“Brah, Dude, Man, Trust Fund Baby.” Call them what you will. During the past decade, the bro has become an increasingly visible addition to the U of M campus. Leaving in their Wake a trail of empty Natty Ice cans, hair product slime, and Five Hour Energy bottles, the bro has begun to branch into different species and genres, appropriating other pop culture and local phenomena into their rituals and behavior. In The Wake of fraternal turmoil on a national level, this research team aims to break down the “Bro” species, redefining the general understanding of Bro based on his physical aspects, fundamental belief systems, and natural habitats. After years of careful observation, Scientists at the University of Minnesota have created a new definitive taxonomy of Bros and their habits.

The Standard Bro:

This is the most common type of bro found around college campuses. No matter how hard you try to evade them, it is impossible to avoid this sect of bro culture. They’re not only the most abundant of this species, but the most obvious to spot. Their foods of choice include Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, spaghetti, and sandwiches made by very-to-moderately attractive women of relatively similar age (whether or not the sandwiches taste good is not important to them). When it comes to liquid nourishment, they enjoy Natty Ice, energy drinks, and Muscle Milk. When at a bar, the “Standard Bro” will only order one thing besides a “Bud,” “Natty,” or “your cheapest whiskey.” And that is a White Russian, and only because they saw it in The Big Lebowski and for unknown reasons feel a strong connection to this film.

The “Standard Bro” is easily spotted by his clothing choices, which tend to include U of M apparel, North Face/Columbia fleeces, T-shirts or tanks that say anything involving athletics, chinstrap beards, socks with sandals/Birkenstocks, and colored sunglasses that resemble Wayfarers but were actually picked up at a KDWB or 96.3NOW sponsored event. The “Standard Bro” rarely strays more than a mile off campus but knows the location of every Buffalo Wild Wings in a 20 mile radius (there are 14). Because of their centralized roaming area, many specimens utilize mopeds as a means of transportation when not walking in packs. Although, the subjects refer to them as “Bropeds.” According to our calculations, a “Broped” is a moped emblazoned with U of M insignia, usually with another bro riding on back which is, as they say, “No homo.”

The Carlson Bro:

The hardest working bro in the frathouse, the Carlson bro is first and foremost driven by the almighty dollar. Attending class on days that projects and papers are due or tests are given, even taking Chinese to fulfill his language requirement because “dude, it looks fuckin good on a resume and besides,  Asian chicks are hot, brah.”

Usual attire includes at least one polo shirt, moderately distressed jeans, and a backwards Twins hat. Wrap around sunglasses can be seen during the summer months, but are molted after the first snow. Winter attire may include a puffy down jacket, and if close enough to the West bank, flip flops can be seen throughout the year.

A Carlson Bro is also recognizable as the only member of the Bro species that exhibits a behavior known as “suiting up,” which is used as a means of social stratification in the Brociety. A “suited up” Carlson Bro is judged upon the quality of his garments by other Bros to determine feeding and mating order. Alpha CB’s exhibited tendencies towards high-threadcount wools and silk ties, while lower-level Corpbros tended to choose Polyester.

The Carlson bro usually has an internship at any given time, generally something handed down to them from their fathers, who often hold an MBRah degree themselves. Favorite mode of transportation is rollerblades, followed by the long board. Can usually be found in the new Hanson Hall Starbucks, the super block, or a corporate intern mixer.

The Hipster Bro:

The Hipster Bro (or, Broster) tends towards the West Bank during the day, but at night you will inevitably find him at his Uptown bachelor pad or one of the surrounding hipster bars (CC Club quesadillas three nights a week were a common occurrence among members of this study). He drinks PBR as a rule, even when it’s priced the same as a Surly Furious, and still can’t figure out why the brakes on his bike don’t work, even though the guys at One-On-One say it’s a perfectly operational fixed gear.

A bit more sartorial than some of our other subjects, the Broster takes a great interest in his clothing. While he will attempt to “mimic” the style of the local Hipster population and therefore can blend in quite adeptly with his surroundings, the Broster can be easily identified by his evolutionary tendency towards a “popped” collar when he becomes excited.

