News of the Weird

TylerDurden said:
[youtube]EXkf62qGFII[/youtube]
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did anyone else wince at the thought of that thing replacing endoscpoes???
 
The fingers said:
http://grist.org/list/bike-taxidermy-makes-for-the-most-eco-friendly-hunting-trophies-ever/

What to do with those pesky old handlebars, would look nice recycled and placed above the fireplace mantle. Wife: "OMDB!"
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LMAO - I read it, and know it's just recycled old handlebars, but it's a double entendre straight out from Larson's Far Side, you know the one where the critters are showing off mounted people heads...

“…no dead animals involved”
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Agree. Only live cyclists! :lol:

Too funny! KF
 
Eau de Pizza Hut? Company bakes up idea for perfume

121205-Pizza%20Hut-Perfume.photoblog500.jpg


At last, a perfume option for those who want nothing more than to be surrounded by the heavenly aroma of fresh pizza.

In what promises to be a viral marketing bonanza and the inspiration for late-night comedians everywhere, Pizza Hut Canada has produced a limited-edition of “Eau de Pizza Hut.” The fragrance boasts “top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough,” the company said in a news release.

“It’s amazing how such a simple idea can intrigue people,” said Beverley D'Cruz, marketing and product development director of Pizza Hut Canada, adding that she has heard from contacts all over the world curious about the perfume.

“People have fun eating pizza, so we had some fun doing this.”

The project began several months ago when Pizza Hut Canada asked fans on its Facebook page whether they loved the smell of a box of pizza being opened and what it might be called if it were perfume.

There were dozens of cheesy suggestions, including “Eau de Pepperoni,” “Devour by Pizza Hut,” and “Pizzaz.” The post has received more than 270 comments in all.

It was the highest user engagement the company has ever seen, so it began brainstorming what to do next.

“Somebody said, ‘What if we actually made a perfume?’ So we said, let’s try it,” D'Cruz recalled.

Pizza Hut Canada then tasked a perfume maker to create a fragrance that smelled like freshly baked bread. Some of the initial samples smelled more like cheese, others more like pepperoni, but eventually the perfect product emerged.

The company doesn’t envision that people will spray themselves with it, but rather use it as a room fragrance, D'Cruz said.

Only 110 bottles were produced – each featuring the familiar red Pizza Hut logo -- and distributed to the first Facebook fans to ask for the perfume. Since the creation has gotten so much attention, Pizza Hut Canada is planning to produce another batch of bottles to send out as gifts. There are no plans at the moment to retail the product.

Branding expert Karen Post called the project an excellent marketing strategy.

“The viral potential is huge because it’s so off the wall,” Post said.

“Brands like Pizza Hut have the latitude to get quirky because their target audience is highly concentrated in the younger folks and comedy is a great way to be relevant to that audience. If they were selling banking services, it’s maybe a little different.”

Smart PR firms now add top comedians to their distribution lists precisely because they want popular late-night hosts to mention a brand name to their huge audiences, Post said.

Another smart move on Pizza Hut’s part? Creating demand by producing only 110 bottles of the quirky perfume. People always want things that they can’t get their hands on, Post said.

Going on Facebook also allows a company to do a viral marketing campaign “organically and fairly low-cost,” she added.

This isn’t the first time a fast-food company has cooked up a fragrance. You may remember “Flame by BK,” a meat-scented body spray introduced as part of a marketing stunt by Burger King in 2008.
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O’ come to me my pepperoni baby! But wait! Permit me to adorn you with just a dash of shaker cheese and a sprig of basil… Ahhh, let me feast upon you whilst you’re still piping-hot!

Can I have a Coke with that? :)
Reformed pizza-maker, KF
 
Ancient lizard that died out with the dinosaurs named after Obama

Forgive me; it's been a slow week for weirdness.

The mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also did in lots of lizards — including a newly identified creature that's been named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama.

Obama already has a type of fish (Ethiostoma obama) and lichen (Caloplaca obamae) named after him, and now the recently re-elected leader of the free world can add a foot-long, slender-toothed casualty of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction to the list.

Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, the lead author of a paper announcing the find in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told me that the name arose from a conversation he had with a friend in late 2008, when folks were wondering how Obama's election would change the political scene.

