Oh, hey there mouse, how you going? Me, I’m gre- HOLY SHIT YOU’RE FLYING. OH GOD. OH GOD. THE DAY HAS COME. THE GREAT MOUSE RECKONING IS HERE. QUICK, FEED THEM THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST. WE HAVE TO GET AWAYYYYYYYYYYY!
Was my first reaction to the news that scientists at NASA had succeeded in levitating a mouse using superconducting magnets. DON’T GIVE THEM THAT KIND OF POWER, YOU FOOLS! And yes, I’m quite aware that the experiment didn’t involve a mouse hooning around on a flying carpet made from Swiss cheese, but scientists, being scientists, occasionally don’t have the greatest knack for exciting photography. Witness the official pictures below:
I just don’t understand how you can make a mouse fly and then decide the best way of showing this to the world is via a top down shot. Bad NASA, bad! From the Reuters article:
“We first tried a fully conscious mouse and he didn’t like it very much, he started to spin and got disoriented,” Liu said.
“Mice like to grab onto something and so by just floating in the air it’s really different for (the mouse) to adjust to,” he said.
A second experiment was conducted with a mouse that had been partially sedated by a veterinarian, and that rodent calmed down considerably as he floated in the air.
“By just floating in the air it’s really different for the mouse to adjust to” strikes me as quite the understatement. I imagine most humans, even with a full understanding of what was about to happen to them might get “disoriented” when gravity ceased to function. Taking an animal with limited cognitive capacities and removing the Earth from underneath their feet is probably a one way trip to Freakout City. Population, Mouse. Although apparently they begin to adapt after four hours, so perhaps that gives us an insight into how long we’ll have when the mice finally do learn to fly of their own accord. Four hours. And then: revenge.
/Luke
P.S. You may think I’m overstating the threat, but I grew up on Tom and Jerry. I know what the little bastards are capable of.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Metrac // Sep 22, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Reminds me of Pinky and the Brain, for those of you who remember that show.
Get some nostalgia form the following link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIu4fP4fOHE
2 Kia // Sep 22, 2009 at 4:53 pm
@ Metrac: Ah, I’ve been thinking about Pink & the Brain a lot lately! What a coincidence! Maybe it’s time for their comback!
“So what are we going to do tomorrow night brain?”
“Same thing we do every night Pinky, TRY TO LEVITATE SO WE CAN TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!”
@ levitating mice: What is NASA trying to achieve here? Rediculously expensive anti-gravity chambers to teach more astronaughts so that they can fly off into space and find us more planets to f*ck up? Maybe they can release it for commercial purposes and have anti-gravity arenas (like in Space Quest V if anyone remembers that hilarious Sierra dos game) then they could make back all the billions country’s have spent on space study and exploration! WOOT!
3 beckoning_ // Sep 25, 2009 at 1:12 pm
To bad Disney already achieved this back in 1935 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilk8j1pgZQc
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