Neat News

If you keep your eyes open, some days when you troll the news you can find some real gems. That is not to say you can always count on the veracity of these news items. Fact checking all too often falls by the wayside in these days of fast-breaking World Wide Web coverage. It's often advisable to simply keep an eye on an evolving topic because subsequent information is likely to be more accurate than what was initially given. It can also make the whole thing more confusing but we won't even go there today, okay?

One of the interesting things I found was the article about the chunk of melon found at an ancient site in Japan. Testing indicated it was 2,100 years old. It was speculated the reason it had lasted so long was because it was preserved in a vacuum-packed state. Makes me wonder if the folks advocating cryonics might be going in the wrong direction. Instead of freezing the body in hopes of thawing it out later, when science has come up with a cure for whatever ails it now, maybe they ought to be vacuum-packing folks. Or maybe not. That melon survived but it didn't look real spiffy.

In the category of "It's A Guy Thing," there's the item about the Aussie folks who are determined to market the ultimate aphrodisiac. They're feeding Viagra to oysters. I'm not making this up! The idea has caused drug company Pfizer to roust out their lawyers in protest but it seems unlikely the enhanced oysters could be sold over the counter anyway because Viagra is a prescription drug. And who knows what effect a drug like that could have on the oysters, themselves. Why, the poor little critters could end up brain damaged.

Nessie is in the news again. A brand new video has turned up that shows something cruising along at a smart pace in the Loch Ness waters. I hope it doesn't turn out to be somebody goofing around with some kind of scuba thingy. That would be such a huge disappointment. Me? I'm rooting for Nessie to be some kind of wonderful prehistoric survivor. Or maybe even a marine dragon. How kewl is that?