It would be a fantastic accomplishment if Nikola Tesla hadn’t powered 200 light bulbs and an electric motor from 26 miles away way back in 1899. Chew on that, Edison.

A report on Science Daily says scientists have identified a cell structure in human chromosomes called a telomere. These telomeres get shorter as the cells continue to divide, meaning some sort of link to biological age (vs. chronological age; how far along the body is in its lifespan as opposed to how many years the body has been alive, i.e. when you play Wii Fit at 22 years old and it tells you that you have the body of a 28 year old. Fuck you Nintendo.) If they can discover its actual link (correlation vs causation) they can slow or stop the aging process (or speed it up if you’re some sort of death loving sicko).

Basically this discovery is the first step to immortality. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate, but this is very exciting news nevertheless.

Australian researchers tracked the lifestyle habits of 8,800 adults and found that each hour spent in front of the television daily was associated with: • an 11 percent increased risk of death from all causes, • a 9 percent increased risk of cancer death; and • an 18 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related death.

Yes, increased risk of death from ALL CAUSES! Don’t look for what all the causes are, they aren’t explained. Just insert whatever causes you can think of, from drowning in molten chocolate to being stabbed. Even being fused to your couch.

An important thing to note is:

This association held regardless of other independent and common cardiovascular disease risk factors, including smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, unhealthy diet, excessive waist circumference, and leisure-time exercises.

Yeah, that stuff isn’t important to one’s health or anything. What the hell is correlation?

This kind of explains why men are attracted to women with fat asses. It’s just good genes.

“Yes, your ass looks fat in that dress, honey, but remember that’s a good thing.”

Recently, a scientist made the assertion that…well I’ll just show you.

Reiss and Marino will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California next month. Also speaking at the conference will be professor of ethics and business at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Thomas White, who said the new research adds weight to his ideas that dolphins should be regarded as “non-human persons” with the right to be treated as individuals.

Link

Yes, dolphins are people too.

No they aren’t. It’s silly to assert that, both for me and for the scientist. It does raise ethics questions though, where is the intelligence cut off point for treating other animals like our playthings? If pigs are found to be on a level near dolphins, do we stop eating them? (I won’t. I’ll go to jail for pork.)

I’m not sure what to make of this. There is a lot of information available stressing the intelligence of dolphins. In terms of evolution, I suppose it is possible that today’s dolphins are to future dolphins what Homo Habilis were to us (maybe even Homo Erectus). I’d love to see the next 500,000 years of their evolution. Maybe they grow opposable thumbs.

Yes, amazingly complicated:

What’s more, this sort of research, unlike many areas of physics, is not expensive or mathematically hard. “All you need is an enquiring mind, a bit of ingenuity and the courage to ask awkward questions,” concludes Dr. Ennos.

Don’t kindergartners with slightly above average intelligence have all three requirements for this guy’s job?

There is a quote of the study author in the BBC report on the story,

It is rather irresponsible to claim the existence of an entity that has never been proven and pressurise women, and men too – Andrea Burri.

This is the kind of study that happens when scientists are frustrated. Expect the headlines, “Size does matter,” “Foreplay is Awesome,” and “Masturbating is good for you” (this one is real).

The tiger’s population numbers have dwindled to only 3,200in the world.

It would be a damn shame if the tiger went extinct, especially for frivolous reasons like wearing its fur (I’m not against fur, but I am against hunting a species to extinction for so shallow a reason) or eating its penis for fertility (you never cut a penis off of anyone! its just wrong! savages).

Now, 99% of all species that have lived on earth have gone extinct, and chances are that at some point we will be extinct too, its the only way life progresses and evolves. The problem I’m having here is that it wasn’t quite natural. Sure the argument can be made that humans are of nature and thus our actions are natural, but its a punk bitch cop-out. The adjective “man-made” exists for a reason, because we are so dominant that we create and destroy at will.

Maybe I’m just being sentimental because tigers are my favorite (non-mythical) creature.

Also, if things get too out of hand, we can just clone them back into prominence.

Well, even more evidence has been released, and it turns out that there are so many mutations every single generation that change is bound to come and at least one of those changes will be beneficial. Scientists measured the rate of mutation in some plant.

“If you apply our findings to humans, then each of us will have on the order of 60 new mutations that were not present in our parents.” With more than six billion people on our planet, this implies that on average each letter of the human genome is altered in dozens of fellow citizens. “Everything that is genetically possible is being tested in a very short period,”

Essentially, there is so much mutation so quickly that it is not chance that we are the way we are, it is almost inevitable given past environmental circumstances. More ammo for the Creation vs Evolution argument, I suppose.

If I was funny I’d make a witty remark here about the beer, too. But I’m not. Get drunk, have a happy New Year’s.