CURIOUS TIMES: Trippy News from a Dysfunctional Planet

IT’S NOT TRUE UNTIL WE SPEND YOUR TAX DOLLARS TO PROVE IT
Regular readers of this column know that my favourite source of news comes from scientific experiments which are either completely pointless to begin with or which only prove the obvious. But at least one scientist has stood up to defend the practice of researching everything under the sun. Professor Peter Holmes, quoted in The Scotsman, explains that "some research might seem blindingly obvious but we have to be careful about how some of the things taken to be true have never actually been proved.” Good point. The article then goes on to list the most pointless facts science has discovered in the past 12 months, including these now-scientific-truths: elephants hate walking up hills; men need war and aggression in order to cooperate; women are better at remembering flowers than reading maps; woodpeckers don’t get headaches; women don’t like men with squeaky voices; teenagers are sulky; and women decide whether they would date a man within 30 seconds of meeting him.

DOES THIS MAKE MY TITS LOOK FAT?
From the “Killing Two Birds With One Stone” department comes news that it may soon be possible to remove the excess fat from your stomach or ass and use it to enlarge your breasts. The procedure, dubbed Celution, involves removing unwanted fat using a standard liposuction procedure, extracting the stem cells from the fat, and then injecting them into your breasts, which then encourage the breast tissue to grow over a period of six months. If perfected the procedure will cost no more than a standard boob job and take less than one hour to complete. (BBC)

PLUS THEY’LL HELP YOU LAND YOUR FIRST JOB
Speaking of breast enlargement, news out of Italy claims that boob jobs are now the number one graduation gift for teenage girls, easily beating out the old classics such as a new car or a free vacation. "It's a much more useful present than something like a car, which will break down after a few years, or a holiday, which is over within a week,” said one vacuous 18-year-old. “My new breasts will last a lifetime." (Pravda)

THE WONDER IS THAT YOU CAN SEE THEM THROUGH THE SWARMS OF TOUR BUSES AND SOUVENIR SHOPS
Armed with text-messaging and the ability to vote as many times as their little thumbs can last, Generation Wikipedia (“truth is whatever the majority says it is”) has established the “New” Seven Wonders of the World to replace the old and stale original seven wonders. The new list, as compiled at New7Wonders.com includes The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Jordan's Petra, Peru's Machu Picchu, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid.

HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
Sometimes a news headline needs no further elaboration to get a cheap laugh, as proven by these two gems pulled from the newswire last week: “Man Disguised as Tree Robs New Hampshire Bank” (spotted at FoxNews.com) and “Disabled Man Taped to Refrigerator and Robbed” (from the Portland Herald Press).

WOULDN’T ALIENS HAVE E-MAIL BY NOW?
The latest issue of Fortean Times magazine has a great spread about UFO and alien-themed postage stamps from around the world. Check out the website at ForteanTimes.com for a look at some wild artwork and some of the coolest stamps you’ll ever see.

WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE... EVENTUALLY
I don’t want to bum you out in the middle of summer and all, but of course it’s my job to keep you up to date with the doomsayers of the world. This time it’s Professor Martin Rees of the the University of Cambridge who has written a book called “Our Final Century,” in which he declares that humans have only about a 50-50 chance of making it through the 21st century without experiencing utter devastation. Among the possibilities for the end of the world as we know it outlined in his book are a hit by an asteroid or comet, Earth being swallowed by a man-made black hole, global warming, worldwide pandemic, robots taking over the world, gamma ray burst from a distant star, nuclear holocaust, and overpopulation. Of course there’s also a damn good chance nobody reading this is going to make it out of this century alive anyway, so what’s the difference?

WHAT’S A DICTIONARY?
According to the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, which added about 100 new words to its version of the English language this year, these words are now, officially, real: ginormous, sudoku, speed dating, Bollywood, crunk, DRV, IED, smackdowns, telenovellas, gray literature, and microgreen. (SF Gate)

FROM THE SCHIZOID GIFT CATALOGUE
Possibly the best passive-aggressive item ever created is the ashtray emblazoned with a no-smoking emblem, as spotted in a hotel lobby in Granada, Spain.

I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
Marriage extends the life expectancy of men by 1.7 years but reduces it by 1.4 years for women.