Modern-day vegetarians: Lucky

London, UK -- Vegetarians and vegans existed in prehistoric times, but there is no present-day evidence of their existence because they most likely got eaten by carnivorous predators before they could leave a lasting mark on the world, a leading British archaeologist has claimed.

Dr. Howard Sloane, a professor of archaeology at Cambridge University, made the spirited remark in a lecture given Saturday to a group of graduate students at the University College London's Archaeology Hall.

"When you factor in the law of natural selection, it is not that too farfetched an idea. Ancient vegetarians and vegans were probably too weak and lethargic to outrun the predators chasing after them," said Sloane. "Meanwhile, we have cave drawings of prehistoric men hunting wildlife for food. The facts speak for themselves."

Sloane said that modern-day vegetarians and vegans are "extremely lucky" to live in a world where vitamin and mineral supplements abound, and more important, "most carnivorous predators are locked up in zoos or being hunted to extinction."

"Truthfully, the whole of humankind should be thankful that a majority of our cavemen ancestors were meat-eaters," said Sloane. "Otherwise, we all wouldn't be here discussing this."

The Birmingham, UK-based Vegan Society summarily condemned Sloane's assertion, calling it "irresponsible and reckless."

"Countless studies have shown that our forebearers were fruit foragers. Additionally, ancient vegetarians and vegans used and made materials that were biodegradable, which explains why they didn't survive for modern men to behold," said George Rodger, the institution's Chair of Trustees.

Rodger added that he is more than willing to race Sloane, an avowed meat-lover, to see who sprints faster.

"I was a track and field star at university. I am pretty certain I can outrun the wanker," joked Rodger.

Teen grease: fuel of the future?

Houston, TX -- A miniature internal combustion engine fueled by excess teenage facial oils has won the blue ribbon at Lamar High School's 53rd Annual Science Fair.

The project, spearheaded by Grade 10 student Gregory Jussman, will be the school's official entry at the Texas Regional Science Fair to be held later this year.

According to the project specifications, the facial oils were collected over a period of seven months. Teenaged volunteers, which included Jussman himself, took as few showers as possible and used cotton balls to clean their faces every night. The cotton balls were then gathered weekly and "squeezed" into a beaker. The group had managed to collect enough oil to keep the specially-modified miniature engine running for 4 minutes and 4 seconds, a feat unanimously applauded by fair organizers and school officials.

"Mr. Jussman's project represents exactly the kind of forward thinking that our nation's leaders should be doing right now," said principal James McSwain. "We will not have fossil fuel forever, but we will always have our greasy youth. We need to start moving in this direction."

International oil giant British Petroleum has reportedly already expressed interest in Jussman's project and made arrangements to meet with the young inventor over the summer to discuss sponsorship possibilities.

At a post-fair press junket interview, Jussman, 15, said he got the idea for the project after endless hours of being mercilessly taunted by family and friends over his greasy skin and problem acne.

"Everyone's been really mean to me about my greasy mug, so I said to myself, 'I'm gonna show y'all what my acne can do,'" the teen said. "Look who's laughing now?"

There's hope yet, Kirstie Alley.

Cuiabá, Brazil -- Health and nutrition experts worldwide are hailing the discovery in the Amazon Rainforest of a new species of parasitic worms that thrive on animal adipose tissue, saying they could potentially revolutionize the fight against obesity in humans.

The worms were discovered by chance last week in Mato Grosso near Brazil's Bolivian border during a routine forest expedition led by British ecologist Gwen Castley. Castley said she stumbled upon the carcass of a monkey swarmed by the peculiar-looking worms while on a hunt for a spot to relieve herself.

The worms' bright pink tint was the first thing that tipped Castley off to their uniqueness. Upon closer inspection, Castley noticed that the worms were only working on areas of the carcass where there were deposits of adipose tissue, commonly known as fat. Further tests supported Castley's initial assessment of the worms, which will be officially named Gwenus cacaris.

According to Castley, Gwenus cacaris have an unusual life cycle: they appear to gorge themselves to a certain satiation point, "rest" for a short while, and then go back to eating the fat until it's all consumed. Once the fat is gone, they die out. A few living samples are being kept alive by feeding them a steady diet of liposuction by-products from plastic surgery clinics in São Paulo.

