I’m finally getting my mammoth

Majestic awesome.

Mammoth cloning. It’s something I’ve been fantasizing about at length since I could first pop an erection. Japanese researchers are now claiming I have just five more years to wait before my giant-tusk related dreams are fulfilled.

The team is hoping to nab some DNA from a well preserved mammoth that Russian researchers have been holding in a laboratory, wastefully. The team thinks they’ve got the problems caused by freezing, which damages the genetic material needed, figured out. The heroes were able to clone a mouse from matter frozen for 16 Earth years.

The researchers plan to jab an elephant egg with mammoth nuclei and give the world back its precious arctic Elephantidae.

It is currently unknown if the cloned animal will be available for rides or exhibition, but membership in a super-hero team seems likely.

Source: Google/AFP

Finally, something interesting happening outside

Image: Adapted from Lunar Eclipse by tallpomlin under a CC-BY license.

If you’re finding the dingy walls of your nerd cave are getting a little too familiar, and your tentacle-related “films” a lot too repetitive, the outdoors is actually offering up some entertainment tonight.

The moon (you know, the thing the wolves on your shirts howl at) will be bereft of its typical sunlight the night of Monday December 20, 2010/the morning of Tuesday December 21, 2010 thanks to a total lunar eclipse. The best timing for viewing depends on where you live. Some are predicting that the moon may light-up in a reddish-orange colour as greedy Terra gets between Luna and Sol.

The last time such an eclipse occurred on a solstice (don’t forget the seasons are changing) was in 1638, 372 years ago.

Sources: CNN, Wikipedia

Bad guy from Hackers wins Oscar

People with the discerning sort of taste like mine who have seen 1995′s Hackers a dozen or more times will be very familiar with the film’s villain, one Eugene “The Plague” Belford. The actor who played Mr. The Plague is named Fisher Stevens, and he was all kinds of awesome in the 80s and 90s, also starring in classics like Short Circuit and Super Mario Bros.

Well, it seems this villainous looking goateed man wasn’t doomed to obscurity like I had assumed, he’s actually become a successful director, and he just won an Oscar for producing 2009′s Best Documentary Feature, The Cove. Fisher’s film takes a look at Japanese dolphin hunting in Taiji, Wakayama with an opposing view. You wouldn’t think a man who looks like a cartoon villain would be capable of that kind of compassion, but Fisher is a surprising man. Then again, his film has been quite controversial in Japan, with the mayor of Taiji saying it makes claims “not backed up by scientific proof.”

Sources: Wikipedia, BBC

Shameful Human of the Week: Jenny McCarthy

For years we’ve had to endure Jenny McCarthy’s ignorant rantings about how childhood vaccinations supposedly caused her son’s autism, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence, along with her insistence that chelation therapy actually did something to help him. Well, now Jenny’s theories have been thoroughly laid to rest, and that’s a great reason to make her Shameful Human of the Week.

It seems her son never actually had autism, but rather “a rare childhood neurological disorder” called Landau-Kleffner syndrome. LKS can cause speech impairment and neurological damage, but affected children have been known to regain their language abilities. That would explain why her son kept getting better, despite her fake science having long been proven bullshit.

Jenny’s backpedaling like crazy. She’s decided she just wants vaccines better researched, and not eliminated entirely, as she once pushed for. McCarthy claims that she will continue to be a voice for autism, although I would hope all of this finally ends the shred of credibility the mainstream press was giving her.

As a formal apology for making the world dumber, and for endangering the health of everyone by publicly promoting the boycott of vaccines, I’d like to see McCarthy free Jim Carrey and return him to reality.

[source]

Female MMO players dedicated, hot, waiting for you

A study published in the Journal of Communication has shown some promising results for men looking to pick up chicks online. The study of 7 000 EverQuest II players showed that the average age of the gamers was 31, female gamers played 29 hours a week, and males played 25 hours a week. That means those ladies are just sitting there, waiting for male gamers to RP with. The top theoretically hot, potentially single and looking women played 57 hours a week, compared to just 51 among the top men.

No word on what the ratio of men to women in the game actually was.

[source]