Science can be stranger than fiction

I came across a story in New Scientist this month that struck me as some bizarre plot for a b-grade Sci-Fi movie. In short, it describes a parasite that infects rats and mice brains, thus eliminating their fear of cats to ensure that they get eaten, so as to complete their life cycle through the cat.

You have now entered ... the Twighlight Zone! ! !

And today a friend points me to an equally strange account of the life cycle of a particular fluke. This just reinforces my doubt in the ability of any "intelligent designer" coming up with such random lunacy!

On a lighter note, I just don't get this report from the ABC that a material resembling the fictitious Kryptonite (of Superman fame) has been found by researchers in Siberia.

What has me concerned is that apparently ...

Scientists from the Natural History Museum in London, who studied its chemical composition, found it matched the description of kryptonite in the film Superman Returns.

Now, I may not be a scientist, geologist or a chemist, but one thing I do understand is the english language and, in this instance, the word "matched" and I fail to see how any fool could consider these two items to be a match.

The fictitious kryptonite used to thwart Superman glows green and is of a metallic or crystalline makeup, whereas the item discovered in Siberia is white and chalky and will "fluoresce pinkish-orange" when subjected to UV light.

What the ... ?

But seriously, what stunned me the most was that "scientists" actually made the effort to compare their find with a fictitious rock from a DC comic for no apparent reason! Go figure!