This species was noted for strong tendencies towards Philosophy, Music Therapy, and Cultural Studies majors because they allow individuals to “express [their] true feelings about life’s struggle.” When asked about graduation plans, however, this Bro is unsure whether or not College is right for him, and he may elect to drop out in order to do some “serious traveling brah.”

The Wanksta Bro:

Sometimes confused with the “Standard Bro,” the “Wanksta Bro” separates himself by keeping himself at a distance from frat culture. Although voted “Most Likely to Join a Fraternity” at his suburb high school in “Maplehood” or “Hoodbury” (some Wankstas will also rep “WisCompton”), he feels that taking part in one of these institutions of privilege would damage his “street cred.”

A “Wanksta Bro” can be spotted longboarding around campus. To distinguish them from other longboarders, look for an awkward stance, frequent dismounts, carrying the longboard, and skater shoes. Other signs of this species of bro include flat-brimmed hats, professed ability to rap and/or make beats, wearing a coat with a fur-lined hood, and being unfit, despite his never-ending comments about how he could “smoke” people at certain sports.The “Wanksta Bro” is also the last Bro of the Species to shed his “summmer coat” of basketball shorts during the winter season. Certain WB’s will even resist their nature and refuse to shed the basketball shorts or longboards all winter, although this behavior is becoming rarer as a result of natural selection.

Another means of identifying the Wanksta Bro is by checking out their Facebook profile. If he frequently changes his profile picture to a picture of him playing some manly sport in high school (like lacrosse, basketball, hockey, or football), has ever changed his profile picture to a photo of an African American sports player, his favorite musicians include 2pac, Bob Marley, Eminem, and Maroon 5, or has an entire album dedicated to pictures of his “sick” Audi with “blinged-out” rims and body-kit, then chances are he is a “Wanksta.”

The Intellectual Bro:

The Intellectual Bro can be difficult to identify in the wild, since he mimics the clothing patterns of actual intellectuals. This usually includes a button-up coat and some sort of scarf in winter. In certain cases, the Intellectual Bro may also decide to wear a hat that he thinks makes him look Interesting. Glasses are an important fashion accessory for the Intellectual Bro, regardless of whether or not he has poor eyesight, as they are a sign of intelligence to mates.  This bro species can be found in coffee shops around campus trying to rope people into long conversations about Noam Chomsky. When startled, the Intellectual Bro may blurt out “God is dead” and then ask you if you know who Nietzsche (pronounced Neech-ee) is.

The Intellectual Bro’s main mode of transportation is walking because, as he enjoys telling anyone who will listen (and a lot of people who won’t), it makes him “feel closer to nature.” However, this bro may also take the bus, where he will pull out a book to read (generally something from the Barnes & Noble Classic Thinkers series), then discreetly look around to see if anyone is impressed. In the classroom environment, this type of bro will ask “questions” designed to secretly reveal how intellectual he is and will laugh too loudly at the professor’s jokes.

The mating rituals of the Intellectual Bro are somewhat peculiar. He and other Intellectual Bros engage in a competition known only as “Ultimate” to impress females. This type of bro has also been known to discuss feminism around women to try to attract a mate. If a potential mate engages an Intellectual Bro in conversation, the bro will tell the potential mate how much he loves Paris and wants to move there after graduate school.

It is important to note that most Intellectual Bro’s are not members of Fraternities, but the ones that do chose to go greek will defend their chosen house with claims of “academic goals” and “community outreach work” (volunteering at their girlfriend’s Sorority fundraiser).

The Intellectual Bro:

There are ways to differentiate the Intellectual Bro from other bro species. The Intellectual Bro’s drink of choice is usually wine or scotch rather than Natty Ice. This bro will always insist that drinking game rules are followed to the letter. Noticeable traits include a proclivity towards “science-projects” such as attempting to brew bathtub-Four Loko (the conductors of this study strongly recommend against consuming this beverage). This bro will also say he enjoys classical music and poetry, both of which a typical bro would dismiss as “gay.” If you overhear someone saying “Dude, The Waste Land, bro? The Waste Land is sick,” you are probably in the presence of an Intellectual Bro.

This inclusive categorization of the Bro species is only scratching the surface of the University Bro. Further publications will include the mating habits, habitat and migration patterns, and evolution of the Bro as observed by scientists and anthropologists affiliated with this study, funded by the coffers of Spring Jam as a means of garnering information on one of the largest student contingents after the terrible street riots of 2009.

