The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction by Wendy Northcutt Page A
Authors: Wendy Northcutt
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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ; pittsburghlive.com ; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Reader Comments
“A new way to lose weight.”
“Stupidity, thy name is teenager!”
“A glimpse of America’s youth at its finest.”
WEIRD SCIENCE: BAND-AIDS!
Good news for competitorsduring their Darwin Awards tryouts!
Those competing for a Darwin Award often suffer a few nicks and dings along the way. Recently scientists designed medical sutures made from natural polymer excreted by helpful bacteria. Sutures made from these fibers are naturally absorbed by our bodies, so no more pulling stitches! Doctors report favorably on the flexible and easy-to-work-with sutures.
Bacterial polymers: a perfect human repair material
“Those whom life does not cure, death will.”
—Cormac McCarthy
Urban Legend: Bitter Biter Bit a Nitwit
Unconfirmed—Suspected Urban Legend
Featuring gonads and a raccoon!
Although this story was submitted dozens of times—citing news articles from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Japan, and Australia—we classify this story as an urban legend, because the sole source of all these news reports is The Sun tabloid. If you have a reliable source confirming the story, please contact Darwin. www.DarwinAwards.com/contact
JANUARY 2009, RUSSIA | ARAG - ING RACCOON HAS BITTEN OFF A PERVERT’S PRIVATES AS HE WAS TRYING TO RAPE THE ANIMAL, screams the headline. When most of us see a wild animal, raping it never enters our minds. Why would it?
Alexander, forty-four, was on a drunken weekend with friends in Moscow when he leapt on the terrified animal. “When I saw the raccoon I thought I’d have some fun,” he told stunned casualty surgeons.
Although there was not much left to work with, plastic surgeons were trying to reconstruct his mangled manhood. If he is unable to procreate—he is eligible for a Darwin Award. But thus far no reports have “leaked” on the success of the shaft graft.
Reference: thesun.co.uk ; FailBlog.org photo of a newspaper clipping
Reader Comments
“I hope it doesn’t work—I’m an animal lover.”
“Next time try a beaver.”
URBAN LEGEND: RACCOON ROCKET
Raccoons seem to be nuclei around which Urban Legends condense. For example, in rural Pennsylvania a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms at a raccoon that was wandering by. The animal escaped into a three-foot-diameter drainage pipe. Determined to smoke the animal out, one man retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, the determined dude proceeded to slide feet first, fifteen feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled him back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe “like a Polaris missile,” according to a witness, with “a Doppler effect to his scream as he flew over his house, followed by a loud thud” as he landed on his own front lawn.
Reference: Darwin Awards:
Evolution in Action (Plume, 2001)
At-Risk Survivor: Bench Press
Confirmed by Darwin
Featuring gonads!
6 AUGUST 2008 , HONG KONG | It’s raining. You’re lonely. Why not? That was how forty-one-year-old Le Xing found himself facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night.
The lonely man had noticed that the steel sit-up benches in a local park had numerous ventilation holes and thought it might be possible to use them for sexual gratification.
Once Le Xing became aroused, he found he was stuck and could not remove himself from the hole in the bench. Quite understandably, he panicked. Police received a call from a disturbed man and arrived to find him trapped facedown on the bench.
Facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night . . .
Doctors were summoned to the scene. They tried every thing, but eventually, emergency workers had to cut the entire bench free and take both it and him to the
Reader Comments
“A new way to lose weight.”
“Stupidity, thy name is teenager!”
“A glimpse of America’s youth at its finest.”
WEIRD SCIENCE: BAND-AIDS!
Good news for competitorsduring their Darwin Awards tryouts!
Those competing for a Darwin Award often suffer a few nicks and dings along the way. Recently scientists designed medical sutures made from natural polymer excreted by helpful bacteria. Sutures made from these fibers are naturally absorbed by our bodies, so no more pulling stitches! Doctors report favorably on the flexible and easy-to-work-with sutures.
Bacterial polymers: a perfect human repair material
“Those whom life does not cure, death will.”
—Cormac McCarthy
Urban Legend: Bitter Biter Bit a Nitwit
Unconfirmed—Suspected Urban Legend
Featuring gonads and a raccoon!
Although this story was submitted dozens of times—citing news articles from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Japan, and Australia—we classify this story as an urban legend, because the sole source of all these news reports is The Sun tabloid. If you have a reliable source confirming the story, please contact Darwin. www.DarwinAwards.com/contact
JANUARY 2009, RUSSIA | ARAG - ING RACCOON HAS BITTEN OFF A PERVERT’S PRIVATES AS HE WAS TRYING TO RAPE THE ANIMAL, screams the headline. When most of us see a wild animal, raping it never enters our minds. Why would it?
Alexander, forty-four, was on a drunken weekend with friends in Moscow when he leapt on the terrified animal. “When I saw the raccoon I thought I’d have some fun,” he told stunned casualty surgeons.
Although there was not much left to work with, plastic surgeons were trying to reconstruct his mangled manhood. If he is unable to procreate—he is eligible for a Darwin Award. But thus far no reports have “leaked” on the success of the shaft graft.
Reference: thesun.co.uk ; FailBlog.org photo of a newspaper clipping
Reader Comments
“I hope it doesn’t work—I’m an animal lover.”
“Next time try a beaver.”
URBAN LEGEND: RACCOON ROCKET
Raccoons seem to be nuclei around which Urban Legends condense. For example, in rural Pennsylvania a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms at a raccoon that was wandering by. The animal escaped into a three-foot-diameter drainage pipe. Determined to smoke the animal out, one man retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, the determined dude proceeded to slide feet first, fifteen feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled him back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe “like a Polaris missile,” according to a witness, with “a Doppler effect to his scream as he flew over his house, followed by a loud thud” as he landed on his own front lawn.
Reference: Darwin Awards:
Evolution in Action (Plume, 2001)
At-Risk Survivor: Bench Press
Confirmed by Darwin
Featuring gonads!
6 AUGUST 2008 , HONG KONG | It’s raining. You’re lonely. Why not? That was how forty-one-year-old Le Xing found himself facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night.
The lonely man had noticed that the steel sit-up benches in a local park had numerous ventilation holes and thought it might be possible to use them for sexual gratification.
Once Le Xing became aroused, he found he was stuck and could not remove himself from the hole in the bench. Quite understandably, he panicked. Police received a call from a disturbed man and arrived to find him trapped facedown on the bench.
Facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night . . .
Doctors were summoned to the scene. They tried every thing, but eventually, emergency workers had to cut the entire bench free and take both it and him to the
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