Tag Archives: World Wide Web

April Fools Day – Sorry Australia

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April Fools Day, the bane of serious scientific organizations all over the world.

Here at The Institute we have enough of an image problem without adding to our misery by trying to play lame-ass jokes on ourselves or other scientific organizations so we have had a ban on playing April Fools jokes from the beginning of our presence here on the World Wide Web.

Take our Space Program for instance. How can you be a creditable user of space when no one takes you seriously. You can’t, that’s how. So first thing this morning we sent up our usual reminder to our crew in the “Institute1” our own space station and Earth orbiter, built and launched from our space center over behind the commissary right here on The Institute’s complex saying “No Freakin’ Jokes Today, Got it !”.

Well we were too late of course. We sent the ‘no joking around’ message in plenty of time but the goofs up there were doing that thing with the radio where they say ” What’s that? Can’t hear you.” and “Sorry you’re breaking up,” making those fake wind and static sounds, ” must be solar interference.” then they hang up and keep doing what they’re doing. We could hear them up there laughing and making those fart noises with their hands in their armpits, someone had butt-dialed Earth and didn’t know it, so we could hear everything they said. That really cheesed off The Director, as not doing that joking stuff is one of his most stringent rules. Somebody’s butt is grassed when they get back down here.

Well you can see what they had done in the image above. They had already drawn all over Australia with a white permanent Magic marker dividing the country up into sections. They had sections for who had the most beer drinkers, that’s the spot down in the lower right hand corner where it’s almost all white, a section for how many Australians who had actually seen a wild Koala bear, zoos didn’t count. How many really carried those big knives and actually said “That’s not a knife, this is a knife” pronouncing knife like knoife, and which ones thought Great White sharks were like totally their best friends ever and would swim with them whenever they were asked to. That would be those big blue areas in the middle of the country. We understand the sun shines there every single day and it’s really hot so that could explain that lapse in good judgment.

We finally got a hold of the crew later in the morning and gave them a stern talking to. However the damage was done. We told them to get back there and start cleaning that marker off the place but they said “Sorry, no can do, we ‘re already over Indonesia and by the time we make another circuit the marker would be so dry there was no way it was coming off.” then they started that “Can’t hear you” crap again. Man that’s irritating. Now we ‘ve got to apologize to the whole damn  Australian country explaining that we did it, but we didn’t mean it. ‘Sorry it was an April Fools joke that went awry.” Like they’re going to buy that. So much for our credibility.

To indicate our displeasure with the crew up there in Institute1 we have informed them that their next shipment of oxygen will be a week and a half late, oops sorry, our bad. Maybe they’ll pay attention to the rules next  time. Actually our guy over at Mission Control says they only have enough air left for five days. That could get dicey.

The Institute1,our space station, was designed and constructed right here on The Institute’s grounds. Since our Space Grant had not come through for the fourth time in a row we decided to tackle the job ourselves and build it out of available funds. We were able to get five of those 40′ shipping containers, a tuff shed, some of that 8′ diameter sewer pipe they bury in those subdivisions and a huge deal on off-brand duck tape from our local hardware store.

Picture the five storage containers joined at each corner forming a pentagram with the tuff shed to store the oxygen tanks and other explosives suspended in the middle of the pentagram by the 8’ sewer pipe and all joined together by massive wraps of duck tape and you’ve got a picture of what the Institute1 looks like. Of course there are holes cut in the roof of the storage containers for venting things that have  to be vented, bathroom areas, the area around the pellet stove, and so on. There are also Plexiglas viewing ports around the outside perimeter of the station so they can take pictures, use that pricey single tube 16x telescope we got when Wal-Mart had their sale, and to wave and make faces at the Russians as they go whizzing past in their fancy new space station, the Ублюдок!!!.

If we can keep the Aussie’s from going ballistic over the white marker thing we may not have done our space program irreparable harm. And we’ve got to get our new spaceship, the “Flying Flounder” up there to delivery the next load of oxygen bottles and pick up the empties. The late fees on returning those are horrendous so things have to proceed as normal, otherwise we have to consider pulling the plug on our entire “Visit Space – The Place Where Nothing Is” program. That would set back our entire Scientific Mission structure weeks and weeks if not months.

So one thing we can be thankful for is except for our friends down under, we didn’t play any practical jokes on the rest of the world. That’s a relief. So if anybody from The Institute says “Happy April Fools Day!” to you, just ignore them.