AMONG THE BROS:

In order to conduct the rigorous research required to bring you this sterling piece of journalism, The Wake sent several intrepid reporters into the field to collect the necessary data. Bros were monitored in their natural habitats with strict attention to the scientific method. No Bros were harmed in the process of this study.

In addition to our observational research, our magazine also dispatched several audacious reporters to go undercover and live “among the Bros” in their environment by joining local frathouses.

We advise readers to exercise caution and discretion around Bros in the wild. Researchers were provided safety equipment including Natty-proof garments and earplugs. We especially urge readers who are interested in Bro-watching to be aware of the risk of being “iced.” This can be an unpleasant experience (“hella lame” in Bro parlance), and Bro-watchers should maintain a safe distance at all times.

Until recently, the Nintendo Wii video game system was the newest technological addition to the American nuclear family. Children, parents, and even grandparents would gather around the sleek system to watch their relatives flap like a bird in order to guide a computerized, chicken-suited avatar to a goal, swivel their hips to move virtual hula hoops, and jerk their bodies to steer cars. Now, thanks to Germany (of course), the Wii has graduated from the familial state of pre-adolescence and moved straight into adulthood. Scientists at Bauhaus-University Weimar in Germany have developed, according to their website, the “first body-massaging device, that can use motion for stimulation,” or a dildo attachment for the Wii.

Known as OIOO, the Wii dildo is a device with capabilities far beyond what can be seen by the naked eye. No more will society be subjected to movies lamenting the horrors of the long-distance relationship (I’m looking at you, Justin Long). No more will lonely nerds have only their right (or left) hand to keep them company. No longer will tech-savvy lovers be at a loss when cyber sex loses its appeal. The OIOO has broken the last barrier to a truly global society; using Skype, the OIOO can recognize the motions one user is making with their dildo-equipped device and replicate the vibrations on a different user’s wiimote on the other side of the world.

OIOO is not the only wiibrator on the market; a company called Mojowijo has a similar device that is currently in the beta-testing phase. Mojowijo promises on its website that the wiibrator will be ready by the 2010 holiday season. Both devices have similar designs: a long, cylindrical attachment for one remote, and a similar attachment for the other remote with a conveniently placed hole in the end, designed for the male participant. The Mojowijo is gaining a surprising mass-market popularity and was featured in widely circulating magazines such as Wired, San Francisco Weekly, and French Elle.

The possibilities arising from the development of such a product are endless. Repurposing wiimotes for sex is only the beginning; cell phones, laptops, even normal vibrators could all be repurposed or redesigned for erotic stimulation. Programs like iTunes could be integrated so as to change songs as the tempo of the vibrations increase or decrease; pay-shows via web camera could use the remotes to add a physical aspect.

The use of a wiimote for sexual stimulation is really not so surprising. As technology has developed, so has pornography. What do you think the first camera with a focusable lens was used for? Film cameras? How about the vibrate setting on your Blackberry, in a pinch? Even in ancient times, after paper was invented it was quickly used for the dissemination of pornography. If one thing is true about the human race, it is that any new technology can be sexualized.

Pull: Scientific studies have confirmed the specimen’s ability restart its life and also found no limitations on the amount of times the jellyfish is able to do this, rendering the creature theoretically immortal

Good ol’ Benjamin Franklin once said, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” Modern technology has yet to defy this statement but a minuscule little jellyfish may be proving Mr. Franklin wrong—dead wrong. The Turritopsis nutricula has come to be known as the immortal jellyfish. This little hydrozoan has the ability to revert back to its polyp form after becoming sexually mature, essentially restarting its life cycle. It is able to do this through the cell development process called transdifferentiation, which alters the differentiated state of cells and transforms them into completely different, new cells.

Scientific studies have confirmed the specimen’s ability to restart its life and also found no limitations on the amount of times the jellyfish is able to do this, rendering the creature theoretically immortal. Although under perfect conditions this Samson-esque creature could potentially live on and on and on, most Turritopsis nutricula eventually fall victim to the standard hazards of ocean dwelling, such as being eaten by predators or disease.

