten to fifteen thousand years before they died out, around thirty thousand years ago, they were leaving behind complicated bead designs that appear from other cave paintings to translate, as far as we can work out, to ‘Fuck off you brain-dead fascist wanker.'”

Health, Media, Science, United Kingdom

Daily Mail suspends complete bollocks injections after reader dies of stupidity

September 29, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

DACRE, Moron Piers, Tuesday (NNN) — Associated Newspapers today suspended all injections of scaremongering bollocks after a reader seemed to die of stupidity hours after reading the Daily Mail.

Boris Busybody, 77 (IQ), of East Cheam, was found dead in his armchair after reading the UK Daily Mail‘s campaign against cervical cancer vaccines and the Irish Daily Mail‘s campaign for them in the same hour. “The doctor said his brain function had ceased six months before,” said his grieving wife Brenda, “shortly before he started getting the Mail home delivered. It was about then he started smelling funny, too. But only yesterday he was talking about asylum-seeking Poles and house prices!”

Critics of the Daily Mail have said it will encourage promiscuous idiocy, with reports of outbreaks of Richard Littlejohn. “Big Publishing is abusing our grandparents for memetic experiments. It’s all about money for them. A hundred-year-old criminal enterprise targeting our loved ones!”

Associated Newspapers has refused to say whether it would still allow tens of thousands of grumpy old gits across the country to receive the paper in the months ahead. But there were calls for the entire Daily Mail distribution programme to be suspended in the interests of sanity and good taste.

A number of Busybody’s mates down the pub have reported similar side-effects after our reporter paid them for their kind participation in this story.

Health, Science, United States

Biotech stocks plummet in wake of public health policies that favor humans

September 16, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

OVER 60 MILLION GOT SERVED, Just Over The Border, Wednesday (NNN) — Biotechnology companies banking on a severe swine flu pandemic were shocked this week when US health officials approved four H1N1 vaccines, triggering a selloff in the sector.

“This is outrageous fiscal irresponsibility from the Democrat Party,” said analyst Brian Adams. “A lot of these companies have basically been trading on pandemic concerns. How can the United States possibly lead in the biotech revolution without serious damage from the pandemic? They’re destroying business value!”

The World Health Organization said it could infect as many as one-third of the world’s population, or 2 billion people. “Most of these are in the Third World, of course. If they got all their drugs cheap — or, God forbid, free — that would cut our gross takings by as much as five percent. Just what the hell do they think they’re doing in there? We’ve spent quite enough time and money on onerous intellectual monopoly laws. That money is our right as creative individuals, as the true creators of objective value!”

Businesses in the US will give the swine flu vaccine to their workers, on an “as needed” basis — those being the ones whose insurance they are paying for. “At least the illegals won’t get health care, so they’ll still be a good breeding ground for new and profitable bugs. Thank God.”

Adams said there was still a chance that H1N1 would mutate, rendering vaccines less effective. “Failing that, we’ll just have to see what we can do to push it along. You didn’t write that down? Good, good.”

Health, Science, United Kingdom, United States

Placebos more effective than most new drugs

September 7, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

CRYSTAL CAULDRON, Goldacre, Monday (NotScientist) — The pharmaceutical industry is reeling from the news that more and more new drugs do no better than a placebo. Despite historic levels of industry investment in research and development, the FDA approved only 19 new drugs in 2007 and 24 in 2008.

The placebo effect has been little-understood. Trials in different countries and cultures can show different results. Ratings by trial observers can vary significantly from one test site to another. Advertising has conditioned people into thinking a little branded pill will make them all better.

“This throws R&D spending into significant doubt,” said Cylon Number Six of GlaxoSmithPfizerMonsanto. “It’s clear that marketing has always been the way to go, and that spending four times as much on marketing as research was the best thing we could possibly have done for humanity.”

Researchers are now going full steam to discover new forms of nothingness to apply to new diseases. Explorers have been sent into the Amazonian rainforest to find new plant species to dilute to the point of no molecules of the original being present. Traditionally ineffective tribal remedies from around the world have been patented in Western countries. “If ‘4’33″’ can be copyrighted, we can patent the placebo gene!” The treatments will be publicised in the new Elsevier journal, The Australasian Journal of Nothing Whatsoever.

Homeopaths are up in arms at the pharmaceutical industry “muscling in on our territory,” said Ravenwoo Granola of the Specialist Homeopathic Institute of Technology. “We developed the finest, most refined and provably harmless snake oil in existence! There’s nothing homeopathy can’t cure! Er, there’s nothing that isn’t brought to us for consideration and helping the patient trigger the placebo effect themselves. A snip at £5.99 a bottle and fifty quid a consultation! And we absolutely proved it harmless! We did double-blind tests against placebo … Bugger.”

