Because the Big Aristotle himself tweeted this last night:

Sorry about the lack of a random 10 post on Friday. I’ve been up to my ears in automotive hassles for more than a week now (do you have any idea how difficult it is to train a bonobo to drive a standard shift?), and could not attend to my normal meaningless rituals.

Same goes for today, as Thanksgiving is breathing its hot turkey breath down my neck and there is much to do. So for today, please enjoy this charming tale of a man who once cut the paws off kangaroos, and the asshole who yelled at him for doing it wrong.

The conventional wisdom holds that the average scientist is a sweaty, heaving nerd in a lab coat — a sticky, awkward, bearded trekkie with oversized square glasses and a piece of an onion bagel lodged in his hair.

That’s true, but he’s also drunk and horny.

The proof is in the extraordinary lengths science will go to in order to

1) Prove that drinking is good for you

and

2) Check out the sexxy lay-dayys

Witness:

A team of Spanish researchers studied the habits of more than 15,000 men and 26,000 women and discovered that boozing — and I mean really BOOZING — is good for your heart. If you’re a man, that is. YAY MEN!

The researchers, led by the Basque Public Health Department, placed the participants into six categories – from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day. This would be the equivalent of consuming about eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.

For those drinking little – less than a shot of vodka a day for instance – the risk was reduced by 35%. And for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less.

WHOOHOOO PASS ME THE FOWTY OWNZE!!

But not before we prove — with the science — that ladies are hotter when they’re not all bundled in mom jeans and bulky flannel shirts (damn you 1990s!!). Let’s go to England, where science took a big ass notebook into some nightclubs and just sat there, staring:

Using tape recorders hidden in their handbags, the researchers took note of what female clubbers were wearing and how many times they were approached by men asking them to dance.

For the purposes of the study, each arm accounted for 10 per cent of the body, each leg for 15 per cent and the torso for 50 per cent.

Women who revealed around 40 per cent of their skin attracted twice as many men as those who covered up.

The researchers did find, however, that exposing more than 40% reduced women’s chances of being mobbed by sweaty douchebags in nightclubs. The lesson — as always — is that science is staring at your ass. And drinking.

Alcohol ‘protects men’s hearts’ [BBC]
Women ’should bare 40 per cent of their bodies to attract men’ [Telegraph]

I hate to generalize based on decades, but I think it’s safe to say that the men of the 1980s were the sexiest men there ever were.

Careful, watching this video more than once can lead to pregnancy.

Normally it’s Father Scott’s job to clean up the sad tears and corndog crumbs of the prior evening’s episode of The Biggest Loser. But he’s in Prague on my behalf this week, trying to secure me several necessities for my new Czech mountain redoubt.

Last night was the “makeover episode” which is like the Super Bowl of weeping. Not only do they dress the rapidly reducing contestants in silk finery hand-picked by tastemaster Tim Gunn, but they also “surprise” them each with visits from family members on the show.

Here’s a math formula I devised to show how the makeover episode works:

Presence of family members + new threads – (Jillian² + Bob) = (∑)∞

Where ∑ = the number of times someone cries openly.

In the end, one of these blubbering messes had to go home. Turns out that was Rebecca, who complained the entire time about people pointing out that she had such a pretty face for a fat girl. While her complaint is understandable, she should really take a look around before saying stuff like that at a TV camp full of fatties. Most of those people are fat and ugly, Rebecca. They don’t want to hear it.

Rebecca’s loss keeps Liz in the competition. Liz is funny, because she is slowly morphing into President Bush. Last night, as the contestants pulled their way across a gorge on ropes, she did it with her eyes closed the entire time. She literally said “I know that whut I cain’t see cain’t hurt me.” TELL THAT TO THE TALIBAN, PRESIDENT BUSH!

Meanwhile, former Biggest Loser contestant Tara is blogging about the show for People magazine’s Web site. Here’s her lede from last night:

“I can remember so vividly the memories of makeover week.”

And they say journalism is dying.

Anyway, here’s some links to shit that I’ve been sitting on for a while. Enjoy.

• Scientists have successful regrown replacement rabbit penises in a lab. Because why the fuck not? [Wired]
• Newly discovered Mayan murals depict the lives of regular people. They are shown drinking Velveeta from clay pots and watching Two and a Half Men. [LiveScience]
• Researchers in Egypt may have found the remains of 50,000 members of the Persian army that were consumed by a sandstorm 2,500 years ago. Long story short: prepare to be massacred by the howling reanimated bones of an ancient desert army. [MSNBC]
• Here’s more than you ever needed to know about the dust under your couch. [LiveScience]
• Check out this map of the US states by smoking rate. Look at it closely. There’s a subtle trend there. Here’s a hint: The moron states have the most smokers. Nice work, Kentucky. [WSJ]
• I love Steven Pinker, even when he’s tearing people I like a new one. Here he is explaining why Malcolm Gladwell is part genius, part nincompoop. [NYT]
• Wine rankings are total bullshit. Except for mine. I give points based on whether I paid for it or not. It’s free? Perfect score!! [WSJ]
• New Yorker writer Ken Auletta hosted a panel discussion on the topic of humor with Judd Apatow and Sarah Silverman. He tried to be funny. Bad idea. [NYT]

I am a strong and virile man, with a gruff disposition no tolerance for all that namby-pamby shit. In fact, I am best known three things:

1) Chopping wood with the sides of my hands

2) Scaring off neighborhood ruffians with a glare and a low growl

and

3) Stirring boiling liquids with my fingers

Despite this overflow of machismo, even I find myself emotionally vulnerable at times. Like that time the lithe and lean Mrs. Pax Arcana and I went to the (awesome! kick ass!) Museum of Science to watch “Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure” on the IMAX screen.

