Pigs In Zen (Or Maybe They're Just Drunk)
What animals are truly most like human beings? Humpback whales, who mate for life and communicate with complex, melodic songs? The upright-walking, chronic masturbator bonobo chimps? Bears, who seem to want to inhabit our homes and drive our cars? An article in today's New York Times points to a different answer, and one that shouldn't surprise anyone who's looked in the mirror lately. As Natalie Angier reports, "Last week, an international team of biologists released the first draft sequence of the pig genome." According to team-leader Lawrence Schook of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "The pig genome compares favorably with the human genome."
Pig hearts are like our hearts, he said, pigs metabolize drugs as we do, their teeth resemble our teeth, and their habits can, too. "I look at the pig as a great animal model for human lifestyle diseases," he said. "Pigs like to lie around, they like to drink if given the chance, they'll smoke and watch TV."
Pigs also understand how mirrors work, and can play videogames with joysticks.
Hell yeah.
The dolphins are laughing at us.
There is a slippery slope between this knowledge and the banning of bacon consumption.
Nooo!!!!
Mmmmm pig…
I'm very impressed with this season's Swine Jeopardy.
Alright, fess up. Which one of you taught pigs how to smoke?
Oh, sure, they "understand" how mirrors work, but they never use them to snort lines of coke. Human tool skills rule.
Yeah, until they can position them above their waterbeds I am not impressed.
Nice one! (That's a good point from K. Depressive, too.)
But be careful what you wish for. I'm sure there will be video of pigs doing all these things on youtube soon enough.
That pig is in St. Croix in the sun, drinking beer, and I am in a cubicle in the Northeast. i give up; the damn pig wins.
So I take it Team-Leader Schook is in favor of shit-rooting.
Does Lindsay Lohan ever work?