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Media, Science, United Kingdom

Designers prefer websites designed by designers

August 29, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

PAGE 3, Channel 5, August (NNN) — Men prefer websites designed by men, women prefer those designed by women and designers prefer those designed by designers, according to a new study by Gloria Moss, a lecturer in Press-Release Science at Bucks New University.

“It’s August, so the differences spring from our … caveman ancestors!” said Professor Moss. Men’s eyes are slightly further apart than women’s, giving them better stereoscopic vision for ogling large breasts. Men prefer websites with straight lines, unfussy detail, regular typography and tits. “Digs in Lascaux in the south of France show the original version of nuts.co.uk, which was painted on the walls of the cave.”

Women prefer websites about cooking, cleaning, housework, submissive workplace behaviour and gossip, particularly the sort in free newspapers you glance at on the train. Pink flowery decorations are also favoured. Also, they need to show more cleavage in the workplace and waggle it around at after-work drinks to get ahead in their careers.

Designers write blog rants about typefaces and kerning, under the delusion that anyone gives a shit. “Everyone else uses Comic Sans specifically to piss them off. Wind ’em up and watch ’em go!” They also spend inordinate amounts of time trying to put in penis logos to amuse their mates on b3ta.

Professor Moss’s research is to be published in the Journal of Metro in September. “Free newspapers count as publication credits these days. Had you even heard of Bucks New University before this article? Me neither.”

Science, United Kingdom

Women getting more beautiful, say Photoshop retouchers

July 30, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

I DON’T FANCY YOURS MUCH, Down The Pub, Monday (NNN) — Women are gradually becoming more attractive in an evolutionary “beauty race,” at least where Photoshop is available.

Beautiful women get more attention to detail and fixing of flaws than their plainer counterparts, certainly better than the days of actual physical airbrushes. Men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors, as proven by several generations of Top Gear.

“You just can’t do much with the men, the clone tool on the hair’s too obvious and then you get on some snarky ‘Photoshop Phoulups’ blog,” said Professor Gene Hunt of the University of Metro. “We had the same problem with Susan Boyle’s eyebrows.”

Beautiful women in magazines have more children and these daughters, once adult, also tend to end up in magazines. “Look at Paula Yates and her daughters, Peaches and Pixie … er, I’ll think of another example in a moment.”

The heritability of attractiveness is widely accepted. When Elizabeth Jagger became a model, her mother, the former model Jerry Hall, said: “It’s in her genes. Self-obsession, thickness … I contributed too, of course.”

Professor Hunt looks forward to future developments. “Beer’s always good when Photoshop fails. Women need to carry beer around with them more.”

Media, Science, United Kingdom

Minister praises high standard of science journalism

July 2, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

WELL I NEVER, Do-As-You-Please, Wednesday (NotScientist) — The minister for science and innovation, Lord Paul Drayson, has praised the high standards of science journalism at the sixth World Conference of Science Journalists in London yesterday. About 900 delegates attended the conference to congratulate each other on the remarkable quality of their press release transcription skills.

“The public relies on dependable science journalism to understand the forces shaping the modern world,” said Lord Drayson. “Your work covering the things that really matter, such as pseudo-evolutionary explanations of current fashion trends, what will give us cancer this week, scaring the crap out of people over the MMR vaccine so their kids die of birth defects from measles instead and why fellatio is required for female health helps people make important choices about their lives and builds a vital gap between scientists and the public. I mean bridge.”

He dismissed claims that typical science reporting primarily results in sensationalist and misleading headlines. “I wish more journalists would follow your example. The ones covering MPs’ expenses certainly should have been working the way you do.”

The speech was delivered to a backdrop of A-level students in lab coats. And bikinis.

Professor Gene Hunt of the University of Metro calculated that Lord Drayson’s speech could power all of Britain for six months purely from harnessing the steam coming out of Ben Goldacre’s ears.

Health, Science, United Kingdom

Sceptics defeat homeopathy with homeopathic homeopathy

June 22, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

CRYSTAL CAULDRON, Surrey, Monday (NotScientist) — In a revolution for the forces of allopathic hatred and the negation of human spiritual potential, a strike force of rogue sceptics has, using the funding of their pharmaceutical death-dealer masters, negated homeopathy with the proving of a new remedy: homeopathic homeopathy.

