Since Octomom exploded on to the collective consciousness like a…well…a vagina that spat out 8 kids, she’s become something of a circus (which is fitting since her uterus was essentially a clown car).  Yet, for all of the controversy surrounding this, there’s one thing that everyone can agree on – that birth was probably foul.  We’re talking the kind of explosion of fluids that other vaginas hear about and spontaneously sew themselves shut.

Octomom might be a spectacle in human terms, but her story has got nothing on the animal kingdom.  Here are just 3 quick stories of mom’s whose reproductive struggles are so incredible that it almost makes me want to reach out to the innumerable women I’ve impregnated throughout the nation.  Almost.

Like this, only with sperm

Supermom #1 – The Octopus

Did you know that when Bryan Adams penned his hit “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” it was actually a ballad about octopi?  No?  You never wondered why he was called “The Jacques Cousteau Of Canadian Rock”?  Well, he wasn’t kidding. An Octopus mom’s sacrifices for their offspring practically entitles them to martyrdom.  If only more octopi were Catholic…

The female octopus is a one-stop insemination shack.  This is true of both of her reproductive specializations and her reputation among scuba divers for being the Drunken Prom Date of the sea:

Once you go invertebrate, you never go back

Depending on the species, they can carry anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 eggs.  If she is knocked up before her eggs are fully fertile, she can actually keep the sperm alive in her for weeks until the eggs are ready.  In short, never go digging through an octopus’ purse unless you’re prepared for what they might be hoarding.

The female cares for the eggs alone with great dedication, much to the chagrin of more socially conservative fish.  She protects them from predators and even blows currents of water over them to ensure they get adequate oxygen.  She doesn’t even eat for the month-long span she spends tending to them (human mothers complaining about dropping “baby weight” should be taking notes here).  Shortly after the eggs hatch, the mother dies, either from starvation or after reading about projected college costs for her kids.

Supermom #2 – Surinam Toads

The Surinam Toad is better than your mom in both her maternal sacrifices and her willingness to have really freaky sex.  Considering the stuff your mom lets me get away with, that’s really saying something.

The female releases batches of eggs which the male fertilzes and packs on to her back. 60 to 100 eggs will adhere to the spongy skin on her back until the female’s back begins to swell around the eggs.  They literally implant INTO her skin, producing a honeycomb pattern.  They’ll remain wriggling in her skin for 12 to 20 weeks, assuming she doesn’t opt to eat a bullet because heebies are driving her to madness.

At least when I fertilize your mom’s back she can just take a shower…

The larvae develop through the tadpole stage in this state, emerging as fully developed (2 cm long) toads.  Given that the egg-diameter for this species is around 6.4 to 6.6 mm, their volume about triples while under mom’s skin.  Unfortunately, I fear that no amount of math is going to adequately translate what this must feel like, so here’s a video to really get that dry-heaving supercharged:

Supermom #3 – Sea Louse

The word “lice” tends to conjure up some pretty visceral reactions and for good reason.  Unlike other parasites that do you the courtesy of killing you with malaria, lice prefer to target your self-esteem.  They are notorious for striking at early childhood, relegating Little Johnny Head Lice to be the subject of mockery for years to come.  And once lice get hopped up on shame-flavored blood there’s no stopping them.  It’s only a matter of time before they start chasing that high and up the ante by living on our genitals, staging yet another dignity assassination during your adolescence.

Its size is inversely proportional to its hate

Hold on.  Am I the only one who sees this?  Is that little fucker SMILING at us?

I phrased the introduction with a spiteful tone because, unlike the other two creatures above, it is hard to conjure empathy for a louse and its reproductive plight.  Now we can rejoice guilt-free at how much it sucks to be a female sea louse.

The female sea louse is kind of the Bridget Jones of the animal kingdom.  Plagued by low self-esteem and the deafening tick of their biological clock, they can pretty much get talked into anything to land a man.  The male sea louse, a.k.a. the Sea Lothario, tracks the scent of her desperation and drops one of his signature pick-up lines:

Swept up in the euphoria of making her friends endure a bridesmaid dress as gaudy as the last 18 she was forced to wear, she agrees to join him in his burrow.  Upon entering she’s greeted with the 25 or more other sea lice he’s also talked down there, each thinking this is probably just an elaborate premise for a dating reality show.  It could be if the show was “Who Wants To Get Plowed By A Uncaring Sea Louse?”.

