Category:
Animals

Santa Hates PETA

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 22, 2011 - Comments (19)
Category: Animals, Business, Advertising, Products, Holidays, 1980s

Weird Shorts – 4

Talk about a mammoth appetite, when most of the world’s large mammals went extinct roughly 10,000 years ago, the vast majority of the vanished species were herbivores. This of course meant that they were no longer around to eat the plants they otherwise would have, and - according to Christophers Doughty and Field from Oxford and Stanford Universities respectively – this freed up an extra 1.4 trillion kilos of food, roughly 2.5% of the net product of all Earth’s dry land. However, the researchers add, this excess had been ‘used up’ by burgeoning human numbers by around 1700 and today we consume six times as much as the Pleistocene critters ever did while simultaneously driving down land productivity by 10% (Nature)(PDF).

That’s not to say that our massive consumption doesn’t have it’s upside, As Vangelis Kapatos of Manhattan discovered when he attempted suicide by jumping from his ninth floor flat, only to survive when his fall was broken by a pile of uncollected garbage. Mr. Kapatos’ timing, from his perspective, couldn’t have been worse, the unusually large garbage pile was due to collections being suspended because of snow. They were due to resume the day after his impromptu dumpster dive (Today Online).

Mind you, we’re not the only animals prone to excess. After finding the bodies of dozens of starlings near the city of Constanta in Romania, locals were concerned that the cause might be bird flu, instead post-mortems of the birds have revealed that they in fact died of alcohol poisoning, having ‘drunk’ themselves to death on the discarded leftovers of the local winemaking industry. A least they died happy (BBC News).

Better than dying happy, though, is living happy, and the secret of that, says the UK’s Office for National Statistics, is having a job. But it’s not the pay but the job security that counts, say the government statisticians, which ironically are facing staff cuts themselves due to the economic downturn. Other key happiness factors, according to the preliminary report, are good personal health and a decent family life. What will we do without these people (Telegraph)?



More in extended >>

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Thu Jan 13, 2011 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, Armageddon and Apocalypses, Babies, Crime, Death, Human Marvels, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Religion, Sexuality, Weird Names, Body Fluids, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Another Helping of Food Related Weirdness – 7

Scientists have a history of accomplishing what was once thought impossible, be it walking on the moon, splitting the atom or alleviating pain and disease. But now they may have discovered something that will eclipse all that has come before; scientists are on the verge of making chocolate better! A team lead by Dr. Siela Maximova from Pennsylvania State University has pieced together the genetic code of the cacao tree, and not just any cacao tree but the Criollo variety that is widely recognised to produce the very best chocolate. Because of its poor disease resistance, Criollo is almost entirely ignored in favour of hybrid varieties that yield more – if inferior – beans, but Maximova et al hope their work will enable the development of new, elite strains of cacao (News.com.AU).

Meanwhile, here is someone who is taking the chocolate maker’s art way too literally. Jean Zaun of Fredericksburg in Pennsylvania uses a mixture of dark and white chocolate, food colouring and confectioner’s glaze to recreate famous works of art, including the frames, in a deliciously edible form. Her subjects have included the works of Van Gogh, Munch and Da Vinci, as well as a portrait of Ozzy Osborne commissioned by his wife. While the chocolate artworks are edible, Zaun believes they should be souvenirs rather than snacks. “They are meant to be consumed by the eye, not the stomach.” Zaun Explained (Daily Mail).

And the misuse of materials won’t stop there, at least not if Dr. Peter Eisner of the Fraunhofer Institute gets his way. Concerned that meat consumption is both unhealthy and bad for the environment, Dr. Eisner has started looking for ways to supplement or replace animal products with vegetable equivalents. His first success is a milk substitute derived from lupins that can even be used to make cheese, meanwhile co-worker Daniela Sussmann has extracted a protein from the seeds gives low-fat sausages more of the sensation of their unadulterated competition. Eisner reckons that our ever growing appetite for meat could one day be disastrous, arguing that the resources needed to produce 1 kilo of meat could instead yield 80 to 100 kilos of fruit or vegetables (Softpedia).



More in extended >>

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Jan 10, 2011 - Comments (7)
Category: Agriculture, Animals, Farming, Art, Food, Bacon, Candy, Junk Food, Nutrition, Vegetables

A Lonely Duck



The YouTube description: "this is a song about confidence of a girl who thinks herself as a lonely duck."

Instead of wearing yellow and green, she should have dressed in silver and red, and identified herself with the Ultraman toy.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 03, 2011 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Music, Foreign Customs, Asia

Turduckens Are So 2005

Ladies, gentlemen, WUvians, I bring you the food of the gods. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say there is bacon involved.



Be sure to check out their other videos, which always include lots of overkill and plenty of bacon.