It turns out I can watch movies of orphans being dismembered by roving bands of Nazi werewolves with zero emotional attachment, but the story of one man’s struggle to save his crew from icy death in Antarctica made me tear up like a fat kid who dropped his cupcake in the mud.

So you’ll forgive me for getting overly excited to hear that workers New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust are preparing to unearth several crates of scotch that Shackleton buried in the snow. The bottles of McKinlay whisky have been lodged under the floorboards of Shackleton’s makeshift hut for almost 100 years, though producers say the ice around it may have preserved it perfectly:

Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay’s master blender, said the Shackleton expedition’s whiskey could still be drinkable and taste exactly as it did 100 years ago.

If he can get a sample, he intends to replicate the old Scotch and put McKinlay whiskey back on sale.

“I really hope we can get some back here,” he was quoted as telling London’s Telegraph newspaper. “It’s been laying there lonely and neglected. It should come back to Scotland where it was born.”

I think I speak for all scotch enthusiasts when I say this is the single most touching story ever told.

*tears up, grabs bottle of Bruichladdich*

I mean, to think of what that man went through…

*gulp*

HE ROWED 800 MILES, THEN SCALED IMPASSABLE MOUNTAINS TO FIND HELP!!

*now openly bawling*

HE DIDN’T LOSE A MAN!!!

*sniff*

I love you guys

Lost Scotch Whiskey Cache Buried in Antarctica [Discovery News]

Not only is the below video among the coolest filler we’ve ever featured, but it’s also confirmation of my long-held belief that leopard seals are the grandmothers of the ocean. “Here, eat this half-dead penguin,” they say. “You look too skinny!”

ALRIGHT UP AND AT ‘EM, MAGGOTS! TIME TO GET YOUR CANDY ASSES OUT OF THAT BUNK AND TRY YOUR HARDEST TO CONVINCE YOUR MOMMA THAT YOU ARE NOT

THE

BIGGEST

MISTAKE

OF HER LIFE!

WHAT’S THAT, MAGGOT? WHY AM I YELLING AT YOU?

BECAUSE I’M ALL OUT OF YELLOW OCHRE, AND IT’S DAMN HARD TO MAKE HAPPY LITTLE BUSHES REFLECT IN THE MOUNTAIN POND WITHOUT YELLOW OCHRE.

WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE I USE, MAGGOT? TITANIUM WHITE?

THAT’S IT, GET YOUR ASS OVER TO THAT LATRINE. IF IT’S NOT SPOTLESS BY THE TIME I’M DONE PUTTING SOME SNEAKY LITTLE BIRCH TREES ON THIS WINDSWEPT MOUNTAINSIDE, YOU’LL BE BEATIN’ THE DEVIL OUT OF THESE PAINT BRUSHES FOR THE REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE!

DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR, MAGGOT?

5 (Happy Little) Things You Didn’t Know About Bob Ross [Mental Floss]

Sad news from Mars this week as NASA officials are openly questioning the future of the Spirit rover, which has been cruising the surface of the red planet for six years. It’s not out of batteries or anything. It’s just kind of, well, stuck:

In April, Spirit’s wheels broke through a hard crust on the Martian surface and encountered loosely packed fine sand beneath. Initial attempts to drive the rover out ended up with it instead sinking deeper into the trap.

Engineers set up a sand box at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and positioned a sister rover inside to try to figure out a way for Spirit to free itself.

“We’ve pretty much exhausted all the possibilities, all the things that we can do on the ground,” rover project manager John Callas told Discovery News.

With the cold Martian winter on its way, the Spirit could be in danger of dying if it can’t get out of the soft sand and toward the sun — where its solar panels could collect enough energy to keep it alive during the winter. I think I speak for all robot enthusiasts when I say “Beeeep boop, brave Spirit. Beep boop beeeeeep.”

The songs:

Save us S.O.S. — Hot Hot Heat
My Little Corner of the World — Yo La Tengo
Naked as a Window — Josh Ritter
Everybody Knows that You Are Insane — Queens of the Stone Age
Hold Time — M. Ward
Bright Lights — Pete and the Pirates
Dominos — The Big Pink
How To Fight Loneliness — Wilco
Your Southern Can is Mine — The White Stripes
Let’s Not Shit Ourselves — Bright Eyes

Bonus video:

Brooklyn Zoo — Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Kind of a requiem on the 5-year anniversary of his death)

The Rules: The Friday Random 10 is exactly that — random. We open up our iTunes, set the thing on shuffle, and listen to 10 songs. We are not permitted to skip any out of embarrassment or fear of redundancy. Commenters are encouraged to post their own.

Have you ever found yourself walking down some steps and thinking, “Man, these steps sure are awkwardly spaced and uncomfortable”?

If so, you’re probably a rapist or something.

At least that’s the story at Tufts University, where a recent student newspaper article alluded to a set of “rape steps” placed down a gently sloping hill on campus. Apparently the admissions officers at Tufts tell prospective students that the steps were designed specifically to help female students escape male attackers.

No, really:

Admissions officers say that the steps were designed for women, and the theory goes that a woman should be able to climb the steps faster than a male attacker. Even as a female, I don’t understand how these awkwardly long yet short steps are supposed to rescue me from impending doom. I guess that feminine stride ain’t no stride-o-mine.

There is obviously a strong possibility that the steps in question are merely awkward, and that the “rape steps” legend simply sprung up around them. In my student days at the Gamaliel Painter Academy of Alchemy and Sledding, there were several fanciful explanations for otherwise uninteresting landscape quirks. The music center was built backwards! The library is sinking into the earth on account of the weight of the books! You’ve been placed on academic probation!

OK that last one was true. But in my defense, the steps down to the library are really awkward.

Engineering psychology and the Rape Steps [Tufts Daily]