Scientists can't get sloth to move
I actually spit coffee laughing when I read this. Apparently some scientists at the University of Jena in Germany spent three years trying to get a sloth to climb up and down a pole as part of "an experiment in animal movement," as the Associated Press reports. The problem is the sloth -- named "Mats" -- was so totally lazy they couldn't get it to budge. So after three years, they just gave up and sent the sloth back to the zoo. As the story notes:
Neither pounds of cucumbers nor plates of homemade spaghetti were appetizing enough to make Mats move.
"Mats obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with furthering science," said Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman.
Whaddya gonna do? It's a sloth's world; we just live in it.
I particularly loved the title to the Associated Press story, which I cribbed above -- "Scientists can't get sloth to move" -- because it seemed like something plucked straight from The Onion. Indeed, it was almost suspiciously so. Given that The Onion's tinder-dry prose style was crafted in emulation of the nearly-Asbergian bathos of real-life newspaper stories, and given that The Onion has become such a thoroughly mainstreamed cultural reference point, I half wonder whether the worm has eaten its tail -- and bored-gormless GenX news copywriters now craft headlines in emulation of The Onion.
(Thanks to Fark for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at January 24, 2007 03:38 PM
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Can you imagine how much it would suck to be the scientist who had to give up on this sloth after 3 years of plying it with spaghetti, cucumbers and blood diamonds? Imagine coming home everynight to your better half and having to admit over dinner, "No, I didn't get the god damn sloth to move today. AGAIN!" I'm sure it would make all those years at university seem so worth it.
Posted by: See Jayne Blog at January 24, 2007 5:16 PM
Had that been a rodent or an insect, I doubt they'd have hesitated to use more forceful motivators.
But then, you don't want to piss off a sloth.
Posted by: braine at January 24, 2007 5:17 PM
Jayne -- heh, yes, that's precisely what I thought! I mean, I know science is pushed forward as often by the failures as by the successes, but still ... you'd kind of want to just kill the sloth after a while, eh?
Braine, egad, yes.
Posted by: Clive at January 24, 2007 7:48 PM
I had to comment again, because this afternoon we took the boy to a classmate's birthday party at a place called Outragehiss Pets. We walked in this unassuming storefront and found it crammed -- although neatly -- with glass-fronted enclosures on every surface. The first one contained not one but two tree sloths. They're gigantic, and very graceful.
Posted by: braine at January 28, 2007 8:21 PM
Alternatively, and as I wish I'd thought of saying first, "Sloth completes groundbreaking three-year study on human persistence"
Posted by: BonGob at January 29, 2007 10:19 AM
Braine, excellent! Live sloth sighting! But ... were they moving?
BonGob -- ahahahaha!
Posted by: Clive at January 29, 2007 2:05 PM
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Can you imagine how much it would suck to be the scientist who had to give up on this sloth after 3 years of plying it with spaghetti, cucumbers and blood diamonds? Imagine coming home everynight to your better half and having to admit over dinner, "No, I didn't get the god damn sloth to move today. AGAIN!" I'm sure it would make all those years at university seem so worth it.
Posted by: See Jayne Blog![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 24, 2007 5:16 PM
Had that been a rodent or an insect, I doubt they'd have hesitated to use more forceful motivators.
But then, you don't want to piss off a sloth.
Posted by: braine![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 24, 2007 5:17 PM
Jayne -- heh, yes, that's precisely what I thought! I mean, I know science is pushed forward as often by the failures as by the successes, but still ... you'd kind of want to just kill the sloth after a while, eh?
Braine, egad, yes.
Posted by: Clive![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 24, 2007 7:48 PM
I had to comment again, because this afternoon we took the boy to a classmate's birthday party at a place called Outragehiss Pets. We walked in this unassuming storefront and found it crammed -- although neatly -- with glass-fronted enclosures on every surface. The first one contained not one but two tree sloths. They're gigantic, and very graceful.
Posted by: braine![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 28, 2007 8:21 PM
Alternatively, and as I wish I'd thought of saying first, "Sloth completes groundbreaking three-year study on human persistence"
Posted by: BonGob![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 29, 2007 10:19 AM
Braine, excellent! Live sloth sighting! But ... were they moving?
BonGob -- ahahahaha!
Posted by: Clive![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 29, 2007 2:05 PM