Soosed News Patrol

If you were following shark-related news last month (and who wasn't?) you'd know about the hammerhead shark that spontaneously reproduced. And not in the fun "cool, there are two half-sharks swimming around" way, either. The shark mom gave birth to the shark pup without mating with a male. Feminist shark groups rejoiced.

Moving past that, it looks like the sharks are doing it again.

'He had been examining the shark, Tidbit, to figure out why she reacted badly to routine sedatives during a physical and died, hours after biting an aquarium curator on the shin. Now there was a bigger mystery: How did Tidbit get pregnant? "We must have had hanky panky" in the shark tank, he thought. But sharks only breed with sharks of the same species, and there were no male blacktip reef sharks at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach.'

While it may seem like a bad portent for our future, now that one of the most dangerous animals can reproduce spontaneously, take consolation knowing that they aren't too bright. In fact, they appear to have special genetic programming that makes sure they never get too powerful.

'Since Tidbit hadn't looked pregnant - and there was no reason to think she was pregnant - the pup likely would have been born and immediately eaten by another shark, without aquarium employees ever knowing it had existed.'

Shark mutants - 0
Asshole sharks - 1

Of course, it's possible that the shark didn't spontaneously reproduce. It's entirely plausible that a male from another species impregnated the mother. That wouldn't be an issue at all, except that crossbreeding has never happened before in sharks.

'"It's not natural," Thomas said. "If you've got a shark that needs to swim to breathe and cross it with a shark that can lay on the bottom to breathe, what are you going to get? Are you going to get these weird mutations?"'

So either sharks can reproduce spontaneously, or sharks can now crossbreed to make mutated super sharks. Forget global warming, we need to get ready to fight sharks. Those things are terrifying.

It turns out there is something older than that weird grandmother you never really talk to. In fact, there is something much much older than her. And she's pretty old, let me tell you.

Whale hunters in Alaska have killed a whale that eluded similar whale hunters over 100 years ago.

"A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt -- more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 ½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old."

When I read into it further (and by that I mean clicking links and having someone else summarize it for me) I found out that scientists are also pretty sure they've seen a 211 year-old whale. They used some eye-testing technology to figure it out.

"[Some guy] is a geochemist who uses a method of determining the age of living things by studying changes in levels of aspartic acid, an amino acid found in the eye lens and teeth."

I wonder what it feels like to kill a whale that's been around for a couple hundred years. I bet it feels great, kind of like waiting for someone who saved up all their life to buy a house and then burning it down right in front of them. And then punching them in the head. Except instead of a house it's a whale. And instead of a guy it's a harpoon. Or something like that...

Fuck it, I give up.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, so let's summarize:

• Kid, 10, dying of liver cancer
• Gets a last wish

"He wanted one last adventure; he wanted to go bear hunting."

I would have wished for a new liver, but to each their own.

"Two weeks ago, Safari Club International made that last wish possible. In the thick Canadian woods, Kerr killed his bear."

Actually, when I really think hard about it, this kid has the right idea. In the endless struggle between man and nature, the kid levelled the score. Nature was taking him out with cancer, so before he died he decided to take out some nature. He is actually a modern day hero.

Oh yeah, the kid died right after he killed the bear. Fucking nature.

Villagers from Illinois are seeing their late mayor's face in the bark of tree. The striking resemblance can be seen in the picture at left.

"Donald Stephens spent more than half a century at the helm of this Chicago suburb.

Now, less than two months after his death, some say an eerie likeness of the late mayor's face has appeared in the peeling bark of a 50-foot sycamore."

Eerie. Even though it seems impossible to argue with, people don't think it looks like him.

"I see Jesus," said Cathy Sansone, the membership director at the health club.

You know what? I'm throwing my hat into this. It's not the mayor, it looks nothing like him. It's not Jesus because Jesus is currently in a grilled cheese sandwich somewhere (or was that Mary?)