Bear Facts

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Periodically we here at The Institute go out on the World Wide Web to check facts that are available to our readers regarding some of the wildlife they may be interested in. We are fact checkers. As you might imagine there is a lot of information out there, some of it good and some of it downright wrong. Or at least misinterpreted. We set our official fact gleaners to work gleaning and they visited some bear websites to check out those bear statements. This was done because we get so many cards and letters asking for fun-filled facts about bears.

Here are just a few of those facts that we found out there that need further explanation or correction to make them complete and more accurate or even believable.

First bears, and in this case grizzly bears, have been around for a long time. At least since 2005 when this picture was taken by our Director with one of the first legitimate digital cameras available. They may have been around longer than that but if so not many people knew about them because there weren’t any digital photos taken of them. This was back in the dawn of the digital age when 6 megapixels was considered to be the height of photographic technology. Many new species were being discovered then and documented using this new photographic tool, so we feel confident in correcting or adding information to the wealth of information about grizzly bears out there on the web.

Fact: A male bear is called a boar or a he-bear. A female bear is called a sow or a she-bear. A group of bears is called a sleuth or sloth. We can find no reason to dispute this fact although we have found that actually calling these bears he-bear, or she-bear to their faces makes them anxious and somewhat touchy, so we don’t recommend it. We have also called a group of them a sleuth and found that it made them all look at us appraisingly so we don’t recommend doing that either. Your results may vary.

Fact: Bears have been known to eat almost anything, including snowmobile seats, engine oil, and rubber boots. We can find no corroborating evidence to support this fact so we cannot endorse it. We can state however that a determined bear will eat the entire door off a motorhome if there are ding-dongs inside.

Fact: In a similar vein we heard that in 2008, a Canadian man was attacked by a grizzly bear. He survived the attack by playing dead, even when the bear began to gnaw on his scalp. The bear eventually lost interest and went away. The bear did take his watch, an undetermined amount of travelers checks and a can of bear spray however, plus his iPod but inexplicably not the ear buds. We believe this fact to be true as we have personally seen bears with iPods on several occasions.

Fact: During hibernation, a bear does not defecate. Its body can somehow recycle body waste into protein—a process scientists still do not understand. This is just so wrong that we can’t even address it. What kind of sick mind makes this stuff up.

Fact: The lips of bears are not attached to their gums, which make their lips look rubbery. This is true. It is also why they sound like Mick Jagger when they talk.

Fact: The most accurate way to determine the age of a bear is to count the rings in a cross-section of its tooth root under a microscope. We have found that this might be true but have been unable to substantiate it due to no one ever surviving the attempt to complete the procedure.

Fact: Bears are very smart and have been known to roll rocks into bear traps to set off the trap and eat the bait in safety. Yes this is true. What should be added however is that bears will often force tourists or other interested parties to carry the rocks for them under threat of doing them bodily harm if they don’t and then extorting them into bringing them more bait on a regular basis. Many unsuspecting people enter into bear territory completely unaware of the Bearsa Nostra and pay a huge price for their ignorance.

Fact: Bears are bowlegged. This gives them better grip and balance. Ummmm, on what? We believe this is bogus.

Fact: Grizzly bears use growls, roars and snorts to communicate with each other. They also text, send short but well written notes to each other, and wave excitedly when encountering old friends.

Fact: You can recognize grizzly bears by the hump on their back. The hump is made up of muscles. This is only partially true. It is accurate to say the hump is made up of muscles but it is just as accurate to say that the hump is due to the bear being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Often large heavy branches will fall off the trees as the bear is walking through the forest, striking the bear one hell of a whack. This results in a big knot or swelling on its back that takes a long time to go down.

Fact: Unlike many mammals, bears can see in color. True. They also see things that aren’t there. They get emotional upon seeing a rainbow. And they take offense at people who dress unfashionably. This why so many bear attack victims are found to be wearing plaid pants or Bermuda shorts with black socks and wife beater t-shirts. Or women in solid color pant suits like the ones Hillary Clinton used to wear.

Fact: Bears rarely discipline their children. This is patently untrue. Look at the cubs eye in the picture above. He was mouthy and just one quick smack later he was perfectly behaved.

These are just a few of the facts floating around on the web that needed clarification. We hope that this has been helpful and has made your understanding of our wild brethren, the bear, more complete. This has been an unsolicited service of The Institute.  Remember our motto, We’re from The Institute and we’re here to help. And we hope we do.