Update [2005-3-18 18:24:57 by BooMan]: Because it’s frivolous Friday, and because I am in a silly mood, I’m promoting this hilarious diary to the front page…the BooMan
Laughing is often the only way for me to dig myself out of my doldrums, which I’m feeling rather a lot today because of ANWR, the attacks on Rachel Corrie in my diary at Kos, and the very serious illness of a close relative.
Without further ado!
FINALLY! Farting fish have been fingered!
… Dr Batty, who works at the Dunstaffnage marine centre near Oban, and his colleagues were looking at whether herrings could detect sounds made by predators like whales and dolphins. Using infrared lighting with video cameras and underwater microphones, they monitored the herrings behaviour round the clock. “We heard these rasping noises, which sound like high pitched raspberries, only ever at night, whenever we saw tiny gas bubbles coming from the herrings’ bottoms,” said Dr Batty.
We also noticed that individual fish release more bubbles the more fish are in the tank with them. In other words, it seems that herring like to fart in company,” commented Dr Wilson. …
Just like some men I’ve known.
::: read on :::
Sexy yawns: “Donald MacLeod reports on the research that suggests sex is the reason for yawning.”
Depends on the man, I’ve found.
Necrophilia among ducks ruffles research feathers: “The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker. … [A scientist observed] a male mallard attack a dead duck. The male “picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.”
Randy rock doves join party with the dead: “It seems that ducks are not the only birds which are known to practise necrophilia. Donald MacLeod reports on an earlier finding that proves pigeons have copulated with corpses too.”
Lastly, there are Einstein’s relatives’ theories:
– ME Einstein has published “Utilisation of a Sperm Quality Analyser to Evaluate Sperm Quantity and Quality of Turkey Breeders” and “Evaluation of Alternative Measures of Pork Carcass Composition”
If you get sick of this place, give improbable.typepad.com/ or the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists a try.
JOKES PLEASE! THE WORSE, THE BETTER!