Fucking science.  Always sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. It’s perpetually touting its mission to seek knowledge for the supposed benefit of mankind, but I call bullshit.  Science, you can just stop waving that banner altogether, because I’m about to expose you for the malicious bastards you all are.

If perchance you think I’m being unfair, please note that Science is presently exploring the potential of turning this:

…into this:

Shortly Blizzard will be launching the a World of Warcraft magazine, an attempt to drag their 11.5 million subscribers kicking and screaming away from staring at their computers.  The magazine will be launching in English, Spanish, French and German versions.  There’s no timeline provided on an Elvish version, but we all know it’s inevitable. 

While most of the world will need to wait until it arrives at their doorstep, Atom has used its considerable industry pull to provide a sneak preview of the cover for you, our cherished reader.  Unfortunately, even Atom’s cachet wasn’t sufficient to nab this, so I had to do some pretty unspeakable things to get it.  So, please enjoy – I’m going to hit the shower for a few hours with a massive pumice stone and possibly some bleach.

LEGAL NOTICE: I am not a certified financial advisor.   None of my analysis below should be taken as guidance for adjusting fiscal decisions.  In the event something I’ve written inspires you whatsoever, please immediately watch More To Love.  This will immediately purge you of all semblance of thought.

Scientists love to tell us how we’re killing the earth with our indulgences.  One day its perfectly fine to hunt spotted owls in old growth forest with a hairspray-fueled flamethrower and the next it’s a travesty.  I don’t get it either.

It’s bad enough they’re robbing us of our simple pleasures, but they’re making hard just to function.  If you believe the “facts”, you can’t even hit the gas on your SUV without 312 of these adorable Pygmy Possums spontaneously croaking.

“Never mind our genocide, you have a mini-mall to get to.  We understand.”

Last year atom.com popped my nerd-cherry with my very first Comic-con.  It was sensory overload to be sure.   I was bombarded with the sights of sprawling promotional displays, the dull roar of wall-to-wall geeking out over Battlestar Galactica, and the resultant smells from people wearing bulky, poorly ventilated costuming for 7 hours.   The time has come for me to share that stank with you again.

It’s funny how mankind’s vision of the future has shifted.  Not too long ago our conceptualization was basically a rehash of The Jetsons: super-skyscrapers, transport via human-sized habitrails, and jetcars propelled by concentric circles.

“Everyone in the future is happy despite the growing Ginger scourge”

It was as charming a notion as it was naive.  Courtesy of bad retreads of Isaac Asimov stories and the Terminator series, we now see how foolish those visions were. The robots are coming.  Sure, some of the robots will be really smoking hot, but is that any reason to welcome our sexy, sexy doom?

Foot Pee! Pack

Finally!  A system that allows me to trap urine around my feet that is both easy AND surprise!

It was a rough week to be a celebrity.  The Grim Reaper, an avid reader of “People” magazine, clearly went off the reservation and started collecting famous souls with unbridled fandom.  It made my weekly search for humorous topics in the blogosphere a bit thin.   Fearing a missed deadline, I visited my editor.

“I’d love to do something topical,” I started “but I’m not sure where to start this week.”

He nodded thoughtfully, stroking at his phantom beard that he claimed to have lost in the war.  “In times like this, people need to laugh more than ever.”  He stood and turned his gaze toward the distant horizon, which from his cubicle was a view of the wall on the west side of the building.  “We can help the healing begin.”

“But how can I be funny now?” My voice cracked and wavered.  “What comfort can I offer in a world where no more moonwalking or Mighty Putty infomercials exist?”

“We will bring them the greatest comedic panacea of all.”  He scooped up one of the many rubber chickens from his desk and stared deeply into its beady eyes, as if to channel the comedy gods.  “We will give them…monkeys doin’ it.”

I was awestruck.  “I love you…” I whispered.

His words were not only comforting, but prophetic.  It turns out biological science has been doing little lately but banging out sex studies.  (“Banging” out.   Get it?  Mmmmm….your groans are like little spoonfuls of heaven to me.)  Read on – if not for the healing, then for the perfectly veiled way to mask your bestiality fetish.

Single-Celled Sexcapades

Despite sex’s ubiquity in the animal world (to say nothing of the internet), there is actually some controversy about why it would exist at all.  Binary fission, one bacterium duplicating itself, is pretty efficient.  Since no partner is required, the bacterium need not invest resources in a gym membership or buy a decent car.

