True Science News Facts For Kids!
by: 'Doctor' Max Burbank

Hey, kids! It's your old pal, 'Doctor' Max Burbank! Now don't worry, I'm not a medical doctor like that guy in the white lab coat who's always giving you shots and telling you to cough while he does bad touch! And I don't have some stuffy old PHD, either. I'm a 'Doctor' the way that guy your mom was necking with in the garage is your 'Uncle'. It's a perfectly legitimate, reasonable prison nickname.

Anyways, you didn't come here to listen to the ol' Doceroonie ramble on about experimenting on his cell mates back in the day! You came to find out what's up in...

TRUE SCIENCE NEWS FACTS FOR KIDS!

Okay then! Headline Number one! PLUTO ISN'T A FRIGGIN' PLANET! Stop crying in your cheerios about it, you dang buncha bedwettin' babies! Scientists don't cry! Mostly on account of the bulk of us have Aspergers, so our responses aren't the same as Neuro Typicals, or as I like to call them, normal ass bastards. BACK TO PLUTO. Okay. Out where Pluto is? In a region called the Kuiper Belt? There's like six thousand other icy rocks in the same damn orbit.

Fig 1. Hi res image of Kupier belt objects or sonogram of my current crop of
kidney stones, depending on which power point this turns out to be.

You wanna call them all planets? What the hell would your Mnemonic be then? My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Covered With Violent Drooling Monkeys While Filling Her Trousers Full Of Eccentric Bunnies Etc, Etc, Et-friggin-cetera? What else do you wanna do, make everything bigger than a softball in Saturn's rings a Planet? You got some kind of planet fetish?! LET IT GO! You think Albert Einstein woulda been all "Boo-hoo-hoo, Pluto isn't a Planet anymore"? No. He would not. He was a SCIENTIST! He had a little invention called pride. Moving on!

Headline number two: We are experiencing the dawn of a JELLYFISH POPULATION EXPLOSION! Jellyfish populations all over the world are expanding at an alarming rate. Various theories credit the phenomena to Global Warming, the removal of predators from the eco system and James Bond style super villains. The scientific fact is IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER, GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WATER! And kiss eating fish goodbye because that is Jellyfish food and it's in the water with the GOD DAMN JELLYFISH! They are ON THE MOVE children! The sea is theirs! Doc Burbank recommends strategic withdrawal to inland high points to plan our defenses for when LAND JELLIES INEVITABLY EVOLVE!

SCIENCE FACT! A recent study funded by the Anti Guatemalan League reveals that Guatemalans evolved from SALAMANDERS!

Fig 2. This filthy practice has led to all sorts of trouble.

MYSTERIES OF SCIENCE REVEALED! Raise your hands if you knew that the beak of a large squid can hurt like a sonovabitch if it gets a hold of your finger. Johnny? Petra? Very good. You two get yourselves a juice box. The rest of you? Forewarned is forearmed. No, not four armed, you idiot! What the hell has four arms? This is Science News. Get the hell out.

HEADLINE NUMBER THREE: CANDY IS DANDY BUT LIQUOR IS QUICKER! So said the great poet Ogden Nash, and he was absolutely correct. But it took a CHEMIST to figure out how to take readily available cold and flu medications and cook them in a motel bathroom until they turned into methamphetamines. And what's a Chemist, kids? That's right, a SCIENTIST! Scientist beats Poet like Rock beats Scissors every damn time. And if you ask me, Rock beats the crap out of Paper, too! I mean, come on! Show me a piece of paper that can beat up a rock! And THAT kids, is what SCIENCE is! A ROCK in the face of every Goddamn thing on earth! ROCK... BEATS... EVERYTHING!!! Lets see Ogden Nash invent a friggin' nuclear chain reaction...

Of course, Ogden's poem was about seducing women, which is one department in which your poet beats your scientist every damn time. UNTIL I GET THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR THE FRIGGIN HYPNO RAY I'M WORKING ON, OGDEN! Anyway, whatever.

Fig tree... get it? Fig Tree? Fig 3? Sweet Jesse's Rod, but that's a fine science joke.

EUREKA MOMENT! If you microwave an iPhone on high for 1.5 minutes, it will not do shit EVER AGAIN! No music, no phone calls, no Internet, nothing, ZIPPO, NIHIL, DE NADA! See sometimes, failure is a valuable result! Because if microwaving an iPhone had resulted, as I hypothesized, in a TIME MACHINE, all of you kids would have been COMPLETELY SCREWED when I became KING OF THE WORLD! So, Lakisha? It's Lakisha, right? Good, Lakisha, you may cross iPhone of the list of things that when microwaved may become time machines. The march of science continues. Did you know that THOMAS ALVA EDISON tried and failed over 17,000 filaments before settling upon the catgut used in modern incandescent light bulbs?