Once the babies are ready to be born, the sea louse retires to a quiet corner of the burrow, turns on some soothing new age music, and prepares to have her babies gently chew through her sternum.  They literally make their way out to the world by eating her from the inside out.  I don’t usually put much credence in the notions of Intelligent Design, but you could make a compelling argument that God hates lice as much as we do.

Ian Cheesman is wishing he had more time to ensure no opportunities for ejaculate humor were missed here, but he’s too busy finishing up his stage notes for “Jizz!: The Musical” debuting on scenicanemia.com.

Watch co-stars Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Will Arnett (the dude who knocked up Amy Poehler) pitch their new animated flick Monsters vs. Aliens. Still not convinced? This clip is an online exclusive! OMG!!!

Most modern portrayals of the vampire would have you believe that they are little more than slightly pale, hipster-haired sex fiends who just really want to make out with misunderstood teenage girls. But that’s certainly not how the original folklore depicted them and, thanks to a few new archeological finds, we might be able to (God forgive me,) shed a little light on the reasons why.

The old-timey vampire couldn’t have been further from the pseudo-goth nancy-boys of today. Ancient  folklore depicted vampires as bloated, discolored, blotchy-skinned, stinking animated corpses covered in rotting death shrouds. But then, if we kept with that story, what would our pre-teen girls masturbate to when they outgrew boy bands?
 

 
This modern fantasy – the gaunt, pale,  noble vampire heartthrob – didn’t become popular until much later, when The Vampyre, a novel written by John Polidori, was published in the 19th century. This work established much of the current vampire mythos, including all of the Romantic affectations, the seductive associations, and their ritualistic origins.But before that time, the origin of the vampire varied greatly, with different cultures believing them to be anything from the angry spirits of evil men, to regretful suicides, to the Chinese belief that a dead body jumped over by a dog would arise as the living dead. But then, the phrase “similar to a vampire” should be taken with a grain of salt as well. What people thought constituted a ‘vampire,’ varied even greater than what they thought spawned them.

The Bulgarians, for example, believed vampires only had one nostril, while the Moravian vampires were all nudists. Albanian vampires wore high-heeled shoes exclusively, and Mexican vampires had skulls in place of heads. Brazilian vampires had furry feet like hobbits, and early American vampires were thought to suck blood from their victims’ ears using their vampiric noses. There were common traits across all cultures, however. Red hair was often thought to be a sign of vampirism, as well as the ability to sleep with one eye open. All Southeastern Asian vampires shared a bizarre kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in common: They could be stopped by spilling bags of rice, sand, or seeds in front of them, because they’d have to count every single particle before they could move on.

But more importantly, the common traits of bloating flesh, ceaselessly staring eyes, sharp teeth and fingernails were all cornerstones of these tales. And we’re recently discovered a reason for that.

A Venetian archaeological find in back in 2006 turned up an ancient plague pit, (a mass grave for disease victims,) wherein a woman was buried with a brick shoved between her teeth, presumably to prevent her from feeding. This intrigued forensic scientists, who then began investigating possible reasons for the ancient gravediggers to suspect this particular corpse amongst the dozens present. They found that the brick was placed in this specific woman’s mouth several years after she was buried, when a resurgence of plague hit the area. The gravediggers, faced with an influx of new bodies, began exhuming older, pre-existing mass graves to inter the fresh ones.

When they came across a body that seemed much more well-preserved than the others, but still bloated due to the decomposition process, they assumed this was a sign of a fresh feeding. And since seemingly fresh blood was seeping from the face, and a hole was eaten through the burial shroud – as though she’d been chewing it – you can start to see why they were unsettled. So they assumed it was a vampire, and teenagers suddenly had one more way to express their parental angst.

But the bloating they saw was actually little more than the post-mortem build up of gases in the body, and the blood is really a slurry of bodily fluids pushed up through the mouth by decomposing organs. After death, the body also loses fluids and skin, gums, and facial features begin to contort and shrink, which explains the illusion of the sharp teeth and long nails, Finally, the burial shroud was decayed about the mouth due to the higher presence of bacteria there, especially after death. As for the unnerving, ceaseless stare? Well, all right. That one is just plain vampirism. Feel free to panic and start staking everything that looks a little pekid.

That brings up the subject of killing vampires: It’s easy to see where the holy associations-  like crosses and holy water came from – people still turn to religion to combat perceived evil in modern times. And fire… well, fire burns, doesn’t it?

Got a scary thing? Burn with fire. Problem solved!