When a Turritopsis nutricula has passed its embryonic stage and is released from its mother, it eventually settles on a stationary object such as a rock. At this stage, it is transformed into a polyp and begins to grow multiple, identical polyps until it forms a colony. The colony of polyps then begins to grow many horizontal grooves. The grooves eventually mature and break free from the colony as free-swimming jellyfish. Once a jellyfish has reproduced, it starts the process over. The umbrella reverts itself, the tentacles get reabsorbed, and a new colony of polyps begin to take shape. It’s like getting married, having kids, and then going back to college to find a new mate to have babies with.

The jellyfish is believed to have originated in the Caribbean but has now spread throughout most of the world’s tropical oceans. It’s a tiny bell-shaped creature with a maximum diameter of 4.5 millimeters and is typically as tall as it is wide. Young specimens have eight tentacles that are evenly spaced out around its edges and adult specimens have as many as 90 tentacles.

Don’t go burning your wills just yet, as it seems Franklin’s assertion will still be applicable to humans for the time being. None of the work done by marine biologists and geneticists has found any sort of way to bring the cell recreation ability of the Turritopsis nutricula to the human race. Sadly, our understanding of this rare and bizarre creature will not yet allow us to cheat death.

The process by which the jellyfish transforms its cells and “starts over” has not been observed in nature nor have we developed a way to distinguish a newly spawned polyp from a jellyfish that has recently reverted back to polyp form. The process is so thorough and so instantaneous that it prohibits us from being able to estimate the age of a jellyfish that has perhaps lived many lives.

Ah, outer space. The final frontier, orbits, gravity, and other science words. Since the dawn of time, man has been awed by the infinite galaxy-filled blackness that lies above us and has attempted numerous times to master it. Orbiting the Earth every 24 hours, visible from every country in the world, the moon is the perfect strategic point in space. With the recent discovery of usable water and other materials on our shiny white friend, the strategic importance of the moon has been magnified.

None of this seems to matter to the Obama administration, however. Earlier this year, Congress voted to cut the Constellation program, a NASA project that would have returned United States astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972. Though seen as a mostly symbolic gesture to past exploration at the time, new discoveries of usable materials on the moon, specifically usable water that could support lunar settlements, have made this project all the more necessary.

Professor Roberta Humphreys, a professor at the University of Minnesota for nearly 30 years, says she is frustrated and deeply disappointed with the Obama administration’s take on space missions. The administration has also abandoned the most recent shuttle program, forcing U.S. astronauts to buy seats on other countries’ shuttles, a practice Humphreys calls “disgusting.”

“In most peoples views, NASA “wastes” too much money on manned space flight,” says Humphreys. Robots have become increasingly popular, sent to Mars on numerous missions to gather information about the planet. There are times when humans are still required, however, particularly in situations where a “human decision” is necessary. When robots encounter problems, the controllers on Earth are forced to quickly reprogram the robot and hope that the next time around goes better, a tedious and sometimes ineffective process. Humphreys own service to the Space Telescope Institute Council has added to her opinion on robotic space missions, “Could we have done the servicing mission on the Hubble (Space Telescope) with robots? I don’t think so.”

According to Humphreys, manned space flight is still a worthwhile investment, “Ninety percent of the time a project doesn’t need humans, but when it does, you’re glad they are there.” Another solution to the funding problem is allowing private companies to develop new technology for use by NASA. But this too poses a problem. As Humphreys points out, “The advantage of NASA is that it is a government entity and not for profit. The primary mission is to work safely.” Humphreys worries that private companies allowed to work without the oversight of NASA will be more interested in profit than in the safety of the astronauts using their creations. Implementing NASA oversight would cost a similar of money as maintaining the program proper, however, which makes it an unlikely solution.

With Canada, the European Union, and even China developing new space technology and continuing to fund manned space flight, the United States needs to follow suit or be left in the moon dust.

In 2009, the Wide Field Camera 3 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured several faint new galaxy candidates. These vague blinks of light emerged from the opaque hydrogen haze that has, until recently, obstructed our understanding of the universe at its earliest stages. These potentially field-altering discoveries seem to have been swept under the rug once the initial hype died down. This was due to the fact that these galaxies lacked validity without an accurate distance measurement.

