WEEKLY NEWSREEL–3 1/2 TIME-OUTS TUESDAY (VOL. 26)

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic, and all you other Christians at sea. Those wacky slightly mad scientists have been at it again, which means we’re here with another Newsreel to tell you all about it. As always, the Newsreel is sponsored by the fine folks at Acts of the Apostasy, home of the 3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday. And now, off to press.

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DATELINE: MASSACHUSETTS – War and rumors of war? Global economic ruin? Rampant social unrest? Oh sure, the big brains will get around to solving those problems someday. Maybe. But for now, a group of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at MIT have been hard at work developing a possible solution to what has surely been one of the most pressing issues of the modern age… how to get ketchup to come out of a bottle quicker. Their patented (and unfortunately named) LiquiGlide Condiment Lubricant appears to ensure that every drop of the sauce of your choice makes it onto your plate rather than sticking to the inside of the bottle. MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith remarks, "It’s funny: Everyone is always like, 'Why bottles? What’s the big deal?' But then you tell them the market for bottles--just the sauces alone is a $17 billion market… and if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year." So you see, while they haven’t quite solved the problem of world peace yet, the folks at MIT at least seem to still be following the principle stated in the Catechism that “science and technology are precious resources when placed at the service of man and promote his integral development for the benefit of all.”

II

DATELINE: GOTHENBURG – While the idea of condiment lubricant may sound unappealing, dietary supplements made from lizard spit sounds downright revolting. But that hasn’t stopped researchers at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg from developing a new drug made from the saliva of Gila monsters. It turns out that saurian drool, or at least the naturally occurring exendin-4 found in it, is pretty effective in reducing the craving for food, and not just because the idea of putting it in your mouth is enough to turn your stomach. “In a study with rats published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Assistant Professor Karolina Skibicka and her colleagues show that exendin-4 effectively reduces the cravings for food… ‘The implications of the findings are significant’ states Suzanne Dickson, Professor of Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy: ‘Most dieting fails because we are obsessed with the desire to eat, especially tempting foods like sweets. As exendin-4 suppresses the cravings for food, it can help obese people to take control of their weight,’ suggests Professor Dickson. Research on exendin-4 also gives hope for new ways to treat diseases related to eating disorders, for example, compulsive overeating.” It’s for those kinds of results that the Catechism reminds us that (as we’ve previously discussed in more absurd detail) “medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.” Now, as to how reasonable it was for someone to dream up the idea of putting lizard spit in their mouths in the first place, we’ll just leave that to you to decide.

III

DATELINE: BRUSSELS – Alas, not all scientists are as creative in their thinking as the folks from Gothemburg. In this week’s installment of science telling us stuff we already knew for ages, “a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that both men and women see images of sexy women's bodies as objects… We see sexualized women every day on billboards, buildings, and the sides of buses and this study suggests that we think of these images as if they were objects, not people. ‘What is motivating this study is to understand to what extent people are perceiving these as human or not,’ [Philippe] Bernard says. The next step, he says, is to study how seeing all these images influences how people treat real women.” Really, that’s the next step? Well, let’s save some them time and just quote the Catechism where it states that “it does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others.” There, we just saved the government of Belgium hundreds of thousands in euros in grant money. You’re welcome.

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For those of you who might have read some of the above items and felt the urge to exclaim WTF! but don’t feel comfortable indulging in the implied profanity, have you ever considered the time honored alternative of… Wha…?

And with that we sign off another Newsreel, as is our custom, with the immortal words of the great Les Nessman. Good evening, and may the good news be yours.