Update on The Scientific Thylacine Expedition

Dr. Chris Clarke and Richard Freeman, a determined as all get out scientific researching duo from the Fortean Society, are, at this very moment, still wandering around the Australian outback looking and looking and looking for thylacines.  Blazing a trail through camels, brumbies, dogs and  dingoes — not to mention kangaroos, snakes and god only knows how many spiders, they will not give up until they find the extremely elusive thylacine, a creature that has been extremely elusive since it became extinct in the 1980’s.

After setting up camp in the Australian Outback, one of the remotest spots on planet earth, the researchers have failed to find a thylacine, but did manage to locate a Starbucks behind some Australian Outback bushes and used their Wifi to communicate that, although they haven’t found an actual thylacine as yet, they did manage to step in some suspicious looking dog droppings which the researchers dispatched to civilization for DNA testing via a Starbucks’ pastry delivery truck.

“The area is so damn remote,’ Freeman marveled while sipping his Grande, Iced, Sugar-Free, Vanilla Latte with Soy Milk,  “that I’d say there is a reasonable population of thylacines left.”

“In fact, I’d say there are more thylacines around the world than Javan rhinos.” Freeman scientifically concluded just after stepping in a big pile of Javan rhino droppings.

Scientists Now Believe Our Universe Is Filled with More Habitable Planets Than They Previously Thought.

Erik Petigura, a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and the lead author of a paper published Monday in a scientific journal called Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for Long-Winded Scientific Journal Titles, that earth-like planets having the temperature of a cup of tea are common around sun-like stars and went so far as to say, “the finding represents one great leap toward the possibility of life , including intelligent life in the universe.”  He failed to mention  how big a leap this finding was to the tea lovers everywhere and seemed to care less about his omission.

Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who was not directly involved in the new analysis but who was walking by the door while the scientists were talking about it — on her way to the break room for more tea —  pointed out to other scientists in the break room that “Earth-size doesn’t necessarily mean “Earth-like” but admitted the result will boost efforts to build telescopes that could obtain direct images on these planets.  A point that would have been well taken by the break-room scientists had they not been sipping their tea so loudly.

Scientists Warn that People Could be a Lot Shorter Tomorrow Than They Are Today.

A Team of Scientists from the University of Michigan have recently concluded after reading all about mammals in their Scientific Researcher’s Big Book of Mammals from 53 and 55 Billion Years Ago, that global warming is going to make people shorter.

“We are  confident that we’re seeing that one response to global warming in the past was a decrease in mammal body size.”  Lead Scientific Page-Turner, Philip Gingerich, stated while attempting to put a band-aid on his blistered index finger.

He then went on to state, “Bizarrely, fossil evidence from horses of the time indicated that they had reduced in size to something comparable to that of a small dog.”  He then proceeded to hop on the back of his Mexican Chihuahua to reenact a possible scenario from 53 billlion years ago,  but was immediately thrown off —  which he quickly blamed on the blister on his index finger.

“Over the next few thousand years following the climate’s recovery, however, the animals gradually returned to their normal size,” Philip Gingerich was immensely relieved to conclude before hobbling away.

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And that concludes this Monday’s edition of What the Scientists are Thinking About, Dear Readers!

Until next time . . . I love you