Earlier this month these galaxy candidates resurfaced when a group of European astronomers successfully measured the distance to the most remote galaxy detected yet. The team of astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s oh so accurately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) to analyze the faint glow. The light collecting capabilities of VLT were combined with the infrared spectroscopic instrument known as SINFONI. After 16 hours of observation and two months of meticulous data analysis, the team confirmed that it was viewing the galaxy known as UDFy-38135539 13.1 billion years ago when the universe was a mere 600 million years old.

Measuring the distance of galaxies is an extremely difficult process that is done using spectroscopy, which is, in Layman’s terms, quantifiable measurement gathered from the study of wavelengths and frequency. An in depth report on the discovery was published in Nature, the highly acclaimed international journal of science, on Oct. 21st.

Beyond the fact that it is pretty rad to have made the discovery of a galaxy that is, relative to the life span of the universe, “a four-year-old boy in the life span of an adult,” there are also intriguing scientific implications. The universe was not transparent in its earliest stages due to a hydrogen fog that was able to absorb ultraviolet light. This fog was cleared out by the expansion of young galaxies. The measurement of UDFy-38135539 confirms the fact that we are now studying one of the galaxies that was integral to the clearing of the hydrogen fog. The exponential expansion of technology is now allowing us to understand more and more the very beginning of our universe.

When the Lunar Prospector detected hydrogen signatures radiating from the moon’s lunar poles in 1999, NASA deliberately crashed the spacecraft into a crater located near the southern pole in an attempt to determine whether or not Earth’s backdoor neighbor was holding out on us and had been hiding water in those rarely seen depths. This attempt was unsuccessful.

Nearly ten years later, on June 18, 2009, the Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket with the sole mission of finding out once and for all whether or not the moon was actually home to some of that liquid gold, water.

After orbiting the earth for several months, LCROSS swung its way past the moon and shot a rocket into the Cabeus crater before slamming itself down next to it. Back on Earth, amateur astronomers were unimpressed when the dual impact failed to produce a visible debris plume, but scientists observed the crash using spectroscopic telescopes that measure the various properties of light to identify different materials.

By November, the LCROSS team was able to confirm that there was indeed water on the moon. This October, LCROSS also confirmed the presence of several other compounds in the plumes, which suggest that the Cabeus crater is actually the site of a comet impact.

“These days we are finding water in a number of interesting places in the solar system, heretofore thought to be devoid of interesting material,” said University of Minnesota Professor, Dr. Charles Woodward, part of the ground-based observation team working on the LCROSS project.

Woodward said the implications of finding water on the moon are interesting in more than one way. According to Woodward, the findings of the LCROSS project suggest that in the future astronauts may be able to build permanent self-sustaining lunar habitats. In addition, LCROSS members found an abundance of other materials in the plume that suggest that the moon may actually go through some sort of active water cycle. If this is true, it is not too much of a stretch to assume that the same processes are taking place on other moons in our galaxy, like on Jupiter and Saturn’s moons, Europa and Enceladus respectively. This theory opens up several new areas of research and exploration.

Ultimately, if able to understand the different processes and environments that allow water to form in space, scientists can plan for far larger space missions in the near future. In turn, the moon, which previously served no other purpose than to adorn the night sky, may very well become the stepping stone to a new age of space exploration.

Voice mail transcription services have been around for a few years now but like most things it only gets big when Google does it.

Google Voice does more than just voice mail transcription; it will give you one number to ring all or a select number of your phones, free SMS and can record and store your calls online. It all sounds terribly convenient and there may be many users of Google Voice who utilize all these functions. Apple was considered innovative with their “visual voicemail”—which iPhone owners could use to see the name or number of the person leaving a voicemail and selectively listen or playback sections of the voicemail. With Google voice integration (available on any phone) users can opt to receive e-mails or text messages with a transcription of the voicemail along with a link for audio playback. The use of Google voice’s service disables the iPhone’s native visual voicemail functions but provides its own App providing a similar function.

Google’s transcription software is fairly accurate and places guesses for words it has a difficult time understanding (this is denoted by underlined and faded text in their online service). So exactly how useful is Google’s transcription services?

