OFF: Nominee for this year's Darwin Awards

Andrew A. Apold mordru at MAGG.NET
Thu Jun 13 08:22:23 EDT 1996


>P.S: I've started a collection of AutoDarwinisation incidents. I'll also
>accept miracle escapes where it's clear that Father Darwin was asleep at
>his post. If anyone comes across these in newspapers or whatever I'd be
>grateful for the article and attributions.

I'd never heard of Darwin awards before, but I recall a story from a marine
biologist at a Smithsonian research center in Panama, in which a scientist
was trying to prove a certain species of sea slug (I think) was poisonous,
despite the fact that it could be handled with ease.  He reasoned that the
poison was weak and could not penetrate ordinary human skin.  He further
reasoned that it should be able to poison a human on the tongue, where the
skin is much thinner.  To prove this, he placed one on his tongue and was
promptly proved correct; he survived (barely), recovering in a hospital
about a week later.
+-------------------------------------------------------+
Andrew A. Apold, aka                        "I was corrupt before I had power!"
Roger Shrubstaff                                 - Random, upon being accused
Guildmaster of Reeves                          of being corrupted since
Barony of Silverwater                             becoming King....
Kingdom of the Burning Lands                (Roger Zelazny, d. 1995)



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