"I said, yeah, we should name a dinosaur after him," Longrich said. "It was sort of a smart-ass comment."

But the idea stuck. After all, this is the guy who named a different fossil "Mojoceratops."

"It was catchy, and it seemed like a fun thing to do," he said.

There's a serious point behind the paper, of course: Longrich and his colleagues analyzed at fossils representing 30 different types of snakes and lizards, previously collected from locales in western North America ranging from New Mexico to Alberta. Nine of the species, including Obamadon, were previously unrecognized.

"Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, making it just as much an 'Age of Lizards' as an 'Age of Dinosaurs,'" Longrich said in a Yale news release.

Previous studies had suggested that some snake and lizard species went extinct, along with the dinosaurs and many types of mammals, birds, insects and plants. The extinction was presumably due to a catastrophic asteroid strike on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The new survey suggests that snakes and lizards were hit much harder than previously thought. Longrich and his colleagues estimate that up to 83 percent of all snake and lizard species were killed off. The bigger the creature, the more likely it was to become extinct: The researchers concluded that no species weighing more than a pound survived.

Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts, which accounted for up to 40 percent of the lizards living in North America before the extinction. Obama's namesake was identified on the basis of jaw fossils from Montana's Hell Creek Formation, with "tall, slender teeth with large central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves."

The lizard was less than a foot long and probably caught insects in its teeth, Longrich said.

The discovery of Obamadon just goes to show how new discoveries can come from old specimens — including fossils that were collected years ago, by paleontologists who were focusing dinosaurs or early mammals rather than snakes or lizards. "There hasn't been a heck of a lot of interest in these specimens," Longrich said. "Here we have all this data that's there, waiting to be studied."

Two of the newly recognized fossil species don't yet have scientific names, but when it comes time for the naming, rest assured that Longrich won't come up with anything too wild and crazy.

"We decided not to do the Hitlerosaurus," he said.

------------
More about celebrity species:
• Lady Gaga immortalized in ferns
• Parasite named after reggae star Bob Marley
• 'Bootylicious' fly named after Beyonce
• 'Venus Rat-Trap' named after TV naturalist
• 'The Hoff' loves his celebrity crabs
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:lol:

Gary Larson has had his name given to several species of vermin.
~KF
 
Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
Huffington Post UK | By Michael Rundle
Posted: 12/12/2012 09:23 GMT

Physicists have devised a new experiment to test if the universe is a computer.

A philosophical thought experiment has long held that it is more likely than not that we're living inside a machine.

The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened.

And if it has? Well, then the statistical likelihood is that we're located somewhere in that chain of simulations within simulations. The alternative - that we're the first civilisation, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd.

And it's not just theory. We previously reported that researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany had found evidence the Matrix was less than fiction. That story was by far our most popular of the year - indicating it's something about which you lot have wondered too.

Now another team have devised an actual test to see if this theory holds any hope of being proven.*

Professor Martin Savage at the University of Washington says while our own computer simulations can only model a universe on the scale of an atom's nucleus, there are already "signatures of resource constraints" which could tell us if larger models are possible.

This is where it gets complex.

Essentially, Savage said that computers used to build simulations perform "lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations" - dividing space into a four-dimensional grid. Doing so allows researchers to examine the force which binds subatomic particles together into neutrons and protons - but it also allows things to happen in the simulation, including the development of complex physical "signatures", that researchers don't program directly into the computer. In looking for these signatures, such as limitations on the energy held by cosmic rays, they hope to find similarities within our own universe.

And if such signatures do appear in both? Boot up, baby. We're inside a computer. (Maybe).

"If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge," Savage told the University of Washington news service.

Zohreh Davoudi, one of Savage's students, goes further:

"The question is, 'Can you communicate with those other universes if they are running on the same platform?," she said.

Now that would be a long-distance phone call.




