Sunday Funnies

Who admits to going to the funny pages first in the big Sunday paper? Darwin always delivers a good laugh.

T. rex evolved into a monster predator by dumbing down its brain (New Scientist). This article claims T. rex had a smaller relative brain size than an ancestor. “The change could be a consequence of growing so large” (see non-sequitur). And yet it was a monster predator, reporter Yvaine Ye admits. Conclusion: it dumbed down its brain in order to eat. But in the limit, what if a mighty hunter forgets what to do with the prey? If this were a law of nature, why don’t the best hunters perform the best clown acts?

Chickens Peck Intruder Fox to Death, Because They’re Dinosaurs (Live Science). This may be the worst headline ever on the “birds are dinosaurs” meme. Fox enters henhouse. Darwin takes over:

But chickens, like all birds, are the descendants of dinosaurs. And this particular coop held 3,000 hens. As soon as the sun set and the light-controlled, automatic hatch door closed behind the fox, the birds channeled their inner Tyrannosaurus rex and attacked the fox.

Last we checked, T. rex didn’t have a beak, or hunt in packs, or fly with those puny arms. Kentucky Fried T. rex, anyone?

Aliens Might Shoot Lasers at Black Holes to Travel the Galaxy (Live Science). “An astronomer at Columbia University has a new guess about how hypothetical alien civilizations might be invisibly navigating our galaxy: Firing lasers at binary black holes (twin black holes that orbit each other).” Yeah, they might.

The women too scared of climate change to have children (BBC News). Think, ladies. Even if you believe in man-caused climate change, refusing to enjoy one of the greatest benefits of life—having a family—is not a good strategy. The ones who couldn’t care less about climate will just out-breed you, harming the climate faster than ever before.  Even the pro-warmist site Medical Xpress admits that the way to save the planet is to “stop trying to be its friend.”

Lemmings, by JB Greene. Used by permission.

Harvard prof doesn’t back down from claims that alien spacecraft may be zipping past Jupiter orbit (Fox News). Avi Loeb should know better. He should know that making such an inference requires assuming that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory. Others think that Oumuamua asteroid is just a floating conglomerate of cosmic dust (Fox News).