Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Riding the underground, swimming in sweat

Gaining body mutations and superpowers in consequence of a bite from a radioactive laboratory animal is vastly over-rated, Henderson reflected, especially if the animal in question is a star-nosed mole. True, a comics publisher had showed interest in basing a graphic novel on his career of rapid tunnelling and thwarting bank-vault robberies and steering subway trains away from underground collisions, but the negotiations had fallen through when they realised that all these exploits had taken place in total darkness.


But Henderson knew better than to grumble or expect sympathy from his fellow crime-fighter Tom the Teeth, who had been bitten by a radioactive naked mole rat.

8 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

You'll get no sympathy from former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was bitten by a radioactive banana slug.
~

Substance McGravitas said...

Deities of the East Indians are prone to violins.

mikey said...

Pretty sure this is one of those rare cases where the backstory is more interesting than the, uh, FRONTstory.

Exactly HOW did the Naked Mole Rat become radioactive? (And purely out of some weird prurient curiosity, I'd like to know if said rat is also "very selective".)

I'd also suggest the possibility of a mis-identification. I could have been a fully fur-covered Mole Rat that only became "naked" as a result of the exposure to radiation.

Anyway, the point is we're going to need more information on the rat protagonist...

Substance McGravitas said...

Exactly HOW did the Naked Mole Rat become radioactive?

They DIG.

Smut Clyde said...

former House Speaker Dennis Hastert,
Why is that man doing a bunny impersonation with his right hand?

Deities of the East Indians are prone to violins.
In his hand it is a lethal weapon.
In total, Ixora seems to have 16 attack points, which is just getting silly and explains why he failed the audition to get into the Fiend Folio.

Smut Clyde said...

a fully fur-covered Mole Rat that only became "naked" as a result of the exposure to radiation.

No-one ever observed a naked mole rat until after the South Africans started nuclear tests in the Namibian desert.
Not many people know that.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

True, a comics publisher had showed interest in basing a graphic novel on his career of rapid tunnelling and thwarting bank-vault [Image]robberies and steering subway trains away from underground collisions, but the negotiations had fallen through when they realised that all these exploits had taken place in total darkness.

I'm sure he also had some adventures in an aquatic environment, but the difficulties of filming underwater will no doubt dissuade any potential filmmakers.

Smut Clyde said...

the difficulties of filming underwater

Ahem:
Kenneth Catania from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, took high-speed video recordings of a swimming mole. As it hunted, the animal continuously blew bubbles from its nose, which it quickly re-inhaled.
Catania believed that this technique was a form of underwater sniffing, allowing the mole to detect air-borne odours while submerged.


If the 'aquatic ape' hypothesis were true, we could do that too, but the results of an experiment were disappointing. The Doktorling has been put right off science, and the Frau Doktorin was not well pleased about the state of the bathroom.