  • *Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation

    Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi, Martin J. Savage
    (Submitted on 4 Oct 2012 (v1), last revised 9 Nov 2012 (this version, v2))
    Observable consequences of the hypothesis that the observed universe is a numerical simulation performed on a cubic space-time lattice or grid are explored. The simulation scenario is first motivated by extrapolating current trends in computational resource requirements for lattice QCD into the future. Using the historical development of lattice gauge theory technology as a guide, we assume that our universe is an early numerical simulation with unimproved Wilson fermion discretization and investigate potentially-observable consequences. Among the observables that are considered are the muon g-2 and the current differences between determinations of alpha, but the most stringent bound on the inverse lattice spacing of the universe, b^(-1) >~ 10^(11) GeV, is derived from the high-energy cut off of the cosmic ray spectrum. The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice.

    Comments: 14 pages, 3 figures
    Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
    Report number: NT@UW-12-14; INT-PUB-12-046
    Cite as: arXiv:1210.1847 [hep-ph]
    (or arXiv:1210.1847v2 [hep-ph] for this version)
    Submission history
    From: Martin J. Savage [view email]
    [v1] Thu, 4 Oct 2012 20:06:02 GMT (245kb,D)
    [v2] Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:07:18 GMT (246kb,D)
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847
 
NPR: The Joy Of Salt Licking: Contest Turns Farm Animals Into Fine Artists

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Sculptures entered in the Great Salt Lick Contest await the judging and auction.

Whit Deschner stands in the middle of a pasture outside of Baker, Ore., probably 30 or 40 feet away from a black cow licking a white salt block.

To most of us, this may look like a bucolic scene from ranch country, a smattering of black cattle on a vast field that spreads toward distant mountains. But, for Deshner, it's art in the making.

Deschner is probably the world's foremost connoisseur of salt block art. These sculptures start out as 50-pound cubes of salt, about a foot long on each side. Ranchers give them to their livestock as nutritional supplements. Six years ago, Deschner was visiting a buddy who had put a block out in front of his cabin. It caught their eye.

"We'd had a couple of beers, and it just started looking more and more like art to us," Deschner says. "Could be outside a federal building."

What the deer left behind looked like a swirling sculpture of grooves, pinnacles and even a small porthole. To Deschner, there was only one thing to do.

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An Angus cow licks a salt block in a field near Baker City, Ore.

"Why not have a salt lick art contest?" he says.

Licking For A Cause
"Oh, we all thought he was crazy," says Martin Aritola of Oregon Trail Livestock Supply, "but it turns out we were the crazy ones." Aritola's is one of many businesses who were dubious at first, but now support the Great Salt Lick Contest.

It's just a couple days before this year's event, and this is one of several locations where ranchers are dropping off sculptures for the contest.

Kim Jacobs has just come off the range with two sculptures to enter in the contest. Her licks join about 20 others on a long table in the center of the store, each with paperwork that includes the title and species of artist. Some animals lick sculptures that look like vertebrae from prehistoric creatures, others like windswept sandstone formations you might see in canyon country.

"I think my cows do an OK job, but I really feel my sheep have brought it home for me," Jacobs says.

Despite all the tongue-in-cheek humor, there is a serious side to the Great Salt Lick: It's an auction and fundraiser to support Parkinson's disease research. Deschner himself has Parkinson's. He walks with a stoop and trembles. He says living with the disease has taught him that "you have to follow your folly."

"To tie the Parkinson's into the salt licks, into the auction, maybe was a foolish idea. But what the heck," he says.

And over the years, Deschner's folly has raised more than $30,000.

Bringing Community Together
Putting on the Great Salt Lick is a community effort, and on the night of the auction, the mayor and his band kick things off with some cowboy tunes. It's not long before the hall is packed with the most unusual collection of people.

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Organizer Whit Deschner examines four licks left for him by a local rancher.

"Cowboys with cow manure clear to their knees and beat-up old hats, and wine sippin' hippies, and some of the more elite, high-dollar people around town, you know," says Mib Daley, a local rancher, and the official auctioneer for the Great Salt Lick. "They don't normally get along that well, you know. And when they get in a situation like this with the salt lick auction, they just all get along. It's weird!"

One by one, the salt licks are brought to the stage and Daley takes off with the bidding. Blocks sell for about $5 at the feed store, but here most sell for $200 or $300. And a few of the more unusual pieces hit $1,000.

In the end, the auction raises well over $12,000, shattering last year's record. Everybody leaves the hall with smiles on their faces, including Beth and Fred Phillips, who raise Angus cattle and entered four salt licks in the contest.

