You've got to see the photos of the monster snowball that got away from its two math-major creators and smashed into a Reed College dorm, cracked its wall, and knocked it off its studs. Nobody was injured, so we call safely laugh out loud at this!
I personally love this caption on one of the photos: "Runaway 800-lb snowball puts dent in RCA #7. Math majors were involved."
You know, as a teacher I'm not supposed to say things like this about pranks that cause damage to campus buildings, but this was my honest reaction:
"I'm impressed."
Nope, not Conan O'Brien the comedian. Conan the Barbarian.
Or, to quote Glee's Sue Sylvester, "Your resentment is delicious." Perhaps this should be on our lunch menu.
I present the following without further comment.
Oh, screw it, I can't help myself: "You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly?"
This is cool and all -- drilling into 2-mile-thick ice to breach an Antarctic lake that's been sealed for millions of years -- but to me it also sounds like the perfect intro to a crazy action sci fi/fantasy/disaster movie involving some unspeakably horrific menace that those scientists inadvertently wake up. Aforementioned gigantic menace will of course eat all the scientists and then begin to wreak bloody havoc everywhere until [insert action hero du jour here] must come riding to the rescue *insert Michael Bay-esque explosions and pounding music*. (Yes, I would totally go see this summer blockbuster.)
Didn't anybody working on this project watch the classic 1993 flick "Jurassic Park"? I'll even quote Dr. Malcolm: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should." Heh. On the other hand, seeing a T-Rex eat a slimy lawyer was kind of uproariously amusing. Golly, I love this movie. (Plus -- hey! -- Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum!)
Via Tigerhawk comes a great story about California Polytechnic State University biology professor Raul Cano enjoying the fruits of his labor (I love the accompanying news photo!). Here's a blurb about his delicious research:
A Cal Poly professor’s mission to turn a 45-million-year-old yeast into an ingredient for a beer has proven successful — and now he hopes to grow his operation locally.
Raul Cano, a Cal Poly biology professor, discovered the yeast in amber that came from Myanmar, which was previously known as Burma, while conducting research in the 1990s.
Through brewing experiments with collaborators, Cano has been able to take strains of yeast from the ancient amber and grow them. And he was interested in finding out how it could be used in food or drinks.
“Beer was the obvious product from an organism such as yeast,” Cano said. “It was either that or bread. But beer seemed more adventurous.”
Fossil Fuels Brewing Co., the beer company that he’s formed with partners Chip Lambert, Joe Kelley and Scott Bonzell, now produces beer for sale primarily in Northern California bars and pubs.
Here's the link to Fossil Fuels Brewing Company! I think we would all be justified in having a cold one, all in the name of academic research, of course! Hmmmm, getting viable life out of amber ... Life imitates the movies once more, though I am sure beer is more delicious than velociraptors. You know, all this talk about beer and biology inspires me to inflict the following on you ...
