Mad scientist to destroy planet: Breaking ClickBait
A scientist uploaded a photo of his wicker chair's pattern to Stanford University's Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy and claimed it was an atom. What happened next will likely cause the deaths of many billions.
Paleoanthopologists had been conducting research into the age of a piece of anal bone that is thought to be an early modern human, the oldest fossil of its kind. The rectal area was found at a site in South Africa where there were other skeletal remains - thousands of them avian, and hundreds of them elephantine or mammoth-like. But there was only one piece of human remains - now known as the "Leakey Gickerbone".
A mad scientist decided to prank the Stanford-based professors in the course of his research into world domination. Using the pretext of a discussion on a forum at Stanford's online encyclopedia, he uploaded a close-up shot of the seat of his wicker chair, alongside a paper claiming it to be a photo of an atom taken under ultra-high magnification, insisting that the scientists' testing methods were wrong and their dating of the prehistorical human asshole questionable.
Philosophers shared this information, highlighting how error-prone science can often be. However, once the paleobiologists got wind of the criticism - something the rogue scientist counted on, given that one of the philosophers was a close friend of one of the fossil scholars - they insisted that their methods were not flawed. Following the mad scientist's logic, they nevertheless accepted his suggestions and undertook further testing.
But what the paleoanthropologists then unlocked was a virus that will likely destroy dozens of species across the planet - including at least half of the human population.
Through Fluorine, Uranium and Nitrogen experimentation - which scientists describe as being similar but more accurate than carbon dating - they inadvertently "interfered with" a long extinct virus's RNA strands that had been lurking within the ossified marrow - exciting it back to life.
How did this happen? The mad scientist certainly knew what he was doing: He claims to have already developed a vaccine for the virus, which he says will cost world governments many billions if they want to save lives.
But first some background: For more about Fluorine, Uranium and Nitrogen (FUN) testing, and how the mad scientist came up with his devious scheme, have a look at the original FUN test that revived the virus.
A mad scientist decided to prank the Stanford-based professors in the course of his research into world domination. Using the pretext of a discussion on a forum at Stanford's online encyclopedia, he uploaded a close-up shot of the seat of his wicker chair, alongside a paper claiming it to be a photo of an atom taken under ultra-high magnification, insisting that the scientists' testing methods were wrong and their dating of the prehistorical human asshole questionable.
Philosophers shared this information, highlighting how error-prone science can often be. However, once the paleobiologists got wind of the criticism - something the rogue scientist counted on, given that one of the philosophers was a close friend of one of the fossil scholars - they insisted that their methods were not flawed. Following the mad scientist's logic, they nevertheless accepted his suggestions and undertook further testing.
But what the paleoanthropologists then unlocked was a virus that will likely destroy dozens of species across the planet - including at least half of the human population.
Through Fluorine, Uranium and Nitrogen experimentation - which scientists describe as being similar but more accurate than carbon dating - they inadvertently "interfered with" a long extinct virus's RNA strands that had been lurking within the ossified marrow - exciting it back to life.
But first some background: For more about Fluorine, Uranium and Nitrogen (FUN) testing, and how the mad scientist came up with his devious scheme, have a look at the original FUN test that revived the virus.
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