Been surfing

A sampling of my favorite bits:

• My favorite insult this week, thanks to Christopher Moores' blog: dysfunctional douche-nozzles.
• From a real article on ongoing bird flu research: "At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ferret sneezes are frozen in tiny vials and locked up in a high-security chamber called an enhanced biosafety Level 3 laboratory. .."
• From an article in an English paper: "Louise Arnold is left frozen with fear by a bizarre phobia - of peas." Makes my little inability to fill my gas tank seem pretty mainstream, now doesn't it?
• From a science journal: "Scientists can grow frog and mouse meat in the lab, and are now working on pork, beef and chicken. Their goal is to develop an industrial version of the process in five years.
  If they succeed, cultured or in vitro meat could be coming to a supermarket near you. Consumers could buy hamburger patties and chicken nuggets made from meat cultivated from muscle cells in a giant incubator rather than cut from a farm animal.
  Home chefs could make meat in a countertop device the size of a coffee maker. Before bed, throw starter cells and a package of growth medium into the meat maker and wake up to harvest fresh sausage for breakfast." I found this through Dave Barry's blog. He just liked the phrase "in vitro meat." I found it a little more disturbing.
• From another venerable provincial English news outlet: "A man had part of an ear bitten off during a brawl in the toilets of a bar in Fallowfield..."
• I'm finished, and glad of it.