"We'd like to think our cows are more artistic than they used to be, but, to be honest, they probably aren't," Beth says.

"They're definitely more artistic than our neighbors,' " Fred says.

So how do they nurture their artists?

"We breed for it now," Fred says.
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>> "They're definitely more artistic than our neighbors"
LMAO!
Welcome to the other End of the World, KF :lol:
 
California man says he can drive in carpool lane with corporation papers

When Jonathan Frieman of San Rafael, Calif., was pulled over for driving alone in the carpool lane, he argued to the officer that, actually, he did have a passenger.

He waved his corporation papers at the officer, he told NBCBayArea.com, saying that corporations are people under California law.

Frieman doesn't actually support this notion. For more than 10 years, Frieman says he had been trying to get pulled over to get ticketed and to take his argument to court -- to challenge a judge to determine that corporations and people are not the same. Mission accomplished in October, when he was slapped with a fine -- a minimum of $481.

Frieman has been frustrated with corporate personhood since before it became a hot button issue in 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporate and union spending may not be restricted by the government under the First Amendment.

At the heart of the high court ruling was the argument that corporations -- because they are composed of individuals – deserve protection under the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech.

Frieman, who faces a traffic court on Monday, plans to tell the judge that this isn’t about carpool lanes; it’s about corporate power.

"I'm just arresting their power and using it for my service to drive in the carpool lane," he told NBC Bay Area's Jean Elle.

University of San Francisco law professor Robert Talbot says Frieman’s argument may not hold up because it steers too far from the intent of carpool lane laws.

"A court might say, ‘Well, it says person, and a corporation is a person, so that'll work for the carpool lane,’” Talbot told NBCBayArea.com. “It’s possible, but I doubt it.”

In an opinion piece posted to the San Rafael Patch site on May 14, 2011, Frieman broke down his argument.

A carpool lane is two or more persons per vehicle, he said. The definition of person in California’s Vehicle Code is “natural person, firm, copartnership, association, limited liability company, or corporation.”

“Just imagine what THAT courtroom scene’ll be like,” he wrote.

He imagined what he might say to the judge: “Your honor, according to the vehicle code definition and legal sources, I did have a ‘person’ in my car. But Officer so-and-so believes I did NOT have another person in my car. If you rule in his favor, you are saying that corporations are not persons. I hope you do rule in his favor. I hope you do overturn 125 years of settled law.”

But before he can make grand proclamations, the officer who ticketed him must show up to court. Otherwise, his ticket may be thrown out.
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I'd like to be a fly on the wall in that courtroom! :)
~KF
 
That is actually the verdict he wanted. Now he can proceed to the next level, as there is a conflict whether a corp is a person, or not.
 
Wellll… I was going to post a candidate that’s not so much weird as it is fun…

Monopoly is sending a game piece to jail, permanently

(and I’d vote for the guitar or the cat so the dog had something to chase)… :wink:

But then I think this one trumps Monopoly for cleverness:

Invisible drive-thru customer prank leaves workers in disbelief

Thank you for your order, sir. Would you like a driver with that?

A veteran drive-thru prankster (now there's a job title), Rahat the Magician Prankster had fast-food workers in disbelief with this clever invisible drive-thru customer gag that made it look like his car was being steered by an invisible driver.

Using a costume made of cardboard and seat fabric that he details in the beginning of the video, Rahat camouflaged himself in his car so that it appeared empty as he drove up to collect his food.

In a video of how the prank played out, one worker's shocked reaction pretty much speaks for everyone who witnessed the stunt.

[youtube]xVrJ8DxECbg[/youtube]

"What the heck is going on?'' she says as she backs away from the window.

"Am I trippin' son?'' another incredulous female worker holding a bag of food says when seeing the empty car.

Her social media instincts then kick in after she summons a co-worker to take a picture of the car with his cell phone.

"Instagram that joint,'' she says.

The invisible driver clip has gotten more than three million views on YouTube, and is the 19th in his "drive thru" prank series.

Previously, he fooled drive-thru workers with other optical illusions, including a floating cup and a flaming dollar.
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hehe, KF
 
amberwolf said:
arkmundi said:
resubmitting OK now .... ouchomgthathursts
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Now it says removed for copyright violation. Oh, well.
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Dang! Well, at least I got to see it once. Pretty weird as it went flying down the gulch, becomes airborne for the longest time, then pop! Surreal death scene.