The preparation was initially energised using the explanations for Plutonium Nitricu 30C (homeopathic plutonium), Positronium 30C (homeopathic antimatter) and Rational Sceptic 10C (homeopathic exploded brains of people hearing of the previous two). The succussions of the subsequent dilutions were done using a mechanical potentiser based on the arm of Dr Samuel Hahnemann, the discoverer of homeopathy, which pounds the mechanical arm against a firm rubber pad from a height of five inches twenty times in two seconds. This is also effective when applied to the patient just before presenting the bill.

The provers found they experienced the complete sensations of every ingredient that had not been added to the solution as, like all homeopathic solutions, it was guaranteed to contain no ingredients whatsoever. This gave them complete understanding of all possible effects of nothing but pure distilled water energised only by a £5.99 price tag from Boots on the bottle. They then proceeded to get new jobs doing something actually useful for a living.

Ravenwoo Granola (Bachelor of Homeopathic Medicine, University of Bums on Seats) countered that hundreds of years of carefully documented study of homeopathy could not be at error. “I dosed myself with a homeopathic preparation from my own anus before considering your question, thus assuring my brilliance and perspicacity on this subject.”

Internet users, however, heralded the results, suggesting pouring the contents of a homeopathic preparation of Scientology into their DSL modems to protect them from blithering stupidity, and homeopathic goatse to protect them from 4chan.

Australia, Politics, Science

Fielding annoyed by “scientists” disagreeing with him

June 16, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

THE END TIMES, Canberra, one hundred light-years behind (NotScientist) — A two-hour meeting with Australia’s Chief Scientist Penny Sackett has failed to convince Family First Senator Steven Fielding that human activity is the main cause of climate change.

Senator Fielding also expressed scepticism concerning chemistry, physics, evolution and the “Galilean heresies” concerning the Earth and the Sun and was not entirely sure of this new-fangled “arithmetic” or its place in our schools. He was unimpressed by Dr Sackett’s “evasions” when he questioned her. “When I asked her ‘why do carbon emissions only prove the Earth is six thousand years old and we’ll all have gone to Heaven in the Rapture by the time it becomes a problem?’, she wanted to rephrase my question and not answer it. Then she’d bang her head on the wall, I don’t know why.”

Senator Fielding has recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the United States, where he met with several climate change sceptics and Discovery Institute scientists who revealed to him how “magic beans” were responsible for temperature rises. “We also established that homosexuality causes greenhouse gases. But if we can filter the carbon dioxide at the Internet, apparently, we should be able to stop it dead in its tracks.”

The Government’s prospects of getting its carbon trading scheme through the Senate this fortnight rest with Senator Fielding and other crossbench senators who hold the balance of power. The Greens and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon also refused to back the scheme, but are thought to understand basic logic and mathematics and so may have objections that do not cause neural injury to contemplate.

The Australian Senate is elected by proportional representation per state. Senator Fielding represents those constituents, otherwise discriminated against, who remain climate change sceptics, evolution sceptics, ten-finger sceptics, outbreeding sceptics and walking upright sceptics.

Asia, Science

Furry dinosaurs discovered

March 20, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

VIVISECTOR, Furtopia, Thursday (NotScientist) — A small dinosaur that once roamed northeastern China was covered with a stiff, hairlike fuzz, which suggests that anthropomorphic perversion evolved much earlier than thought — even before the Internet.

Scientists had previously identified kitten ears and fake whiskers on otherwise-cute women. But the “dinosaur furries” are only distantly related to catgirls, and may herald a horrifying new realm of things man was not meant to know.

The creature, Fursecutus dramaticii, walked on two legs and had a long tail. And a large penis. And huge breasts. Six of them. Really. Not meant to know.

Yiff Therianthrope, the one scientist on the team who did not spork his eyes out immediately upon making the find, has reported on the discovery in this month’s Journal of 4chanic Studies, including his own artistic reconstructions of the creatures, lovingly rendered in crayon on brown paper, eschewing such oppressive bourgeois affectations as knowledge of perspective or anatomy and sold on Furbid for several hundred dollars each.

Creationist groups have experienced a tremendous boost in membership, particularly the Westboro Baptist Church and their godhatesfurries.com website. “If we ever wanted proof that ‘evilution’ was the work of Satan,” said Sir Frederick Phelps, knighted after his recent Nobel Peace Prize, “dinosaur furverts are it. Pogroms and concentration camps are the only sane response. Remember: if anyone tries to tell you that hermaphrodite lizard sodomy is only right and natural, just answer: ‘But you are a furry.'”

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