Mercury planet! Rat memories! Gray hair! Cosmic blast! Killer lipids! Mind engagement! Cuban seas! Model blimps! And the real reason that women be squeakin! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—salaciously!

  • The planet Mercury, how does it work? Haha, but seriously, the planet Mercury has lava plains, giant craters... lots of interesting stuff. Why don't you two just sit and talk? I'll just leave you alone, wink!
  • Do you know what scientists are doing to rats now? They're turning their memories on and off like a switch, in the name of "science." Sure, and this has nothing to do with how you "accidentally" touched that rat inappropriately after the lab party, right? Sure.
  • Now we know more than ever about why hair turns grey. I'm guessing cause the color drains out and whatnot? Didn't read it all, I don't have that problem. Ladies.
  • Astronomers saw a rare cosmic gamma ray blast, and yep, "The culprit looks like a black hole." No, it wasn't Darren.
  • "How Tall Can Trees Grow?" Tall.
  • Yes, it's true that there are drug-resistant "super bug" disease which will kill you no matter how much medicine you take. But now there are special mixtures of fats that kill these super bugs. Does it make you feel bad that even deadly bacteria are better at diets than you? Well it shouldn't, no, I mean that.
  • New research shows that people who are engaged in tasks that require intense concentration often mentally miss other notable events occurring around them at the same time, even fights or other drastic things like, I don't know, a golden monkey, or a hippo dancing, or an exploding rocket ship. Or a naked parasailer, or a bear on a pogo stick, or a jibber-jabbering loony bastard dipsy-doodling with a kangaroo, or what have you.
  • Scientists in Cuba warn that sea levels could rise as much as 30 inches by the year 2100. "In Cuba," they added, and then everyone was like, "Whew!"
  • Look at this old guy who built a big-ass model blimp in his garage. Big old blimp there.
  • Turns out that women speak in a higher-pitched voice when they're talking to a man that they think is attractive. So that's why ladies are always squeaking like that around me, assuming it's not the fact that I live on a planet whose atmosphere is composed primarily of helium!

[Photo: Shutterstock]