Monopoly: When I was a kid (well, physically younger at least) we tried twice to stay up playing Monopoly for two days straight, but could never quite get past 40 hours. :lol:

Tip: Never let Older Sistor be the banker :wink:

hehe, KF
 
Bug sex can be deadly

Researchers in Canada are studying insect mating rituals. In particular, they hope to better understand why some female bug species - like the Great Grig - eat their male partners during sex.
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This reminds me of the Larson/Farside cartoon of the two alligators reading "Animal Horiscopes": 'You will not mate this year, perhaps next. Poaching figures big.'

I still have my wings, KF
 

Trojan's New Vibrators Create a Buzz at CES 2013
By Alex Colon January 10, 2013 01:00pm EST
PCmag.com

LAS VEGAS—From what I understand, CES used to overlap with the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. Sadly, that hasn't been the case since I started attending the consumer electronics convention, but this year, Trojan is bringing a little bit of the adult entertainment world to CES, in the form of its new Tri-Phoria and Pulse vibrators.

Located adjacent to the Digital Health Food Court on the CES show floor, Trojan had its new devices on display on specially-designed Trojan Vibrations "Pleasure Carts," which are, I kid you not, modeled after traditional hot dog carts.

Best known for making condoms, Trojan is hoping to "mainstream" the vibrator category by making high-quality vibrators available at places like drugstores, grocery stores, online, and, of course, adult entertainment shops.

On display at CES was the $24.99 Trojan Vibrating Pulse, which boasts three different speeds and three different pulse patterns. Similar in look and design is the $39.99 Vibrating Tri-Phoria, which uses three interchangeable tips—for firm pressure, focused stimulation, and "flickering"—to create different sensations. It has five speeds and three pulse patterns.

In the spirit of journalism, and in the habit of writing hands-on stories, I turned both devices on, and they do deliver quite a buzz. Trojan reps pointed out the devices are rather quiet as well, though it was hard to tell over the din of CES.

Also announced, but not on display, is the $59.99 Vibrating Twister, which has four twistable positions, five speeds, and three pulse patterns.

Trojan brought 9,000 Pulse vibrators to give away to curious reporters on the CES show floor. When I arrived at the booth Wednesday morning, more than 5,000 had already been given out. Perhaps CES and the AVN Expo should overlap again after all.



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Nurse arrested for alleged sex act with corpse

OK, I'm intrigued: How'd they do it? So I click on the link thinking it's a nurse that somehow um, er... well - able to get a rise...
...but NOOOOOO!!! :shock:

The real headline is: Male nurse, 61, arrested for sex act with corpse at LA hospital

Creepy weird - I don't want to know more thank you.

Reaching for the Lisol, KF
 
Canada drops penny

Canada has begun phasing out its penny, the nuisance one-cent coin that clutters dressers and costs more than its one-cent value to produce. The Royal Canadian Mint on Monday officially ended its distribution of pennies to financial institutions. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced last year they were a nuisance and had outlived their purpose. While some may still use pennies, the government has issued guidelines urging store owners to start rounding prices to the nearest nickel for cash transactions. Electronic purchases will still be billed to the nearest cent. The government has said the cost of the penny exceeds its monetary value. Production is $11 million a year. The coins, which feature two maple leaves and Queen Elizabeth II in profile, will remain legal tender until they eventually disappear from circulation.

<snip>
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Perhaps as Canada goes, so will the USA? Coincidentally both currencies are nearly in parity with 1 USD = 0.995788 CAD at the time of this posting. The US Mint has been discussing dropping the Penny for some time now. Despite several attempts to replace the US paper Dollar with coins – there is resistance from vending machine manufacturers and other coin & currency handlers. But it seems that dropping the Penny is likely a good safe bet. We applaud Canada for taking the lead :wink:

Perhaps it's the long-overdue retirement that makes this a noteworthy NotW candidate.
Gone to pinching nickels, KF
 
Ha! the penny haters.

They crow about the money costing more to produce than the face value...but I wager they more than cover that cost with the larger denomination coins let alone a singe pc of folding currency.

Any one hating penny's can send em my way (please collect them until they fill a large flat rate USPS box :mrgreen:)

Please excuse this interruption
Back to the weirdness.
 
Handicapped markings painted around parked car

NBC Today said:
A woman in Tel Aviv had to fight back after her car was towed for being parked in a handicapped spot that hadn’t been one when she parked there! She hunted down security footage showing city workers painting the markings around her car before towing it and slapping her with fines. City officials are now apologizing.
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Full article here.

Headline Link to vid speaks volumes. KF
 
2-gallon a day cola habit linked to woman's death

AP said:
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand food industry association on Wednesday rejected a coroner's call to add health warnings to soft-drink labels following the 2010 death of a woman who drank about 2 gallons of Coca-Cola a day.

Coroner David Crerar issued a final report Tuesday into the death of 31-year-old Natasha Harris, concluding that the mother of eight died from a heart attack. He said the large amount of Coca-Cola she drank likely led to metabolic imbalances that gave rise to her heart problems, adding that Coke was likely a "substantial factor" in her death.

But New Zealand Food & Grocery Council Chief Executive Katherine Rich said "there isn't a labeling regime in the world" that could have prevented the death of somebody who chose to drink Coke in such large quantities.

The New Zealand branch of the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company, the world's largest beverage maker, disputed the coroner's findings, noting that experts could not agree on the most likely cause of Harris' death.

Crerar recommended that soft-drink makers consider including caffeine levels on the labels and warnings about the ill health effects if the drinks are consumed in excessive quantities.

Under New Zealand's food labeling system, warnings are mandatory on drinks with caffeine levels higher than 145 milligrams per kilogram. That covers many energy drinks, but not most soft drinks.

Rich said the coroner's recommendations were well-intentioned but ill-informed. She said that coffee, tea and chocolate also contain significant amounts of caffeine and that New Zealanders are unlikely to support the notion of health warnings every time they walk into a cafe or buy a chocolate bar.

She said the huge volume of Coca-Cola that Harris drank meant she couldn't receive adequate nutrients from other food sources.

"It doesn't matter what the food is. If it's consumed in excess, there will be ill health effects," Rich said. "It's clearly a very tragic and complex case, but not one that provides a strong argument for changes to labeling."

At a 2011 inquest into Harris' death, Vivienne Hodgkinson, the mother of Harris' boyfriend, said that Harris always needed to have Coca-Cola available, and that if she ran out she would "get the shakes, withdrawal symptoms; be angry, on edge and snappy."

The coroner also heard evidence that Harris was of normal weight, didn't eat much or drink any alcohol, and smoked about 30 cigarettes a day. She drank only regular Coke, preferring the taste over diet or caffeine-free varieties. The coroner heard that Harris had no energy in the months leading up to her death, felt ill all the time and often vomited and experienced a racing heart.

The coroner said it was hard to be certain about how much Coke Harris drank, but after reviewing evidence from her partner and friends, as well as 51 supermarket receipts, he estimated it was between 6 and 10 liters (1.6 and 2.6 gallons) per day.

The pathologist who examined Harris found that she likely suffered from hypokalemia, or low potassium, which contributed to her health problems, and that she had an enlarged liver from excessive sugar consumption.

Another pathologist giving expert testimony said that excessive cola consumption "can be dramatically symptomatic, and there are strong hypothetical grounds for this becoming fatal in individual cases."

But a third pathologist giving evidence for Coca-Cola said that Harris' health problems could have been caused by anemia or diabetes, and that genetic factors may also have played a role.

In a statement, Coca-Cola Oceania said it was disappointed the coroner chose to focus on "the combination of Ms. Harris' excessive consumption of Coca-Cola, together with other health and lifestyle factors, as the probable cause of her death. This is contrary to the evidence that showed the experts could not agree on the most likely cause."
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Dang! And here I was concerned about my pint-a-week ice cream habit. I wonder if she had any teeth left? :?

Long time ago when I was a young Navy rascal I dated a gal that had a Cola fixation; wouldn't drink water - had to be Cola, and would have withdrawls if she didn't get it. Funny - I hardly touch soda these days; rather prefer water after a good ride.

~KF
 
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