But then, where did the practice of wooden staking come from? That just seems so bizarrely specific, and yet it’s also a common theme all across the world. This, again, can be explained by the nature of human decomposition. Penetrating the body at an advanced stage of decay, and with a suitably large instrument, would cause the body to “bleed” and deflate as the internal pressures suddenly expelled the dead fluids inside. As the gases escaped the body, they would also produce a groaning, hissing, screaming noise, which could have either sounded like an unearthly death cry or, in some cases, sound quite similar to flatulence.

So, does it take away a little of the magic knowing that ancient vampires were fat, purple nudists in high heels with hobbit feet, who would fart through their mouths when you killed them?
 

 
As stupid as this may seem – misinterpreting all of these normal, natural stages of death as proof of mythical monsters – it’s not like this was limited to ancient times. In 2005, Romanian villagers were prosecuted for mutilating a corpse, which they explained to the authorities was the body of a relative recently passed. Sickness, ill fortune, and disease plagued the family immediately after their uncle died, and so they assumed it was the evildoing of a dark spirit. Operating under this belief, they dug him up, staked him with a pitchfork, and pulled out his heart. Then, because if something is worth doing, it’s worth insanely overdoing, they also burned the heart and mixed the ashes into some Peppermint Schnappes…which they all drank! Hey, listen: if you’re going to lose a relative, be arrested for human vandalism, and get cursed by a demon, the least you could do is get fucked up on his monsterjuice. When asked why, exactly, they were so convinced their uncle was a vampire, the family cited some familiar reasoning: He was bloated and discolored, yet looked plump and recently fed. His teeth and nails were long, and there was blood about his mouth. When they staked him, he moaned, screamed, and twitched – as though alive. That’s when they knew for sure.

So clearly, while the vampire myth may have evolved so drastically as to be all but unrecognizable from its origins, apparently human stupidity has not. We’re all still falling for the same trick, 500 years later. But we are gettin’ fucked up on vampires now, and that’s a new twist: Nobody from ancient times can say they were taking Dracula shots, can they? I guess humanity has made some progress, after all.
 

Read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots

True to my media roots, this week I vacilated between writing about sex or violence.  Headlines highlighting either were in abundance.  It was almost as if The Joker’s nefarious scheme to free all the inmates of Arkham Asylum was partially thwarted by Batman, allowing only the "bloodlust" and "pervert" wings to escape. 

The deviants were off to an early lead.  One inmate managed to trek all the way to Australia, rise in prominence as a litigator, and use the platform to motion the country’s Fair Trade Council to purchase a dildo for one of its ministers.  He justified these government funds by suggesting she would "stop screwing with the people of Strathfield and screw herself instead". 

Still, the carnage unleashed by the psychopaths was even more creative and ultimately won my affections.  Don’t let that deflate you, sex offenders.  Every day is a fresh opportunity to taint, degrade, and violate the world, as my mother used to say.

Did you clean your room, or does someone need another cockspanking?

Blood On The Ethernet
This week the streets of Florida got 0.03% little less bizarre when William "Srs Bzns" Cruz was sentenced to 30 years in jail.  His eruption of violence could have been a scene right out of Boyz N Tha Hood, if Compton was just a chatroom on Latinchat.com.

Cruz frequented the Cuba1 chatroom, along with chatters "El Habanero” (Havana Man), ”La Gata Fiera” (The Raging Cat) and ”Pollos Muertos Bailan Sobre Mi Cabeza, Pero No Me Gusta” (Dead Chickens Dance On My Head, But I Don’t Like It).   Cruz was known as "Cubano35" (which, if my 3 years of high school spanish serve me, translates to "I’m Probably Going To Shoot One Of You In The Face 35").  Cruz demonstrated general animosity towards the group, but was particularly enraged by Yanko Diaz.  Diaz was known as "Latengoparada", a phrase indicating his sexual arousal, which should help frame the maturity of the chatroom’s discourse.

The in-fighting escalated to a challenge to meet at a dimly lit corner of a closed superstore parking lot.  Diaz’s survival instincts clearly lacked the same level of arousal that his penis did.  He was shot in the left thumb, right wrist and buttocks, indicating he was genuinely trying to cover his ass.  Doughboy would have never gone out like that.

Two Sophomore Enter, One Sophomore Leave
A Dallas high school has instituted a bold new policy that will revolutionize disciplinary techniques.  The new regime directs students to collaborate on creative solutions to their conflicts, with the provision that they do so inside the specified metal cage and honor standard tapout rules .  They’re not savages, after all.