Anyway, the tree is clearly displaying the face of Frank Zappa:

Yeah, that's him alright. Just like him to haunt a tree, too.

India is using technology from 1997 to catch snow leopards:

"Forest guards in western India are using cell phones with ringtones of cows mooing, goats bleating and roosters crowing to attract leopards that have wandered into human settlements"

This is far better than their "leopard fall in pit" trick:

"methods such as live bait like goats tied to trees to lure the leopards, which then fall into large pits dug by guards"

Animals in India aren't too smart. They hear a ringtone and walk in to a cage, expecting food, or they see food and fall in to a pit.

Maybe some animals were designed to die?

Yahoo/Reuters is reporting that female cheetahs are a bunch of wiley skanks (or something like that) :

"For female cheetahs in the Serengeti, the call of the wild is just too hard to resist as new research shows nearly half of their litters are made up of cubs with different fathers."

So if you're a male cheetah, you're getting a lot of action from the females:

"This research shows that more of the male cheetah population are contributing to the next generation than we had expected," said Sarah Durant, leader of the Serengeti Cheetah Project since 1991.

Cheetor approves.

Nokia phones may be equipped in the future with a feature that can warn users of lightning strikes:

"The invention involves the use of radio frequency receivers in mobile phones, such as FM radio and GSM (global system for mobile communications), to detect radio waves emitted by lightning."

I could swear I invented this same feature when I was five:

Is there thunder?
- If yes, are you outside?
- If yes: go inside. Remove metal hat.

"A special software program designed by Nokia analyzes the signals, calculates the distance to the lightning and informs users of imminent strikes."

I can see it now:

SMS FROM LTNG@NOKIA.COM

U shld tak 2 steps to da left! OMG!

In the latest "what the hell, they can do that!?" news, a shark from Nebraska's Henry Doorly Zoo gave birth. Without ever mating with another shark. What the hell:

"[T]he baby shark's DNA only matched up with it's mother's-there was no paternal DNA in the baby at all. The mother had become pregnant asexually, or without ever having sex."

This is just what the modern family needs.

Susie: Daddy, where do babies come from?
Daddy: Well, Susie, they appear in a mommie's tummy.
Mommy: They do not!
Daddy: GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, SHARK!

In other news, Hammerhead sharks disprove creation because if God designed these things then God must be a dumbass. Or a jerk.

These things are like the clowns of the sea. Except for clownfish, who literally are.

Officials in Canberra, Australia are planning to kill thousands of kangaroos.

"...they want to shoot more than 3,000 kangaroos on the fringes of Australia's capital"

...for no reason...

"noting the animals were growing in population and eating through the grassy habitats of endangered species."

Animal rights activists are clearly angered by this decision:

"The territory's Animal Liberation president Mary Hayes warned that such an action would earn the local government an international reputation for cruelty."

Of course, Canberra has never done anything like this in the past...

"A cull of about 800 kangaroos in the Canberra area in 2004 also brought a large outcry from animal activists."

The rest of Australia clearly would never support such atrocities...

"In 2003, authorities ordered the killing of 6,500 eastern grays at the Puckapunyal military base, 62 miles north of Melbourne. A year earlier, a similar shooting operation killed more than 20,000 kangaroos on the base."

I hate wildlife so much.

The Knoxville Zoo is now displaying their albino gator to the public, reports Yahoo/AP. It can't go outside or the sun would burn its white skin/scales. I'm pretty sure God hates this animal.

The zoo's ad on their website for the gator (displayed left) clearly shows why God also hates Tennessee.

From the article:

"Nobody believes she's real. They stare until she takes a breath or moves her eyes or jumps in the pool."

"Duhhhhh Momma why that one not look like them other ones?"
"Quiet Delilah, mommy's starin at its pink eye"
"I got one of those momma"

Enough mocking places that mock themselves and bring on the pictures!

AHHHHH!



KILL IT.