Rose sent me a link about mad cow disease being spread through the air, and I read the whole article and agree 100%. Just like a football can be spread through the air by throwing it, one can take bits of infected cow brain, throw them around like confetti, and if they fall in your mouth, you die.
That’s pretty much what the researchers did, which adds mad cow disease to a special class of “can be made airborne and kill you” items that previously was reserved for cutlery. And anvils.
Somehow, this research, and you know there’s a grant application lurking in there somewhere, but this research attempts to solve the riddle of how vegetarians died from the human form of mad cow disease, which should be impossible since eating cow is by definition not vegetarian. The new theory, which rivals the craziest JFK nonsense I can dream up, is that some rogue agent ground up some sick cow and gave it to a dude known for doing spit takes in the cafeteria.
The researchers do point out that this scenario pretty much never happens, and we shouldn’t shun sick humans because they’re not actually capable of exhaling bits of their own brains, so they’re safe to be around. Where the story gets interesting is the workplace safety issues that come up for slaughterhouse workers, where stuff sprays around an awful lot, and hey, Daily Mail, since you went to the trouble of finding out that 170 people have died from mad cow disease since 1996, would it kill you, not literally because you inhaled a big whiff of brain, but would it kill you figuratively, to share if any of these people worked in slaughterhouses?
Anyway, until more research is done, and you can be sure someone’s going to do it, you should hold off on throwing your prions in the air like you just don’t care. The life you save could be, well, mine.
Sir Fartsalot sent me a link that pretty much told me he thought I was very attractive, so I guess we’ve got one of those bromances going on, except for the fact that we’re both far too old. My theory? He noticed the sharp decrease in post quantity here at VP this year and wanted to inspire me with a little incidental flattery.
As I have said many times in the past, ANYWAY.
It turns out that not only do plant-based foods tend to change your skin tone, which wasn’t in dispute, but recent research is suggesting that this skin tone is something we as humans find naturally very attractive. Science was involved, but basically the nice warm glow you get from regular consumption of foods rich in carotenoids (think carrots, kale, bell peppers, etc) was actually preferred to a suntan by test subjects.
Let’s think about this from a long term evolutionary perspective: if we prefer people with veggie-rich skin, there’s got to be a biological reason, because everything we do is ultimately tied to the propagation of the species. This means that our ancestors were genetically coded to seek out and have copious amounts of sex with people who ate vegetables. Suck it, hunters, the gatherers rule! Well, don’t suck it for real, because as we’ve just discussed, science says that’s not for you anymore.
Now, suddenly, this all makes sense (erm, the content is probably safe for work if you’ve got headphones and don’t giggle too loudly to draw attention to yourself):
Also: a huge thank you to everyone who’s sent in links – time is really tight right now, and if you send stuff I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to use it, but it vastly increases the odds that a post will appear, since taking the time to actually go out and find stuff is proving to be a real challenge right now and for the foreseeable future, so thanks again!
From time to time I like to poke fun at the fact that some farmers feed their cows poo. Little did I know that we as vegans had a shot of playing the home game.
The best way to put this is, basically, that the giant montane pitcher plant of Borneo is nature’s toilet. Scientists have figured the dimensions out such that the carnivorous plant has an opening that’s perfectly sized for the dimensions of the average tree shrew. And yet, it doesn’t eat the shrews. Instead, it positions a flap filled with a tasty nectar in such a way that the shrew’s droppings fall into the “mouth” of the plant, and at last count I’m avoiding 37 jokes about this sentence that I’d have to explain to my mother.
I’m not aware of any commercial farming of the montane for food products, though I suppose it’s not as ridiculous a concept as it seems, since many plants are grown in manure (to be fair to beef farmers, they claim that there’s manure on the grass in the pastures, so cows naturally eat poop anyway, but I think this is an easier sell, if barely.)
Going the other way, I’m curious if this will become the test of the true green, die hard environmentalist: would you use a specially bred, extra large, carnivorous plant as a toilet?
We run a sporadic series called S4 (Species Sex Study Saturdays) where we examine how various animals “do it” in the wild, with the thinking that it’s harder to eat a fellow sex-partaker (could I have worded that any poorer?), but I’m wondering if we as vegans need to know more about our plants too – I mean, I don’t even know what a tofu tree looks like…
Lastly, how about this: is it possible to thrive on a diet of entirely carnivorous plants, and would it be considered vegan to do so?
Oh science, why do you do these things?