Pictured: Not savagery

Of course those pencil-pushers in the school district office didn’t appreciate using  Thunderdome as homeroom.  They uncovered it during an investigation on grade-tampering for student athletes, which is like a cop pulling over someone with a busted tail-light and realizing they’re trafficking illegal immigrant sex offenders with heroin balloons in their ass.  Oddly enough, it was the school’s request to the district to update their school mascot that raised some suspicions of an expanding alpha-dog culture:

It’s furry humor without the furry joke.  My humor has LEVELS.
 

A middle school counselor in the district said the culture at South Oak Cliff High, where many teachers are alums and have relatives in their classrooms, kept anyone from speaking out.  For those not reading between the lines, he just basically accused an entire educational institution of inbreeding.

Fore By Fore
Golf is awesome.  I used to think it was just a forum for doughy white men vying for promotions, using 18 holes to accomplish what a 3 minute blowjob under the CEO’s desk would achieve.  Courtesy of Linda Pearce, I now know it is so much more.

Pearce told witnesses she was going to run over Verma Boylan while carousing outside the country club’s bar.  Apparently Pearce was known for speaking in metaphor and this didn’t raise any red flags.  She then hopped in her golf cart, ran down Boylan and dragged her underneath the cart about 15 feet, because Pearce valued integrity as much as retribution.  Upon reflection, Pearce’s friends admitted that her choice of golf cart should have been cause for concern:

I’d like to think Pearce’s motviation was an elaborate tale of bitter lies and vicious betrayals, the kind of thing that Kill Bill character prologues are made of.  However, since there’s little evidence that her 56 year old victim was ever a member of either the Crazy 88 or Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad, it’s more likely that Pearce was just batshit insane.

Fearing lawsuits, the country club took drastic preventative measures:

Ian Cheesman may have inadvertently photoshopped his dream vehicle above.  The only thing it lacks is a hood large enough to support a bikini-clad slut and an airbrushed scenicanemia.com logo.

Check out more articles from Ian and other Atom bloggers right here.

It’s not as dirty as it sounds, really… Our very own Legend of Neil series is up for an ‘Audience Choice’ award in this year’s Streamys. So please head on over and vote for the only Web series brave enough to examine the social stigma surrounding hot elf on fairy romance.

In our previous chapter we explored the lengths people will go to off themselves for a taste of the forbidden.  In this round we…just keep doing that.

Fugu
Of all the culinary timebombs out there, few are more celebrated than fugu.  Its mention in this category won’t surprise many, but seeming commonplace doesn’t lessen its lethality.  Until the day comes we see parents packing fugu for their kids’ lunches, you can still safely assume it is not to be trifled with.

The poison generated in the puffer fish is estimated at 1,200 times the strength of cyanide.  That makes it the second most poisonous vertebrate in the world, only slightly lagging behind the syringe-backed herpes frog:

It is easily identified by the telltale black/lime-green coloration, as well as the prominent cold sores around its mouth

The chefs that prepare it are specially licensed to do so, as even a drop of the toxin from the liver or ovaries contaminating the meat will be lethal.  Their training culminates in a final exam where they prepare the dish for themselves to consume, which brings new gravity to the notion of pass/fail.

The poison is called tetrodotoxin, which is a neurotoxin that paralyzes its victims while they are still conscious.  That means as your throat closes and your lungs deflate you won’t be able to remind your fellow diners not to tip the chef.  Still, you can hardly fault the chef for your decisions.  You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, unless of course you were unwittingly involved in Ashton Kutcher’s latest TV concept:

Dozens of people die every year from ill-prepared fugu.  The only way to be sure that you are safe is to eat farmed puffer fish, as that environment doesn’t allow them to take in the bacteria needed to create the toxin.  This option is very popular among people who enjoy semi-raw thrills like skydiving simulators or receiving half of a handjob.

BLOOD CLAMS

Blood clams are also known as blood ark clams.  The reference to blood is derived from their blood red color, not the fact that they are so hepatitis-ridden that your liver bleeds at their mere mention.  I don’t know where the “ark” comes from, but based on their reputation I have a theory:

Shellfish are Mother Nature’s little agents of retribution.  As filter feeders they basically accumulate and serve us back the foulness that we dump into their environment.  Worse, at times they can harbor toxins that no reasonable amount of cooking will destroy.  That’s why it is critical to heed health authorities and government officials when they urge you to avoid them.

Unless you live in Shanghai and you want blood clams.  Apparently then you can do whatever the fuck you want.