Castley admitted they are still scratching their heads.

"We don't know a whole lot about these worms yet. We don't know how they reproduce. We don't know if they're actually larvae of something else," she said. "But we do know they love adipose tissue. It seems eating fat is all they want to do."

The World Health Organization has already expressed interest in expanding the continuing research on the worms to include their potential application in the ongoing fight against obesity in humans. WHO chief Margaret Chan is optimistic the worms can be successfully and safely implanted inside humans with weight issues.

"Obviously we need to do more research on this," said Chan. "Overall, I am confident these worms will drastically change the lives of millions of obese individuals."

Castley shares Chan's optimism, but cautioned that "it will probably take a while before the fat-eating worms can be utilized that way." Like most living things, the worms produce waste matter, which in this case is methanol, a highly toxic substance that could cause blindness in small doses and death in larger ones. Theoretically, unleashing the worms into a 650-pound human being will produce seven gallons of methanol, which would undoubtedly be lethal.

"Until we figure out how to neutralize the methanol, we can't let these worms loose just yet," said Castley. "But we'll figure it out someday."

"It's actually pretty harmless," said Dacre Morten of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). "All it does is add the line 'May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today" in the beginning of your email messages and replaces or adds 'God bless' as your complimentary closing."

Morten said they have already mobilized the appropriate teams to work on disabling the virus. However, recent budget cuts have placed it on lower priority than most security threats.

"People will just have to deal with the overly Christian emails for the time being," said Morten. "There are other far more important matters at hand right now."

Possibly created by a born-again Christian hacker in West Virginia, the virus focuses its attack primarily on Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. The MSRC was first alerted to its existence after a Redmond employee received an email from a relative who is devoutly Muslim.

"I immediately knew something was not right when I read Jamal's email today," said Abdul Mujadeen. "He is the last person on Earth you'd expect to say 'Lord Jesus Christ'."

Janet's ass: The final frontier?

Hygiene, CO -- A group of astronomy enthusiasts in Colorado became the butt of jokes in the scientific community after laying claim to the discovery of a new galaxy that turned out to be pop singer Janet Jackson's buttocks.

The group, led by Abel Abraham, 24, uses a sophisticated computer program that picks up images from space transmitted to Earth by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Early Thursday morning, Abraham said he awoke to the frantic beeping noise coming from his computer which signaled that it had found something unique. What he saw after loading up the image was a blurry representation of "what could possibly be a starburst galaxy in its infancy, not unlike the NGC 4038/NGC 4039, also known as the Antennae Galaxies."

"The purported new galaxy is in fact Janet Jackson's ass," said De Castro's statement. "Although it is easy to mistake one for the other, Mr. Abraham should have known better than to hastily jump to conclusions."

"I've never seen anything like it before, and I was just awestruck," said the local barback and self-described Star Trek expert.

Abraham was so impressed by his computer's finding that he didn't bother to investigate further and decided to submit it to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a new galaxy discovery. He also published an exclusive report about it on his group's astronomy website, geekgalaxy.org.

Within minutes, Abraham's finding was debunked by a rival group of astronomers in California led by Castro De Castro, who published a scathing rebuke on his group's own website, thefinalfrontier.org.

"The purported new galaxy is in fact Janet Jackson's ass," said De Castro's statement. "Although it is easy to mistake one for the other, Mr. Abraham should have known better than to hastily jump to conclusions."

De Castro provided as proof photographs of the singer wearing a futuristic yellow catsuit decorated with shiny metallic striations taken during the opening night of her "Rock Wit Chu" tour in Vancouver, Canada. The blurry image picked up by Abraham's computer matches one of the images perfectly when enhanced.

Abraham said his computer could not have made the mistake, and that he had probably been the victim of a nasty, childish prank.

"I wouldn't put it past De Castro," stressed Abraham. "He's a Madonna fan."

Geek Galaxy has already removed the image and all references to it from their web site. The group has also sent a profuse apology to Janet Jackson for the error.

Neither Jackson nor her spokesperson could be reached for comment.