Dr. Pepper boycott — Apparently, there are young-Earth creationists who want us to boycott the soft drink Dr. Pepper because of its recent “Evolution of flavor” ad:
At least that is what the news articles want us to believe. There have been plenty of comments on Facebook and blogs from the rank-and-file YECs, but I don’t see any calls from prominent YECs or YEC organizations for a Dr. Pepper boycott. But nothing would surprise me on this one.
Time magazine: Creationists Boycott Dr. Pepper Over “Evolution of Flavor” Facebook Ad. HT: Internet Monk.
Ig Nobel prizes — It is prestigious to win a Nobel prize. It is something different to win an Ig Nobel prize, which is awarded at a parody ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts (home of Harvard and MIT). This year’s Ig Nobel prizes include the following:
- Medicine — awarded for researchers who have discovered ways to reduce the probability that your large intestine will explode during a colonoscopy.
- Anatomy — awarded for research that demonstrates that chimpanzees can recognize their friend’s rear ends in photographs.
- Neuroscience — brain researchers can see brain activity in a dead salmon, which brings into question the reliability of the methods and instruments they use in their work.
- Psychology — for a study on how leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower look smaller.
Most of the prize winners attend the ceremony, which is not as much of an honor as winning a Nobel prize, but probably a lot more fun.
Yahoo News: Dead Fish, Exploding Bowels Win Spoof Nobel Prizes.
Warp Factor 3, Mr Sulu — If “faster than light speed” warp drives are even possible (not by traveling faster than light, but by distorting, or warping, space-time), most have believed that such travel would require an incredible amount of mass-energy to achieve. But maybe not. Maybe rather than requiring the energy equivalent of the mass of Jupiter (E=mc2) to propel a starship, it may be necessary to only use the mass equivalent of the Voyager space probes. All this by changing the shape of the ring that surrounds the starship. Or something like that.
Yahoo News: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say.
GeoChristian 
Hey, technically the article is accurate – Creationists (as in more than one) have boycotted Dr. Pepper! :-)
One of my favorite headlines about the adjusted energy estimates for warp drive went something like this: “Warp Drive Now Only Slightly Impossible Instead of Totally Impossible”. I got a giggle out of that. The mass of the Voyager space probes turned into energy is wildly crazy. Voyager 1 weighed 722kg, and converting it to energy is about the total energy production of the United States for a year.
Give it a couple hundred years, and we might be at the point where that sort of energy production is possible for a specific project.
But still, since the previous estimate was that it would take the entire mass of Jupiter converted to energy to generate the necessary energy, this is a MASSive change.
ba dum cha!
LikeLike
You are joking surely (about the boycott that is)…
LikeLike
Well, on the Dr. Pepper Facebook page, there were creationists calling for a boycott. I suspect it was more a case of overblown rhetoric than a realistic call for a boycott.
Cuz, you know, no one ever spouts overblown shouts for extreme action on the Internet. :-D
LikeLike
What WebMonk said. Also, I follow all the major YEC blogs, and the first I’ve heard of this is on yours, so I suspect the comments came from individuals, not organizations.
LikeLike
Silly. Why not just boycott because it’s horribly bad for you?
LikeLike