Posted to the Chile-heads Mailing List by
Hurley 'Bad Monk' Braden" HURLEY@odysseus.bio.auth.gr
From The Journal of Obfuscatious Experimentation. Feb 1993
RATS, ASPARTAME, CHILE, AND YOU
Princ. Investigators : Dr. Joe Bob Don, Dr. Festus C. Adams
Mary Ineedtograduate Badly,
Stephen Itsbetterthanw Orking,
Homer Idideverythingthisr Eallysucks
Abstract:
-
Testing of two chemicals, on labratory rats, under strict observation,
to determine possible harmful effects, before testing on human
subjects. The substances tested were aspartame, and chile-peppers.
Introduction:
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Exhaustive research in this area has been done before, but
we will do it again. After all we have to publish something or
it's our necks come tenure time. Also, we have several grad
students that we want to run through the mill. Anyway, Joe Bob
and me... er.. I mean Dr. Joe Bob, and I were down at the coffee
house discussing ways we could torture rats...whoops !... conduct
valid, humane tests on rats that would yield significant data on
something or other. When we hit upon the idea of measuring the
physical, mental, and social effects of chile-peppers and
"Brand-Name" artificial sweetner on said rats.
Methods:
- The Rats-R-Us supply company had run low on rats, so we
"borrowed" 30 rats from other peoples experiments. Our criterea
for selecting these rodents was fairly strict. First, we had to have
access to the laboratories from were the rats were obtained.
Second, rats with greater than a thirty percent deformity were not
selected. (I.E. rats with five legs were ok, wereas rats with six
were passed over). The rats were then devided into three groups,
the tubbos, geeks, and chile-heads. Each rat was then placed in
a corresponding cage, with a feed lever. We then filled the feed
bins of the tubbos with "Brand-sweet", aspartame containing sweetner.
The bins of the chile-heads were filled chiles with varying levels
of "hotness." And, finaly the geeks bins (the control group) were
filled with nothing. We then went to Hawaii, for the strip clubs
.... er I mean for a month long conference on inhumane uses of
laboratory animals, and improving cruelty.
Observations:
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That's what Grad. Students are for.
Results:
-
Our graduate students did not check on the rats for the entire
time that we were at the club RockZa ... whoops ! .. conference.
When we returned we noticed that the geeks (control) group had died.
Big Suprise. Graph one plots the live rats vs. time.
10 |** 10 |++
R | graph 1. R | graph 2.
A 5 | A 5 |
T | T |
S 0 | ** S 0 | ++
+------------------ +------------------
1 10 20 30 1 10 20 30
Days Days
-
The tubbos, also suffered a similar fate. They did however, look
much thinner. Graph 2 shows the fate of the fatties over
thirty days. The chile-head rats however were thriving as
demonstrated in graph 3.
10 | CC CC graph 3.
RATS ...
0 |
+--------------------
1 10 20 30
Days
-
Not only were the chile-heads thriving, but they were displaying
odd behavior. Several chile-gardens had started, one rat had
started what appeared to be a hot-sauce company, several others
had managed to get internet service in their cages. All of the
rats had several different hot sauces in their cages. They also
would sing the old Johnny Cash song "burning ring of fire" at
indelicate moments. One, red-necked rat was listening to Hendrix,
while a bald rat was chasing a worm around "in" a Mescal bottle.
The strangest things though were the botulism poster, and a crude
chile-temple were odd goings-on were going on.
Conclusions:
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Previous claims about the adverse effects of aspartame have
been greatly exaggerated. The only adverse affect we noticed was
death in 100% of test subjects. Chile-peppers however, are another
matter completely. The strange behavior displayed by the chile-heads
goes far beyond two standard deviations of the norm (graph one vs
graph 3). This by itself is very alarming. But, the strange social
behavior displayed by the Chile-Heads is very strong indication
of other harmful effects of chiles. If chiles were consummed in
mass quantities by humans, well, it just wouldn't be pretty.
Also, the rats strange enjoyment of the chiles, has upset us, because
we must now find a new way to torture .... er a new experiment...
But, the real conclusion to all of this is if we can find some
ridiculus journal to publish this crap, it will look good on our
resumes ! And, maybe we can get Tenure, and never work again.
Bibliography:
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Fun With Rats : Marquis de Rat
Torture made Easy : Torquemada
How To Write a Research Paper : Dr. Seuss