Posted By: Salamander Sam - Sun Nov 28, 2010 - Comments (13)
Category: Animals, Dreams and Nightmares, Food, Bacon, Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Video, Documentaries, Fictional Monsters, Eating

Nick the Neurotic Dog

You've probably heard of the Russian researcher Ivan Pavlov who conditioned dogs to salivate whenever they heard the ringing of a bell. Less well known, but more appropriate for Weird Universe, are the experiments of Pavlov's American student W. Horsley Gantt, who was a researcher at Johns Hopkins. Instead of making dogs salivate, Gantt had a dog named Nick who became conditioned to develop an erection whenever he heard a tone. Mandy Merck briefly describes the experiments with Nick in her book In Your Face: 9 Sexual Studies:

Gantt's subjects included Fritz the Alsatian, Peter the beagle, a male poodle known as "V3," and especially the mongrel Nick, subject of "the most meticulous and complete case history of a single animal to be found in the conditioned reflex literature." These animals and others like them were subjected to a barrage of procedures to study conflicts of the drives between, for example, experimentally induced anxiety states and sexual excitement... Nick, in particular, exhibited symptomatic erections and ejaculations whenever he encountered stimuli associated with previous situations of anxiety. Years after one such experiment, in which anxious reactions were elicited by requiring dogs to make a difficult distinction between two tones of similar pitch (a distinction that determined whether the dog was fed), Nick would develop a "prominent erection... within a few seconds after the onset of the tone," Gantt enthused. "We could always count of Nick for a demonstration."

Shown is a picture of poor Nick demonstrating his unusual talent.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 22, 2010 - Comments (9)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments, Sexuality

Turkey Hat

image
It's not as great as the skunk hat, but it's pretty cool. And using a real turkey might get pretty messy.

Buy yours here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 05, 2010 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Holidays, Headgear

Toy from Hell

image
Perusing the toy ads this weekend, I noticed that you can purchase a toy of this character from TOY STORY 3.

Has anybody at Disney actually watched this movie?!? Lots-o-Huggin Bear is the evillest, vilest villain of all times! Offering him as a toy for kids would be like offering an action-figure of the hunter who killed Bambi's mother! What parent will purchase this nightmare-inducing object for Christmas?





Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 02, 2010 - Comments (11)
Category: Animals, Evil, Toys, Cartoons

The Devil Bat



Here's your Halloween treat! Just a little over an hour of Bela Lugosi and his gigundo flying rodent of death! Enjoy!

Posted By: Paul - Sat Oct 30, 2010 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Death, Horror, Humor, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Movies, 1940s

Page 70 of 92 pages ‹ First  < 68 69 70 71 72 >  Last ›




weird universe thumbnail
Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

Contact Us
Monthly Archives
December 2024 •  November 2024 •  October 2024 •  September 2024 •  August 2024 •  July 2024 •  June 2024 •  May 2024 •  April 2024 •  March 2024 •  February 2024 •  January 2024

December 2023 •  November 2023 •  October 2023 •  September 2023 •  August 2023 •  July 2023 •  June 2023 •  May 2023 •  April 2023 •  March 2023 •  February 2023 •  January 2023

December 2022 •  November 2022 •  October 2022 •  September 2022 •  August 2022 •  July 2022 •  June 2022 •  May 2022 •  April 2022 •  March 2022 •  February 2022 •  January 2022

December 2021 •  November 2021 •  October 2021 •  September 2021 •  August 2021 •  July 2021 •  June 2021 •  May 2021 •  April 2021 •  March 2021 •  February 2021 •  January 2021

December 2020 •  November 2020 •  October 2020 •  September 2020 •  August 2020 •  July 2020 •  June 2020 •  May 2020 •  April 2020 •  March 2020 •  February 2020 •  January 2020

December 2019 •  November 2019 •  October 2019 •  September 2019 •  August 2019 •  July 2019 •  June 2019 •  May 2019 •  April 2019 •  March 2019 •  February 2019 •  January 2019

December 2018 •  November 2018 •  October 2018 •  September 2018 •  August 2018 •  July 2018 •  June 2018 •  May 2018 •  April 2018 •  March 2018 •  February 2018 •  January 2018

December 2017 •  November 2017 •  October 2017 •  September 2017 •  August 2017 •  July 2017 •  June 2017 •  May 2017 •  April 2017 •  March 2017 •  February 2017 •  January 2017

December 2016 •  November 2016 •  October 2016 •  September 2016 •  August 2016 •  July 2016 •  June 2016 •  May 2016 •  April 2016 •  March 2016 •  February 2016 •  January 2016

December 2015 •  November 2015 •  October 2015 •  September 2015 •  August 2015 •  July 2015 •  June 2015 •  May 2015 •  April 2015 •  March 2015 •  February 2015 •  January 2015

December 2014 •  November 2014 •  October 2014 •  September 2014 •  August 2014 •  July 2014 •  June 2014 •  May 2014 •  April 2014 •  March 2014 •  February 2014 •  January 2014

December 2013 •  November 2013 •  October 2013 •  September 2013 •  August 2013 •  July 2013 •  June 2013 •  May 2013 •  April 2013 •  March 2013 •  February 2013 •  January 2013

December 2012 •  November 2012 •  October 2012 •  September 2012 •  August 2012 •  July 2012 •  June 2012 •  May 2012 •  April 2012 •  March 2012 •  February 2012 •  January 2012

December 2011 •  November 2011 •  October 2011 •  September 2011 •  August 2011 •  July 2011 •  June 2011 •  May 2011 •  April 2011 •  March 2011 •  February 2011 •  January 2011

December 2010 •  November 2010 •  October 2010 •  September 2010 •  August 2010 •  July 2010 •  June 2010 •  May 2010 •  April 2010 •  March 2010 •  February 2010 •  January 2010

December 2009 •  November 2009 •  October 2009 •  September 2009 •  August 2009 •  July 2009 •  June 2009 •  May 2009 •  April 2009 •  March 2009 •  February 2009 •  January 2009

December 2008 •  November 2008 •  October 2008 •  September 2008 •  August 2008 •  July 2008 •