There has been a government ban on the sale of blood clams since 1988, due to an outbreak of hepatitis that affected 310,000 with an uncertain death toll.  The economic cost of that disaster was totaled at a staggering 1 billion yuan.  The citizens of Shanghai have since commemorated that dark period with their annual festival:

The preferred preparation of these clams is to dip them briefly in boiling water and eat them with sauce.  Even if the sauce was penicillin-based, it wouldn’t kill the viruses, let along typhoid and dysentery, that lurk within.  All the boiling water can realistically accomplish is piss the pathogens off enough to come at you with a case of violent superdiarrhea prior to destroying you.

False Morel

A quick perusal of any wilderness safety guide will tell you in no uncertain terms that mushrooms are very seldom your friends.  This has to be explicitly spelled out because humanity has an inexplicable love affair with these turd blossoms.

Nature hint #1: If it looks like a cerebrum glazed in fecal matter, don’t eat it

The Scandavian false morel mushroom represents the ultimate in culinary audacity.  In order to “safely” consume this delicacy, here are the instructions for preparation:

1. Boil and rinse under a ventilation hood.  Open all windows as well.  The fumes rising from the pot are toxic.
2. Cut the whole mushrooms after boiling into 2 or 4 pieces.  Handle while wearing gloves.  Wash your hands afterward regardless
3. Boil the mushrooms AGAIN.  Discard the cooking water, as it is also potentially lethal.
4. Rinse the mushrooms again and prepare for consumption
5. Shake your fist at the sky and taunt God for his feeble attempt to kill you

There are regulations for the disposal of nuclear waste that are less comprehensive than this.

The false morel is prepared with wilted greens in an arsenic vinaigrette

Even after all of these extensive measures are in place, not all of the toxin, gyromitrin, is removed.  Worse, it is considered a cumulative carcinogen, which means even after it fails to kill you, it remains in your system WAITING to kill you.  Does that sort of tenacity sound familar?

On second thought, I’m not really all that hungry…

Ian Cheesman is beginning to understand the appeal of wholy unnatural foods like velveeta.  For more humor and/or cheese product, check out scenicanemia.com.

Through metaphor, simile, or analogy, comic books reflect our meager human dramas in grandiose terms. They drive their simple points home in complicated ways – reflecting on the nature of good, the balance of power, and the personal responsibility of modern man. By virtue of outlandish scenarios and ridiculous plot points, they lay bare the reality of everyday life. Other times, real life says “fuck that noise,” and decides to show comic books how this shit is done. This is one of those times:

Thomas Leopold is the dean of an English tutorial college in Harrow, Middlesex. He is a wanted sex offender, and a pedophile. He is also so radioactive that he poses a danger to himself and others. And he is also, unfortunately, an escaped convict.

Start taking notes here, comic books, because this is how you write the perfect super-villain.

Leopold recently received an intensive radiation treatment, after he was given large doses of radioactive liquid iodine to combat a thyroid condition. Normally you’d be hospitalized for about six weeks after this kind of treatment, and your contact with others would be strictly monitored so that you don’t sicken your loved ones with your poisonous aura, but not Leopold. No, he’s most likely roaming the Irish countryside right now, probably not blasting kittens with his evil radiation pulses, (but one can be forgiven for assuming so.)

The real danger of Leopold comes from any first or even secondhand contact. Thomas Leopold is quite literally a radioactive man, and his physical body is easily capable of radiating others in his immediate vicinity. Whether that poisoning is from physically touching him, being too near him, or just using a seat soon after him, is really up to you and the metaphorical Russian Roulette you want to play with the nuclear man. The radiation can be passed by other means than strict contact, though – including saliva, sweat, or even urine. So, not only could he strangle you with his child-touching cancer hands, but the man literally pees nuclear poison!

He truly is the perfect antagonist: Point me to a more reviled villain than a child molester; point me to a more intimidating profession for that villain than a professor; now point me to better super-powers than the ability to sweat out a slow nebulous death, or just smothering your foes in a radioactive headlock.

Thomas Leopold, (or as I like to call him, Professor Polonium Pornography,) escaped the police while taking a ferry to Ireland in early February, 2009. Seeing as how he was radioactive and needed to be contained for public safety, he requested to remain in his own vehicle for the journey, which he was allowed to do after he showed his radiation card to ferry operators.

Which, incidentally, is the single most intimidating card a man can possess. Picture it: A sickly man stands before you – physically frail, though his intellect is still apparent by the keen dart of his eyes. He rubs his hands together and lewdly eyes your child across the room. You demand to see this man’s credentials, for what right does this horrible creature have to be here? He smiles amiably for the first time, his cruel face breaking at the seams with this obviously unfamiliar expression.