Very useful. For your health at least. I don’t mean that you no longer have to raise your personal radiation piece to your brain to access your voice mail either. I mean previously innane voicemails of old roommates announcing they will be visiting soon turn into hilarity-ensuing texts:

“Hey bruise, Joe calling. Yeah, I just left Somalia up to the cities. Then dot Canadian Jeff at Starbucks. I wasn’t here, so ah I don’t know if you’re not. But if you cool to hang out. Lemme in the city. Talk to you later. Bye.”

Aside from the dotting Canadian Jeff at Starbucks, myself knowing the context of this voicemail, this transcription was useful for me. With a glance at my phone during a concert I could decipher that a) my old roommate was now a crack addict and therefore did not have to leave the show to return his call. Google Voice saves the day.

Here are some other excerpts from my personal voice mail, to give you an idea of how valuable this service is.

“Hello areas. Well, I stopped a the top of the still, but man I got that I’d right after that. I know where you are. Where are you? Give me a call back. Okay bye.”

This transcription was useful because I know I have to call this person back. And they may or may not know where I am.

“I think 2741.”

Cool, I was thinking the same.

“Hey dude, this at church. Hey babe, but I think I’m gonna go out in the remains see if you know on. But give me a jingle. Bye”

I didn’t return this call because I thought it was rude to make a call during church. And to call me babe. And the vague reference to bodily remains.

“Hey Eric. Tatem. Haiti and I are gonna go get some breakfast. Yeah. Anyway, let me give me a call back.”

No action required on my part thanks to Google Voice: this person will call themself back. Unfortunately by this point the transcription software has learned my name and now leaves out otherwise great name changes like “areas” and “bruise” and once, Mark? Fortunately, it has yet to learn my friends names: Tatem and Haiti.

You may have heard about the idea behind these eyeglasses a few years ago. The lenses are completely adjustable by the consumer. No more expensive replacing of lenses and frames when your eyes require a new prescription.

Adspecs, an invention of a Professor Joshua Silver at Oxford University, utilizes a clear oil to fill the eyeglasses lenses, thus making the prescription adjustable for any individual. Silver hopes to distribute a billion pairs of his glasses around the world by 2020 to combat the millions of individuals with debilitating eyesight problems.

Because Adspecs are not meant for the eager consumer who demands the latest style from his or her eyewear they don’t appear in the most attractive forms. They could be considered ‘timeless’ in that Harry-Potter-wore-them-for-seven-years sort of way. As of now, the technology used limits the lenses to being round and cost about $19 a pair to be manufactured.

Several other groups are working on distributing similar glasses throughout the world for a similar price. U-specs and Focusspec eyewear are designed using the Alvarez lens system in their glasses: two lenses of varying thickness that are capable of sliding past one another to change the prescription. Manufacturers using this system can produce about four pairs of glasses for the cost of every single pair of Adspecs.

Despite the discrepancy in cost, the groups maintain there is little competitiveness in the industry. With enough glasses being made at once by either group, the unit cost would go down drastically. Yet everyone maintains their system is the best: Adspecs because of their optical range and quality; Alvarez for simplicity and durability.

Politics and science aside, both groups want the same thing. To make an indiscriminate, tax-deductible donation and help provide eyesight for the world visit www.vdw.ox.ac.uk.

March 30th was another significant anti-climax for doomsday-ers. Zapped with seven tera-electron volts, protons underneath the Swiss-French border raced around a 27 kilometer track at a fraction below the speed of light just to smash into each other, play-acting the universe moments after the big bang or, to use the analogy of some scientists, the absolute worst freeway accident imaginable. The astute reader may note that, no matter how fast they were going, an accident involving only two cars couldn’t be the worst one imaginable. Yet the analogy still works; these particle collisions are happening at the rate of 50-100 per second, with plans to increase the rate to 300 a second. Just imagine a 300-car pile-up. Then imagine it happening at light speed. More than 10 million of these miniature big bangs have occurred since scientists flipped the switch.

The miniature-scale replication of the big bang had caused many ill-informed people of apocalyptic bents to predict that the miniature black holes that should be created by the crashing protons would grow and envelop the solar system. Obviously this has not happened. The predicted miniature black holes, which consume themselves more or less instantly, are, theoretically, created by the entry of light through the ozone layer regardless of human creations.

