Tag: science

Science: Booze is good for your brain

Large amounts of alcohol are known to have an ill effect on the brain (aside from headaches), but new research suggests that lower amounts can actually improve your brain function. That’s right, booze not only makes you feel smarter, it might actually make you smarter, too.

Researchers have found that lower amounts of alcohol, we’re talking a drink or two tops, can help improve the function of the glymphatic system, which helps clear waste from the body. Mice that were given small amounts of booze showed had less inflamed glial cells in the brain than mice that weren’t given a drop. Meaning, the alcohol actually helped the mice clean their brains faster than if they’d just stayed sober.

So if your brain could use a good cleaning, maybe relax with a couple drinks and let the booze do the work.

Don’t drink beer like the ancient Greeks

“Name an IPA after me, not that jerk Pliny.”

When you think of drinking in the ancient world, you probably think about wine. You’re not wrong. But it turns out that cabernet sauvignon isn’t the only paleo booze out there. Especially in the cradle of democracy.

Researchers have discovered a lot of evidence that the ancient Greeks brewed and drank beer. At the sites of two ancient Greek towns dating back to 2000 B.C., scientists found some buildings associated with brewing and grains used to make beer, as well as a whole bunch of cups near the grains.

The only thing is that because the cups are shaped in a way that drinking out of them would be very difficult, researchers believe the ancient Greeks drank beer with straws. And who does that?

Science continues to wow us with obvious news

We would’ve thought that fraternizing with the enemy in the biblical sense would obviously be a bad decision to make, but here comes science (heh) with another reason for why bestiality probably shouldn’t occur: you’ll get penis tumors.

Specifically, according to urologist and lead author Stenio de Cassio Zequi, you’ll be twice as likely to contract penile cancer.

“We think that the intense and long-term SWA [sex with animals] practice could produce micro-traumas in the human penile tissue,” Zequi said.

We would think that the micro-trauma is sex with animals. Also, when a report has to abbreviate “sex with animals,” nothing good can come from it.

No word’s come from Kevin Smith’s film camp on whether this study is true or not.

The end is nigh

Repent! REPENT! Everything is coming to a horrible end soon!

CERN, conducting yet another experiment in the name of science, might have disproven physics. As in, all of the laws and maybe even some of the constitutional amendments. While sending neutrinos (which are surprisingly not a topping for pizza) into the ground a mighty distance away, the science nerds discovered that the particles would show up a fraction of a second early, potentially breaking the speed of light.

This is not good. Sure, it seems good, but all of my fellow video game players know that this can’t lead to anything pleasant for our planet. The institute will be renamed as Black Mesa, a portal will be opened and the human may end up being enslaved. Our only hope will be a mythical figure that benevolent extraterrestrials will name as “The Free-Man.”

We don’t want that to happen, mainly because it’ll take forever for an end to that problem to arise.

And you thought the 70s were hairy …

Gym rats: no matter how hard you work out, the world’s most dangerous exercise is long extinct. Having sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans made your ancestors stronger, so long as it didn’t kill them.

Everything will kill you

Scientists in Australia (yeah, that’s funny for us to say too) have come out with a new study (it must be that time of the month) proclaiming that, for those of us after the first quarter of our life, for every hour that you spend watching television, you become approximately 21 to 22 minutes closer to death. Mind you, this closer to simply sitting around being the problem rather than just television, but the comparison to cigarettes is of course made in the study.

As such, SG would like to bring to mind other things that will kill you:

  • Bears
  • Transvestite sharks
  • The ire of a drunken baboon
  • A rabid wheel of cheese that has been infused with gamma radiation
  • Tom from Myspace if you mention Mark from Facebook
  • Nickelback

A banner day for manipulated genetics

Science has finally given us the greatest gift of all: destruction!

Harvard University medical researchers managed to engineer a biological cell that can produce a laser beam. This was all done through an experiment that allowed human kidney cells to produce that which lets jellyfish go all glowy in the dark, green fluorescent proteins (or GFP, as we’ll now call it). From there, one of the cells was placed between two mirrors. When light was sent through the cell Frankenstein monster, a laser was born! Talk about shooting from the hip (because the kidneys are located close-ish around the hip, and the kidney monster shot a laser and … shut up).

Soon, we shall all be Arthur Parks, or at the very least, Scott Summers.

That’s what it typed

Let’s cut the crap, sit down and have a nice conversation, Science. I’ll be honest with you: you’ve got me a little worried here and there. See, I don’t really know what to think of you. I mean, sometimes you’re useful, but most of the time, you’re not, what with your beakers and Tesla coils and multi-colored liquids. And that’s not even counting the number of times that you’ve tried to sell us out to the robots! Oh, sure, some of the times may have been unwittingly, but not all of the times. So really, why should we trust you? Why not just go back to dirt and rocks?

Because, as always, sometimes you make it all worthwhile. Forget the harsh words! I’ll take you back with open arms! We’ll be together forever and I’ll never let you go. No matter what, I want you, in the end.

That’s what she said.

First struggling anything to not consider stripping

The town of Lead, South Dakota took a vote and decided not to allow nude dancing in its “downtown” regions.

South Dakota law allows for nudie bars, provided they are at least a quarter mile from residences, businesses or community gathering places, which in our books would mean “anywhere, including within itself.” Apparently, though, the law can be changed by local ordinances, and that failed to happen in Lead.

This decision could have really boosted Lead’s economy, especially since the town is home to the one of the largest shafts in the Western Hemisphere. The shaft is so massive, in fact, that scientists are able to research neutrinos and other cosmic phenomena inside of it. To really put this shaft into perspective, it is so mindbogglingly immense that your mom calls it on those weekends when you stay with your dad.

On second thought, maybe the people of Lead voted correctly.