Photos by (1898) © THE FIELD MUSEUM, CSGEO12536, PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN
“I read every comment people post to your Web site,” my mother said to me last week. I had to quickly remind her, Mom, WIRED isn’t technically my Web site. I’m just one of many editors. But, like any proud mother, she enjoys telling the checkout people at her grocery store that I am the president and chief of WIRED. Every morning, she logs in from her home in Idaho and “likes” the best comments on WIRED’s Facebook page. She calls me when she finds typos anywhere on the site. When you’re funny, she lets me know. When you’re mean, she calls to check in. When the readers of my brother’s magazine leave funnier comments, she calls to make fun of me. “Emily,” she says, “your brother’s readers beat you this week.”
What I’m saying is, my mother is the greatest, most supportive, hilarious human being on this planet (and I’m sure your mother is, too) and so this week, instead of picking my favorite comments, I handed the reins over to the woman who taught me everything. She has picked her favorite WIRED comments from you guys, across the site and Facebook. (Sorry, she isn’t on Google+ or Twitter)
Without further ado, here are your best comments this week, as curated by my mother–skip to the bottom for her top funny comment:
First, she loved how Facebook reader Christian Presley was able to synthesize the information in this article on a huge scientific breakthrough, “Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters Instead of Just 4.”
In layman’s terms, it means we could synthetically create cells that safely consume cancer cells. Or, it has the possibly to have cells that can regenerate themselves much more efficiently, such as reducing aging affects of the human body.
We ran a riveting excerpt from Sam Kean’s new book “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons,” recounting the story of the most important contributor to our understanding of how memory works, HM.
My mother loved how Facebook reader Robert Kobus eloquently described the underlying scientific phenomena that explained H.M.’s strange condition:
You only have a memory that spans for a day, and every day you wake up thinking it’s the same day. 10 years could pass and you’d still think it was the first day after you got your hippocampus removed, as it is responsible for long-term memory creation.
As a proud resident of Blaine County, Idaho, my Mom loved that WIRED ran a story about an Idaho couple who has created a prototype for paving roades with solar panels. Check out the whole comment thread. She was incredibly impressed that the creators of the technology took to the comments to answer every question you guys were asking.
Oneduality impressed my Mom greatly by explaining why catching your own football is “easy.” We posed the question in our science blogs, “Can You Catch Your Own Football?” Oneduality answered, with video proof:
This is easy ..
1. He throws the ball up and to the right, looks obvious to me.. it flies safely out of camera view and lands at 0.27 seconds in somewhere off to the right of frame ( crank up your volume, you can HEAR it hit either the ground, or someone’s hands.. but it’s noticeable
2. He keeps running and someone else off camera throws a second football that he then catches.
This would be very easy to replicate.. all you need is two friends and two footballs .. one friend holds the camera while the other friend throws you the second football from off camera.. viola.. just remember to throw your football to the right and make sure the camera man stays tight on you so you don’t see the football landing off camera
I think they used some camera editing too so that they could do perhaps some fake zooming to crop out any chance of the footballs being seen unless it’s leaving his hands or being caught.
Edited to say another commenter posted a link to another video similar to this where it’s even more obvious..
“Gross and informative,” is how my Mom described this comment on our Absurd Creature article of the week, This Oceanic Nightmare Suffocates Foes With Clouds of Slime:
I’m from a small coastal hamlert close to Cape Town, during summer, when crayfishing, these guys come up in the net..no crayfish will enter it again..only remedy is to leave it in the sun..the slime turns hard like “pasta”..easy to break off then..locally known as a Snotslang\Snot snake.. –Haldane Muller
Anthony De Marco took issue with our article on “The Fastest Motorcycle in the World,” writing:
This article is gonna get someone killed. I am an Expert level ASRA/CCS roadracer, and track coach with Team Pro-Motion, and this article is just downright dangerous. Seriously believing that the electronics on a superbike are going to stop some new rider from sticking themselves into the ground like a golf tee because “Wired” said that a rookie could ride it like a pro is just insane. Look at WSBK, and see how often those real pros toss their Panigales (which have even better electronics than the street production Panigale) into the dirt, and you will change your tune I am sure.
My Mom couldn’t agree more, saying, “Hey, it’s Mother’s Day–SAFETY FIRST!”
I’m kind of shocked about this pick of my Mom’s. Posting on Facebook about our story, Disney Invents Robots That Swarm Into Colorful Animations, Tony Pepperoni delighted my flower-child Mother by saying:
This plus mushrooms equals mind blown.
Anthony Fonzarelli Girabaldi and my Mom would probably get along pretty well. In response to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page saying we need to colonize Mars because “Earth has issues. We need to get started on Plan B,” Girabaldi corrected:
Humans have issues. It’s time Earth got started on a plan B
“The funniest comment of all–the whole week–was slightly off color so I thought it maybe wasn’t appropriate for a mother to pick for mother’s day. But the thing is, he’s right,” my mother said of this next comment.
Facebook reader James Gilmartin made an observation about this post:
Can I be immature for a sec? Ok…. So it looks like there’s a big drooping cock and balls shaded near the top right of the moon… Annnnd, back to adult mode.
Yes, James, you can be immature for a sec. In fact, your cock-and-balls comment is Mother-approved. Aren’t moms the best? Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!
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