“My card,” he says, handing you a slip of faded white paper.

You turn it over and recognize the intimidating iconography of the international symbol for nuclear energy.

And as the lights suddenly begin to flicker and dim, you can see his bony hands – now glowing in the twilight – reach for his fly. Your throat tightens in fear; your mouth becomes impossibly dry.

“I’ve got to take a leak,” he cackles, “a reactor leak!”

But listen, even if you despise my inane ramblings, I want you to come away from this blog knowing one simple, undeniable thing: Any way you cut it, there is a British professor out there, right this second, who is pretty much a nuclear powered child molester. And  the world is simultaneously just a little more awesome, and a fuck-ton more terrifying because of it.

Read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots, but nothing’s going to top the radioactive death urine.

As a child, did you ever get one of those crappy knock-off Radio Shack remote control cars as a gift? Nothing but kinked up wires attached to a 3 foot long cord, plastic wheels, and a made in Ukraine sticker on the bottom? Well, it’s time to start making up for it. How about starting off with an R.C. tiger? An actual, literal, remote controlled tiger. We’re not there yet, but we’re not as far off as you might think. Scientists are delving ever deeper into the somewhat disturbing realm of remote control animals, and here’s how they’re doing so far…

One of the early successful attempts at remotely controlling another living creature was conducted by Yale scientists, who started things off small, and began experimenting on fruit flies.

Fruit flies are pretty basic creatures, so it makes sense to start with them when you ultimately decide to try your hand at both animal programming and blasphemy. They stimulated the neurons of the flies with laser pulses, which did prove successful in a small way. They could provoke periods of activity or inactivity, but that was pretty much it. And, because playing god is just no fun unless there’s a bit of terror in it, they then continued on to prove that the fruit fly doesn’t even need a brain to be controlled… by chopping its god damn head off!

So, undead laser controlled insects? Pretty good for a first try at horror, Yale! But, never content to leave well enough alone, scientists at Berkley went ahead and upped the terror ante by doing similar experiments with a Rhinoceros Beetle. Because if you’re trying to win the Fear Olympics, then tiny, nearly invisible, insect zombies definitely take second place to the World’s Largest Cyborg Beetle.

But unlike Yale, the Berkeley scientists didn’t kill their monster-thing. They just mounted radio-actuated electrodes in the beetle’s limbs and brain. This also gave them much more accurate control of the insect – actually allowing them to steer the beetle once they kickstarted it into motion. So good news for everybody that’s always wanted to be chased down by giant weaponized beetles controlled by hidden enemies! Not so good news for sanity and unshit pants.
 

What, you think that’s an exaggeration? The project was entirely funded by DARPA… for primary use in military applications. They chose this particular beetle because it can carry up to 3 grams worth of equipment, but the Control Rig only weighs 1.3. This leaves them with a relatively small, but still pretty useable amount of cargo weight in which to pack all sorts of things. For the time being, that cargo is likely going to be little more than a camera or microphone for surveillance purposes, but it’s not hard to conceive of other uses. How much can a needle and an effective poison weigh? How much C4 does it take to blow up a face? Somewhat disturbing questions, to be sure, but now at least you have an excuse that’ll make you look like a bit less of a pussy when you run away from spiders screaming: They could very well be explosive assassins controlled by the government.

So far remote control seems to be limited to the insect realm, and making that leap to a mammalian brain has to be a much more complicated process. So it’s likely a fair ways off before you’re able to buy your kid his first R.C. Grizzly Bear…right?

No!

Ha! Science got you again!

Scientists at the State University of New York have already trained rats to obey remote signals at a distance of up to 500 yards. 

They achieved this by wiring the rat’s brain up with three sensors – one to the area that controls the right whiskers, one to the left, and one to the reward center. They stimulate the area of the brain associated with which direction the rat needs to turn, and stimulate the reward center if it obeys. After about five sessions, the rats obeyed without question. A human operator was then able to navigate them blindly through a maze, force them to leap from high ledges, or just shut them down completely.

The best part?

All of the equipment only cost them about $40 bucks. That’s right! For less than the price of a video game, you could suck the free will from a living creature and replace it with your own instead! Hey, don’t say the future never gave you nothing: Because even if you’re not into defying morality in order to possess similar powers to Aquaman and the Rat King – the future will now, at the very least, give you some pretty kickin’ nightmares.

Read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots