Day: April 25, 2012

Science makes slurpees its biotch

Who here likes a brain freeze? This being the internet, I have no idea about the results of that question, but for anyone that said yes, please run into a brick wall. Brain freezes are horrible. Just as you’re enjoying the best parts of a slurpee on a hot day, just as you’ve consumed massive amounts of delicious ice cream, just as the ice water becomes tastiest … the brain freeze hits. Pain! So much pain!

Science would have words with you, brain freeze.

While trying to unlock the secrets behind migraines, a break-through was made! In the development of stopping that icy ache fiend, that is.

The researchers monitored the blood flow through their brains using an ultrasound-like process on the skull. They saw that increased blood flow to the brain through a blood vessel called the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes. This increase in flow and resulting increase in size in this artery brought on the pain associated with brain freeze.

When the artery constricts, reining in the response to this increased flow, the pain disappears. The dilation, then quick constriction, of this blood vessel may be a type of self-defense for the brain, the researchers suggested.

That’s right! The origin has now been revealed! We only need wait a short bit until science finds a way to eliminate the pain created from the process. And then, ass mumps, you’re next.

Now we have to crush our own beetles

For years, you’ve probably heard rumors that the Food and Drug Administration allows a certain amount of bugs into the food you eat every day. Well it’s true, but not in the way you think.

It’s not just that a bug happens to land in your food in the factory where it is made, and subsequently it ends up in your meal, bugs are actually ingredients. It’s Big Food’s way of sticking it to the animals, aside from, you know, raising them in deplorable conditions and then slaughtering them.

But now, one of the bastions of America’s War on Animals is turning all France-like on us. Starbucks announced recently that it will no longer use a coloring made from crushed beetles that it uses in its strawberry drinks, bowing to pressure from species traitors around the world. But don’t worry, they’ll still roast their coffee beans over a fire made from dead vermin to bring you that burnt flavor you so adore.

Calling a tiny shovel ‘a tiny shovel’

Sure, that hive of partially Africanized honeybees in Tennessee was destroyed (and became the working title of our first children’s book). But, that doesn’t mean the threat is over. In other parts of the world, there’s a menace nobody likes to talk about, probably because it sounds a little racist: Africanized elephants.

Well, we can’t keep silent anymore. A zookeeper died trying to keep this secret. She was killed by Mila, a 39-year-old Africanized elephant.

If you’re not worried because you don’t live in New Zealand, you should be. That’s not to say you’re in grave danger here in non-hobbit country. Just make sure to wash your Gala apples to remove any elephant eggs before eating.