Friday, April 1, 2011

Animal waves through the hazy dreams full of pain

Here at collegial Riddled Laboratories we do not regard ourselves as invertebrate-rights extremists. Unlike the fanatic activists of the Gastropod Liberation Front we are comfortable with (for instance) the humane and sustainable "milking" of Murex molluscs for their hypobranchial gland secretions, though of course we denounce the industrial-scale slaughter of the Mediterranean murex populations* for the sake of Tyrean-purple togas.**

But this is an outrage: Multi-headed planarians. This is real, not a Bonsai Kitten-style hoax. We urge our readers to resist the allure of false exoticism and eschew the "Freaks of Nature" microscope side-shows at the touring Protostomic Carnivals. Displays of anaerobic lociferans (such as can be viewed in the back room of the Old Entomologist for a purely nominal fee that barely covers expenses) are equally exotic and far more ethical.




Remember, these are not natural phenomena; they are laboratory artifices, wrought to order by unscrupulous unfeeling vivisectors in conditions of unspeakable cruelty to profit from a public craving for novelty and sensation. It is a vicious trade that serves no scientific purpose. Swell the demand for these grim travesties of legitimate research and you share the responsibility for promoting mutilation.

Is there no end to the wrongness? I see no scientific value in constructing a planarian Goatse.

Nor do we rate for Flea Circus sideshows.
Yes, he had the flea. For safety, he had it locked in the interior of his broken Hunter watch. The price? Fifty pounds.
Chapman was aghast. Fifty pounds?
"I don't care how strong and ferocious he is," he expostulated, "how can you justify paying fifty pounds for a flea?"
"He was in the Movement," Keats said.
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There is no way cat fur could have found its way into the Level-3 Biological Confinement Biohazard Facilities during our experiments to create multiheadedness by blocking the typhon gene with antisense DNA. The cat door was definitely shut and all the taq-polymerase was accounted for despite some irregularities with the punch at the annual Riddled "Come as your favourite Hox gene" costume party. It is a mystery.


I do not think this will end well.

* Also the North Atlantic dog whelk Nucella lapillus. The expert is Carole Biggam, whose seminal investigations into Dog-whelk dye technology: Known in Anglo-Saxon England as well as in Ireland? may some day provide a blogpost.

** As documented in the scholarly work of T. Robinson.

11 comments:

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

There is no way cat fur could have found its way into the Level-3 Biological Confinement Biohazard Facilities during our experiments to create multiheadedness by blocking the typhon gene with antisense DNA.

The cat slipped in when a lab technician, no doubt zooted out of his mind on Pooter's Porter, decided to "sleep it off" in the Biological Confinement Biohazard Facilities.

H. Rumbold, Master Barber said...

Mollusc milking provides insight into the origin of the trope "enraged bull limpet".

Substance McGravitas said...

I see no scientific value in constructing a planarian Goatse.

Humph. VIVA SECTIONISTS!

mikey said...

I stopped, brought up short, speechless in my consuming rage. "God dammit" I spluttered, clenching my fists and shaking my head.

"Why, you're nothing but a Crotch Headed Double Planarian" I cried out in shocked offense...

TruculentandUnreliable said...

This makes The Island of Dr. Moreau look like mere child's play.

This will give me nightmares. NIGHTMARES.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

I believe in recycling!
I believe in crotch-heads!

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Somewhere, planarian YogSothoth lurks at the threshold.
~

ckc (not kc) said...

...we denounce the industrial-scale slaughter of the Mediterranean murex populations

Canada geese, not so much. (Let us know when you run out, we'll ship you ours.)

WV hiessi ... that fits.

Smut Clyde said...

This will give me nightmares. NIGHTMARES.

And yet the library leaves the Transactions of the American Microscopical Society (Vol. 59, No. 4, 1940) out in the open where anyone might be exposed to it.
Will no-one think of the children???

Canada geese, not so much.
They're just vertebrates; not our problem.

Unknown said...

Too much awe.

cropha, come one funnily.

Smut Clyde said...

"enraged bull limpet"

Ah, but limpets are herbivorous algae grazers, so unlike the predatory snails of the Muricidae or rock-snail family, they do not have hypobranchial glands. So no 'milking'. I refer you to the Journal of Shellfish Research for further details.
[/explaining voice]