The Large Hadron Collider has been in the works for roughly 25 years. It uses about three and a half times as many electron volts as its now-obsolete competitor, Fermilab, operating near Chicago. As if this unprecedented and semi-incomprehensible quantity of energy (a tera-electron volt is a million million electron volts) weren’t already adequately over-the-top, by 2013 the facility hopes to up this number to 14.

Still, no matter how fast it can throw things into other things, physics isn’t totally sexy yet. Data will be compiled and analyzed for months, and scientific discoveries, regardless of how they’re sensationalized, will proceed slowly from long laborious analysis.

It may also shock readers to know that anybody who would build a thoroughly magnetized, hyper-sensitive 27 kilometer underground racetrack would ever let the word “practical” enter their stream-of-consciousness. Never fear; it does little more than that. The discoveries scientists are hoping to make at CERN pertain to completing the Standard Model of particle physics. That is to say, even if you could understand what these people are doing (apologies to our readers who are physics professors) you would probably have trouble figuring out how it will be useful. Yet the theoretical importance of actually completing this body of research is hard to understate and will justify years of accumulated theory if validated. Analysis regarding the validity of string theory, which hopes to reconcile modern quantum theory and Einstein’s general theory- the two grand and incompatible frameworks for contemporary physics- should proceed. The big gun is the Higgs boson, a particle thought to imbue all other particles with mass. If it exists, it will complete the Standard Model of particle physics. If it doesn’t, then the more serious discussion of eleven dimensions and parallel universes will begin. In spite of the gratification of completing the standard model of particle physics, science is always more fun when it leads to more questions. So now that we’re $10 billion into CERN, the best thing for the amateur science-reader to do is hope things keep getting weirder.

AIDS may have come to us from monkeys, but now it has worked its way over to koalas. According to recent data, 50 to 90 percent of our fuzzy Australian friends are infected with either KIDS, the koala version of AIDS, or Chlamydia. Scientists blame the high rates of STDS among koalas on deforestation; the koalas are forced to live closer together in a more stressful environment, and thus rates of infection increase. While the high rate of infection is shocking, many of the koalas infected with the KIDS virus never contract full-blown KIDS. The koala version of Chlamydia attacks the eyes and bladder of the koalas, in addition to the reproductive organs.

Researchers are working on a Chlamydia vaccination for the koalas, but other options, like medication to treat KIDS, are not a top priority. Researchers worry that attempting to give daily medication to koalas still living in the wild is not a feasible solution, and are not even sure whether or not the medication will have an effect on the koalas. Surgeries are being performed on koalas to remove growths caused by Chlamydia on reproductive organs. Many koalas never recover from these surgeries.

The attempts to improve and save the lives of these koalas is certainly admirable, but where does it stop? Are we going to end up curing KIDS before curing AIDS? We don’t even know whether or not human AIDS drugs will have any effect on the koala immune system. It’s interesting though, that humans do not have a Chlamydia vaccine in any form, yet now koalas are top priority for such a vaccine. It is possible that koala DNA is just easier to deal with compared to human DNA? Protecting and preserving animal species and habitats are important to keep diversity on the planet, but just because something is cute does not mean that it deserves to be saved before actual human lives are saved.

The same thing is happening with pandas in both their wild habitats and in zoos around the world. The giant panda’s diet is made up of 99 percent bamboo, which it needs to eat constantly because of its low nutritional value. They usually give birth to one cub every two years, with the help of panda porn and Viagra because they are not all that interested in mating. If the mother gives birth to more than one cub at a time, it will abandon the other one, who then dies a short while later. Zoos and conservation areas around the world are working tirelessly to save a species that even without habitat loss would probably be on the endangered species list, solely from its own lifestyle.

However serious these diseases are, koalas will not be extinct any time soon. Like their lazy panda friends, koalas bring tourists and their money to Australia. According to CNN.com, koalas bring in $1 billion U.S. to the island. Pandas brought in almost $2 billion dollars in one small province of China alone. While the cost of treating KIDS and koala Chlamydia is unknown, the amount of money that Australia stands to make on tourism by saving the fuzzy creatures is a good enough reason to save them.

If it is true that the infection rates have increased because of deforestation, then by all means we should work to increase the living space of the koala and preserve the species. But we can only do so much. We can’t operate on every koala infected by KIDS and Chlamydia, and we certainly can’t force pandas to mate any more than we already do.