Every clone can produce offspring with the same minimal effort it takes guys to impregnate a wad of tissue paper.  Their numbers would rise much faster than sexual recombination would allow and consume resources at a disproportionate rate.  This would create a tremendous pressure against cells that sexually reproduced.  Most importantly, cloning didn’t need smut to get in the mood (which is fortunate because its pornography sucks).

Oh yeah…oh yeah…c’mon baby, split it off HARD…

Still, for all the reasons sex shouldn’t exist, it does.  Recent findings have demonstrated that early bacteria that bumped uglies started to come on top (get it?!  get it?!) courtesy of the insertion and spread of mitochondrial DNA.  That’s pretty technical stuff so think of it this way: Early bacteria were sluts that would pretty much take DNA anyway they could get it.  It could be through standard plasmid missionary position or swallowing it whole via random mitochondrial encounters.    It’s like bukakke at the cellular level.

This resulted in a genome diverse enough to protect against parasitism, environment changes and the like.  If these theories are correct, we could very well owe our very existence to the diehard efforts of primordial sluts.  This explains the unusual sense of gratitude I’ve always felt for Paris Hilton.  In my pants.

Your countless sacrifices for mankind will not go uncelebrated (in my pants)

The Undisclosed Origins Of The Pink Panther

Regardless of where your morality steers you on the topic of homosexuality, the behavior does seem decidedly un-Darwinian.  I mean that strictly in the sense of his theories toward procreation, since his sexual attitudes have been well documented by photoshop historians:

There are hundreds of  species that engage in homosexual behaviors, though the reasons for it aren’t evident.  It’s increased incidence for animals in captivity indicates that it may have something to do with limited access to partners or a method of stress relief.  This may not legitimize homosexuality as a purely natural phenomenon, but it proves that prison sex is.

Birds of a feather, right?

General promiscuity seems to be a legitimate factor as well.  it has been estimated that 50% of all sexual encounters between bonobos (a close relative of chimpanzees) are same-sex.  Female bonobos indulge in this so commonly there are some who contend their outward facing genitalia may have evolved courtesy of sexual selection.  Frankly, I don’t buy it.  If genitalia were capable of driving primate evolution, then why is it my lab has consistently failed to produce a four-vagina’d chimpanzee?

…which I need for science.  Important science.

In reality, using the term “homosexuality” in animals is unfair.  Very few species show same-sex exclusivity, meaning their actions are better defined as bisexuality.  And since many of the occurrences of this seem to be part of an adaptive strategy, it’s even more succinctly defined as “experimental 2nd year of liberal arts undergraduate bisexuality”.

All that said, there are definite arguments for same-sex partnerships enhancing the survival of a species.  For example, same-sex pair bonds are often formed to care after young that would otherwise go neglected when male-female pairings aren’t possible.  Conservative animal groups counter this does not adhere to Darwinian theory since it won’t perpetuate one’s own genes, which is to say nothing of just how downright sinful they find it.

Ian Cheesman hopes no gay monkeys were offended by the content of this article.    For further intolerance and/or monkey sex, please visit my website.

When I heard that Robert was leaving atom.com to further some alleged career, I was as shocked as the other 8 people who read his blog.   He was like the father-figure of our little family, a role he took so earnestly that he slept with my mother on multiple occasions.  I’m going to miss you here, Mathematically Improbable Dad.

I can think of no finer way to honor his legacy here than to take his beloved Disturbing Animal series and plunder it for my own present an encore.  This will be a very special edition as it will indeed be the very last time you see this feature, barring the possibility I stumble over more animals or am just feeling unmotivated next week.

Volume 1 here

My interest in these games isn’t simply part of my well documented love of the perverse.  I see these for what they truly are – warning signs.

When you catch a child tormenting animals or repeating lyrics from a Jonas Brothers song, you are rightfully terrified.  Time and again serial muderers later demonstrated these juvenile behaviors might further devolve.  You know you’re responsible to be vigilant of them or at least drug them into a well-behaved stupor.  Now imagine that child is actually 127 million Japanese people.

If you were going to shit your pants in abject terror, this would be the time to do it.

When a society promotes an arcade game that simulates playful sodomy, they are sending an important message that you ignore at your own peril.  Here’s 4 more warnings to carefully heed.

Muscle March

This game actually has a premise, but I’d prefer to let the crazy flow freely over you before explaining it: