Biased. Sensationalist. Info-taining. Retarded. These are all words we could use to describe the current state of the news media in our United States. It’s sad, but whaddya gonna do?

I don’t know about you, but I’m going make fun of the whole thing.

In this series I find 5 random, completely true statistics and facts, and create sensationalist headlines from them; skewing the facts to conform to a certain theme. I’ll show you how easy it is to make “the facts” fit your agenda.

The theme for this segment is:
Humans who Have Super Powers

Headlines:

1) Out of All Humans that Have Ever Lived, Small Percentage Beat Death and Still Living Today!

Whoa! Did all these people discover the secret to immortality??

Nope. But it is estimated that the 6 billion people alive today make up 5-6% (depending on who you talk to) of the world’s entire historical human population. That’s a lot of people. Link

2) Forget Hubble: NASA Astronomers Recruit Team of Super Humans Who Can See Objects Trillions of Miles Away!

Sounds like something out of a cheesy sci-fi movie. People with telescopic vision who can see things trillions of miles away? What are they, mutants? Well don’t rush to judgment. You might be one of them.

The most distant object in space that can be seen with the naked eye is the Andromeda Galaxy, which is around 2.5 million light years away. That’s roughly equivalent to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. And you thought it was a long walk between your 1 and 2 o’clock classes.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Andromeda Galaxy is most easily visible in early fall. It looks like a faint, oval shaped cloud. Link

3) Rewrite the History Books: Anthropologists Unearth Genius Caveman who had Bigger Brain than Ours!

Come to think of it, Fred Flintstone did have a pretty humongous noggin.

Well, Fruity Pebbles aside, our favorite cousin/ancestor/Geicospokesman the Neanderthal, did have an average cranial capacity that was larger than us modern humans have. But don’t worry, they weren’t even close to us in the smarts department - proving once again the immutable law of Size Doesn’t Matter. Link

4) Harriet, Oldest Female on Record, Dies Today at Age 175!

If you’re scratching your head saying, “But dude, I heard the oldest person in the world only lived to be like, 122 years old,” you’re right (and you probably spend too much time on Wikipedia.) But we ain’t talking about a person, dude.

Harriet the Tortoise was estimated to be 175 years old at the time of her death at the Australia zoo in 2006. It was rumored that she was one of the critters brought back by Charles Darwin after his historic visit to the Galapagos Islands. We’re talking like the 1830s here!

Interesting side note: For the first 130 years of her life, she was thought to be a he. It wasn’t until the 1960s that zoo directors discovered that Harry the Tortoise was actually a female, thus the name change.

Apparently there’s not any obvious physical indicators of gender in tortoises. I think they should have just named the thing “Pat” and called it a day. Link

5) Man in Tennessee Becomes First Bionic Cyborg!

Uh oh. Sounds like The Governator has got some company.

This one is friggin’ awesome without the sensationalist headline. In 2001, Jesse Sullivan, a utility lineman from Tennessee, had to undergo amputation of both of his arms after he was severely electrocuted on the job. Since then he’s been working with The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, testing out a new prototype bionic arm that he can control with his mind, as if it were really his own.

Microprocessors in the prosthesis interpret the signals from nerves that once led to his arm, directing the motors in the prosthesis to move and rotate in the same fashion as his muscles and tendons once did.

From what I’ve read, traditional prostheses can be pretty uncomfortable to use. This looks really promising. Not only could it help restore normalcy to the everyday lives of amputees, but it’s also pretty damn cool. Link

That’s it for now. Check back soon for the next installment of this series, titled: “Yeah! Sex and Violence Rocks!!”

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