Tag: denmark

Arsenic: Another reason to stop reading

If there’s one thing we’ve always said here at SeriouslyGuys, it’s that you shouldn’t read. But do you listen? And now there are books that could kill you.

The library at the University of Southern Denmark recently pulled three Renaissance-era books that have arsenic on their pages. The books were covered in arsenic-laced paint that had been applied back in the 19th century, when people thought arsenic was totally safe as long as you didn’t swallow it.

So put down those books, people. It could just save your life.

Baby Merlot gets go-ahead from Danish doctors

As you may recall, we recently unveiled the latest tool in pre-child rearing: Baby Merlot. Applied to the womb, Baby Merlot prepares your zygote for a life of being awesome and fun at Happy Hour.

And guess what, naysayeers? It’s totally OK for them, too. According to research conducted on Danish mothers and their children (meaning no future American workers were put in jeopardy), “low to moderate weekly drinking in early pregnancy had no significant effect on neurodevelopment of children aged five years, nor did binge drinking.” Those five-year-olds, in fact, had the same test scores as kids from abstaining mothers, but just imagine if there was a shots category.

The only kids whose performance was impacted negatively were those of regular heavy drinkers, or mothers who consumed 9 or more drinks a week. That’s why all boxes of Baby Merlot prominently display a warning not to use it on your baby more than eight times a week. SeriouslyGuys, we care about your fetus.

Time to remove some ankle tattoos

So, dolphins, right? They’re pretty cool. They do flips for fish. They swim with dying kids even when they have cancer due to terrible life decisions. In return, we’ve stuck with them through a television career that began with Flipper and ended with SeaQuest (and a brief foray into film with Johnny Mnemonic), and we even felt guilty about our tuna purchases when they started using up out mayo.

But, what if we told you that it was all in vain and that dolphins have been holding out on us this whole time? What if it turned out that dolphins can speak like humans since day one, but just choose not to, even when nobody else understood us and our only solace was working at the local aquarium?

Maybe they’ll start talking if we deport all their dorsals back to the Gulf of Mexico.

When is a gun not a gun?

How would you describe a gun to, oh, let’s say … Oliver Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell it is.

You’d probably say something like, “It’s a weapon from which a shot is discharged by a controlled powder explosion, usually small and hand-held, and carrying one makes you look awesome.”

But did you mention to him that a gun must also have been manufactured after 1896?

Not only is this news to Cromwell’s musket troops in English Civil War, but also to two U.S. prosecutors who could not prove that a defendant’s gun was, in fact, a gun. The weapon in question was possibly manufactured in 1880, which makes it possibly 16 years too old to be considered a firearm according to federal code.

So, Fun Fact for RAM Members:
It’s just assault if you use an arquebus, not assault with a deadly weapon. At least not here in the U.S. Who knows what kind of weaponry they still cling to in older, backwoodsier places like Denmark?

(Postscript: The guy with the mystery gun was still convicted of felony possession of ammunition … You know, for the “gun.”)