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Bark Beetles Hate Rush Limbaugh and Heavy Metal
Aryabhata writes "According to scientists, climate change and human activity have allowed bark beetle populations to soar. They decided to fight the beetles by using the 'nastiest, most offensive sounds' that they could think of. These sounds included recordings of Guns & Roses, Queen, Rush Limbaugh and manipulated versions of the insects' own sounds. The research project titled 'Beetle Mania' has concluded that acoustic stress can disrupt their feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other."
They wanted "the nastiest and most offensive" and they picked Guns & Roses and Queen?"
Clearly they fail at knowing anything about actual metal.
Glenn Beck?
Kneel Before Christ!
So by feeding insects our media we have made them more human (killing themselves etc.)... good find!
After listening to Rush, the beetles decided to get off the dole of this research project and go out to get their own jobs.
Not much else to say, really.
o/~ Here we are! Born to be kings, we're the princes of the uuuuuuniverse o/~
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I wonder if this article would have made it to the front page of ./ if it hadn't provided an opportunity for certain folks to get a political jab in again at the "evil republicans".
Yoko Ono.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Oh Oh! Torture me! Torture me!
Those beetles have no taste.
It is some front page news that some people dislike Rush Limbaugh and some old music?
How about this? I kill the black mold in my shower by showing it pictures of Rachel Maddow.
This isn't news for nerds. This is stupid.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Limbaugh may be obnoxious and rude, but I can't think of anything particularly offensive about his voice that I don't hear pretty much every day walking down the street.
Likewise, Guns & Roses and Queen aren't especially anything other than loud - nothing especially offensive about the sounds of either.
Did they consider trying a really offensive noise? Like a jet engine spinning up? Or a Shuttle taking off? Or a machinegun firing?
Or even Ozzy doing whatever he was doing when he thought he was singing?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I would think G&R and Queen would be really offensive to anyone who likes metal.
He and his colleagues found that while Limbaugh and the heavy metal initially bothered the beetles, the insects mostly ignored the sounds after a while.
The researchers next decided to record and manipulate the beetle-produced sounds. They focused on an aggression call produced by males of the "tree killer" Dendroctonus species.
By making this call longer and louder than usual, they altered the beetles' behavior.
Apparently if you want to alter beetle behavior, using sounds that beetles understand is more effective. Just like Rush Limbaugh is more effective at making human subjects froth at the mouth.
Qxe4
Right up there with Lady Gaga's perspectives on Quantum Mechanics or Keith Olberman's taste in pop music.
Thanks, I'll pass.
This means that Obama's speeches would really encourage pests to grow and have healthy development?
Seems like they only tried "rush," "heavy metal," and manipulated beatle noises, and rush and heavy metal came out *below* beatle noises.
They did not try white noise, other radio commentators (Al Franken, perhaps), other genres of music, or even other animals. Also unmentioned is whether they tried silence.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Biologists manage to get paid for amazingly inadequate experiment, while making jabs at completely unrelated fields they really don't know much about."
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
When I had to get family of raccoons out of my attic I played Brujeria, Melt Banana and John Zorn's Naked City for an entire night. That did the trick.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
that scientists have no clue about music. Although, if they had used real metal, half the beetles would probably have moshed the other half to death. Which would probably have supported their conclusions. Although, it would be interesting to see what music like Megadeth, Slayer, Killswitch Engage, or the like would do to insects. Maybe contrast it to something like Tool? Now, that's an experiment I wouldn't mind doing.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Does this mean that bark beetles are Democrats?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
...but the scientists obviously hate Rush Limbaugh. They could have picked anyone's voice - not a polarizing political figure. How about Gilbert Gottfried? How about low male voices like James Earl Jones versus high pitched female voices?
How do you, Mr. 'Scientist', expect me to take your research seriously when you demonstrate that you are irrational and let your politics color your work?
When I want aggressive and loud white noise I turn to:
Emperor, Immortal, Gorgoroth, Dimmu-Borgir etc.
Good for coding when I'm pissed off and in a hurry...
As a bonus, it also keeps people out of my office.
The 'most annoying sound' was a biased opinion of one scientists: ""the most annoying sound" his colleague, Reagan McGuire, "could think of was Rush Limbaugh or rock music.""(from TFA) In fact the assumption of it 'working' is wrong because: "[Richard Hofstetter] and his colleagues found that while Limbaugh and the heavy metal initially bothered the beetles, the insects mostly ignored the sounds after a while."(from TFA) So what did we learn? 1. Beetles don't like loud 'stuff', but after a while they get used to it. 2. Global warming scientists don't like Rush Limbaugh 3. Science is a lost discipline, replaced by partisan political calculation. 4. Tax payers yet again fund clown-pseudo-science.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
...go play them some ICP, that stuff makes me want to kill MYSELF.
to blow his cigar smoke into the beetle's bore holes?
tobacco basically invented nicotine to kill insects, so rush, with his volumes of hot air, seems like a perfect delivery vehicle
as a bonus, we hasten limbaugh's death via lung cancer
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It now explains EVERYTHING!
Including being named Gregor Samsa.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Before listening to anyone on this, ask if they are creationist. If they are, ignore them.
"We found we could disrupt mating, tunneling and reproduction," Hofstetter said. "We could even make the beetles turn on each other, which normally they would not do."
I wonder if this works on Democrats as well as it does on bark beetles. Maybe this is the real reason why they hate Rush Limbaugh so much. Keep it up Rush, we may have found a way to handle the population explosion!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"They decided to fight the beetles by using the 'nastiest, most offensive sounds' that they could think of. These sounds included recordings of Guns & Roses, Queen, Rush Limbaugh"
Someone please introduce these guys to crunk for some really shitty noise (i refuse to call it music), hell, let them experience the high quality sounds of this:
The Greatest band in the world, Brokencyde!
I'm not offended by G&R or Queen, i actually like both bands, but yea, they're not metal. Not in a long shot.
Rush: Ok caller, you're on the air..
Caller: [puts phone next to stereo and blasts rush with "Eleanor Rigby"]
Rush: RAWWRRRRRRGH! [crash][bang][stab]
None of the bands listed were Heavy Metal. Slayer is Metal. Nothing's more annoying than hearing some clueless civilian call a band like Queen "Metal"?
Too bad. They all worked really hard in a meat packing plant, but got infections under their fingernails from the poor working conditions. After they couldn't continue working, they were fired and thrown off of the company PPO on a technicality. They went to a hospital for treatment, and walked out a month later with $250,000 in medical bills. This destroyed their credit, so they were unable to get a decent apartment in a safe neighborhood. After struggling for years to get ahead, the beetles wondered... could they have stayed on and helped to try and advance the cause of science?
Or was it better to follow the advice of a narrow-minded, bigoted, meritless, and anti-human demagogue simply because he had a microphone. They realized that he was right all along. Societal progress can only be accomplished by performing some menial task for someone else. Everything else is just a waste of time.
Those poor little creatures will blow their brains out when confronted with half the music produced in the 90's.
The study authors compared the response of insect pests to playing Rush Limbaugh to their response to playing nothing at them. Readers are going to concluded from this that insect pests are, like liberals, aggravated by conservative speech. Yet it's a bogus conclusion on the basis of that evidence. The correct experiment to perform to divine the political feelings of insect pests would be one which measured the differential response of insects to Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken.
But seriously. If you wanted to study the response of insects to sound then choose sounds for your stimulus set with which vary by known quantities along physical dimensions such as amplitude and frequency. Or use an ecological approach and choose sounds from the insect's natural environment, such as those generated by prey and predators. The choice of stimulus set in the experiment was pretty retarded. Of course it was chosen to be humorous to liberals. Humor in science can be great. But not one-sided political humor which compromises the integrity of the science.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Queen and Guns&Roses are considered heavy metal now? And this is "science" is it?
that "the most annoying sound" his colleague, Reagan McGuire, "could think of was Rush Limbaugh or rock music."
Pfft. Clearly an Abba fan. Or he sits around with his nose in the air as he listens to his collection of "thinking man's music" on reel to reel tape or his $2500 oil balanced, laser tracked turntable.
The Hercules beetle video *was* cool, though.
At least my moms not the only idiot who hates rush limbaugh
See, in many places where there is a bark beetle problem, the population is pretty conservative so listening to Rush is a pleasure; win-win.
That's not really true either...
Bark Beetles don't like Rush Libaugh but Dung Beetles eat the stuff up.
More realistically, it appears that Limbaugh and the heavy metal music didn’t have much of an effect, other than being unusual at first and causing some disturbance until the beetles got used to the noise:
...holy shit, did I just read what I think I just read?
Somebody get 4chan on the line, they’re going to love this...
To base a "conclusion" that science is a lost discipline on one study is ridiculous. That said, the experimental design of this is fine. They provided four different treatments to test the effect of "dynamic music" (FTA - and this counts at two treatments), loud conversation, and natural cues the insects would understand. The utilized their educated opinion (based on personal experience) to come up with their hypothesis and to design their test treatments, and had a control that was subjected to no noise. They observed the behavior and came to the conclusion that beetle's response is selective to known cues, as opposed to just noise (which could be new information, or simply add to a body of evidence that already exists - which is a primary mechanism in the scientific method). Next up, they plan on refining their experiment by focusing on ultra-sonic noise as a treatment for infestation as opposed to simply loud noise.
If you're complaining that their hypothesis and treatments had bias, well that's always the case: both of these are based on prior experience and knowledge, which is inherently biased. The method was not biased and proper controls were in-place. I'm sure they could have exposed it to very loud recordings of Keith Olberman to similar effect. Again, slashdotters provide more evidence that they know little of actual scientific method. Go back to your virtually useless sys-admining and keep your nose out of things you don't understand.
2 years ago KDawson would've had 4 articles on the front page about this... Now? More AGW-esque science about how they've "proven" that even bugs are irritated by Rush Limbaugh...
And the Obama article? >cricketcricket
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
Don't worry, Mr. Anonymous, Timothy posted it, and it seems to be getting more traffic.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/02/11/1822225
Do I need to point out that Rush is "annoying" for the actual words he says and not the sound he actually makes? This experiment is completely absurd, unless they engineered beetles capable of understanding English (or politics).
Now, that would have been impressive.
Look down a bit further. I got modded troll for insulting Republicans, too. I'm an equal opportunity asshole.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I feel like my IQ dropped just from having to see this asinine post.
That was his plan all along.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How is this political trolling? Making fun or Rush Limbaugh? He is not a politician. Or are you the troll? I noticed you kindly included the word 'fag' did you imply that mod-points are like piles of sticks? Or did you carelessly use homophobic slurs because you are afraid of what the rest of the world thinks?
"they're not metal."
LMFAO. I smell someone born in the 90s.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
best part is i read about this two days ago, and the ACTUAL truth is that neither rush limbaugh or heavy metal were very effective; it was only when the researchers started using sounds that, you know, MADE SENSE, that it became effective. They blasted the sounds the beetles themselves make when they are agitated and aggressive.
Yeah, the researchers are the assholes here, because when they wanted to blast loud and offensive sounds the first things they thought of were heavy metal and rush limbaugh. what a bunch of assholes, more concerned about denigrating things they don't like and scoring snark points than doing actual thinking about what might be most offensive to beetles.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
It's no surprise that Republicans are so oppressed.
The republicans aren't oppressed, they are just disliked because they are hypocritical dickheads. They are about the most pampered pack of 'victims' I have ever seen.
I con only imagine how they would whine and carry on if they actually were oppressed...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You need to fix your nose, 70's kid here.
They are Scared and jealous of the manliness.
...go play them some ICP, that stuff makes me want to kill MYSELF.
Hearing ICP makes me want to kill ICP. If we were to assume that hearing ICP makes you want to kill ICP, then based off of your statement, I have to conclude that you are a member of ICP and kill you.
Obviously the "Scientists" wanted to get into the news with their little science lab project which had not much science involved with it.
Now these are the clowns getting money for research rather than manned spaceflight and the ignorant left are following right along because it is the era of Jon Stewart political thought. Make people laugh, ridicule the other side and they wont notice that our liberties are more in danger from the left than when the right was in charge. At least when the republicans were running things we had a news media that would take them to task for the decisions they made.
Instead of asking the present administration why they advocate warrantless location finding with gps enabled phones the cronies in the press are asking the administration what they think about some ignorant woman writing notes on her palm or why the president took 3 months longer deliberating on what kind of dog than his decision to provide more corporate welfare than any president before him.
Slashdotters should think more critically than this
Yeah I thought this article was going to be about actual heavy metal.
Thanks for the tip. Now go get the complete discography, and rescue your trees from the bark beetles!
Like arsenic and cadmium?
Well he could acknowledge the lack of morality of asking his housekeeper to score more drugs for him vs asking his doctor.
lol. Yeah, no true black person is a republican. they are *really* white. you know the kind i'm talkin about. ashamed of they skin. actin all uppity.
besides, basically every GOP convention i've been to was quickly "followed" by a kkk meeting...coincidence? don't let 'em pull that abe lincoln crap either.
I mean literally, humans were put on this Earth by God in present form less than 10,000 years ago.
"58% actually view them as obstructionists"
I wonder what the percentage was back when Bush was president and the Democrats were blocking every nominee he had, especially Eric Estrada (and they were blocking him for reasons of racial pandering, not even over a real issue!).
kills Ringo. More news at 11.
Guns and Roses? Maybe a few beetle deaths.
One Hate Eternal album however, would level the entire colony.
Only on slashdot . . .
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Overtly-political pseudo-scientific claptrap "science" deserves overtly-political pseudo-analytical claptrap "analysis".
I don't care what your politics are, but Rush Limbaugh is a zit upon the ass of American culture any way you look at it.
Play Command HQ online
Tell me why the failed tests, meaning Limbaugh sound tests, was the major focus of TFA and the TFA on slashdot? 2/3 of the article describes in detail how Limbaugh testing worked, then 1/3 on what actually worked.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Tee hee. Silly scientists. Limbaugh is annoying. A thousand laughs. How original! Cutting edge! How.... EDGY!
Did they do a double blind study including Al Franken?
No? Didn't think so.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
If he was the zit on his ass that kept him from being drafted he'd be recursive.
what a bunch of assholes, more concerned about denigrating things they don't like and scoring snark points than doing actual thinking
Sounds like scientists in general today.
The researchers next decided to record and manipulate the beetle-produced sounds. They focused on an aggression call produced by males of the "tree killer" Dendroctonus species.
...
This was particularly graphic when the researchers played the manipulated sounds right as a male and female beetle were about to mate.
Hofstetter said his team would "watch in horror as the male beetle would tear the female apart."
Beetle stuff!!! How long before the scientists have NOW banging down their door? Maybe they can play some of those altered Rush Limbaugh tapes. NOW activists + high volume Limbaugh shows. Imagine the carnage!
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."