Science News Headline Number Four! NANO TECHNOLOGY! The incredibly huge science of the itsy-bitsy. Nano Technology is the science of building machines at the molecular level! I can see from your remarkably slack little jaws that all but a handful of you have even the vaguest idea what I'm talking about. And of that handful, all of you are wrong with the possible exception of Weintstein over there. Cleave to him girls. Cleave to him though he has no friends for in the future that is coming his genetic seed may save your children's lives. You see, kids, Nano Technology is very, very difficult to understand but it won't matter to any of you but Weinstein because long before you've wrapped your brains around the topic, rich people will have walled themselves away in giant sky castles perched atop carbon nano-tube stilts! From there they will seed the atmosphere with microscopic robots that will waltz through the pours of your skin as easily as Hitler's Panzer brigades drove through the Arc De TRIUMPH! Once inside they will biologically redesign you into WILLING ZOMBIE SLAVES!

But the joke is really on Weinstein, for though he is the only one among you intelligent enough to make preparations against Nano wielding rich people, he, along with the rest of us, will be killed when global warming causes various hideous plagues to romp freely across the globe like rats set loose in a Chuck-e-Cheese. And you thought you were going to get yourself a little harem. Poor little Weinstein. The scientist never gets the girl. Never. Until I invent MY HYPNO RAY, which I certainly won't be sharing with you. Oh, stop crying. You may have a juice box.

SCIENCE NEWSFLASH! The Box Jellyfish... a creature so deadly it's merest touch can bring AGONIZING DEATH IN UNDER TWO MINUTES... Is AS WE SPEAK breeding in vast herds and riding the Gulf Stream STRAIGHT TOWARDS US! The Wiley Japanese attempted to destroy a swarm of the deadly Jellies with a fleet of fishing vessels dragging razor wire through the waters! The results?... SPECTACULAR DISASTER! It seems when threatened this diabolical killing machine descends into a BREEDING FRENZY, the females grotesquely swelling with billions of eggs, the males bloated with Jellyfish semen! Plus, they can still sting you FOR HOURS AFTER THEY'RE DEAD! ABANDON THE SEAS WHILE YE MAY! Invertebrates CANNOT BE REASONED WITH!

Fig. 4 Even this slide can kill you. That's how badass the Box Jellyfish is.

SCIENCE HEADLINE THE FIFTH! Recent studies show that drinking eight glasses of water a day, while not as healthful as was once believed, does make you need to pee a lot. Meanwhile, other research points out that strike-anywhere matches are still real cool.

SCIENCE ETHICS QUERY! If I put a hamster in the payload of an Estes Model rocket and fly it, does that make me a bad person? ASK NASA! They flew Dogs and Chimps long before allowing humans atop their rocket ships! But DON'T ASK MY HAMPSTER! She's a pathological liar and if you see her you can tell her that restraining order does not mean SHIT to me! SHE'S DESTINED FOR A BAD END!

SCIENCE FACT that can be proven in the home! Gin makes many medicines work better.

SCIENCE FAIR SUGGESTIONS! Here's a fun experiment that can be conducted using simple household items and a Senator duct taped to a kitchen chair. Simply make a solution of 4 parts water 1 part salt to fill a mop bucket, tip the chair backwards and pour the solution into the Senator's mouth and nose. This is the only way to tell if he is an actual human senator OR A COLONY OF JELLYFSIH organized in the form of a Senator! If the Senator begins to breaks apart into thousands of Jellies, CRUSH THEM BENEATH THE HEELS OF YOUR RUBBERIZED HIP WADERS!... I should have mentioned, you will need rubberized hip waders, truthfully not an item common to all households... but I should warn you that if you try to stomp dead a few million Jellies without them you will certainly be stung until your own mother won't recognize the mottled writhing lump on the floor begging for death.

SCIENCE FACT! Several labs have successfully replicated experiments that splice Jellyfish DNA into other animals, but all we have to show for it is Pigs and Bunnies that GLOW! Davis! Malone! Take Weinstein down to lab B and inject the Jellyfish DNA you will find there directly into his brain stem. SACRAFICES MUST BE MADE! The enemy must be understood. Stop sniveling Weinstein. This is SCIENCE! Davis, Malone, You may each take a juice box on your way out.

Fig 4. Admittedly hilarious glowing pig cannot save your bacon. HA! SCIENCE JOKE!

Well, Children, that's all for tonight, unless you'd like to stick around and do some trial and error to see if I can rid myself of this relentless headache without accidentally unleashing MONSTERS FROM THE ID which is what has happened yesterday and why Levonne could not join us this evening. Otherwise get out and I COUNT THE JUICE BOXES ladies and gentlemen, so forget it!