Science disproved by seagull

A special sciencey dispatch from Eoinin McAlpine of the Mobar Gazette

God-hating scientists and the BBC say it's one of the most expensive and technologically complex machines in the world, but that didn't prevent the Large Thingy Collider from being dismantled entirely by a seagull.

The £4.4 billion 'Satan Machine' overheated after the seagull, possibly sent by Jesus Himself, dropped a piece of bread into a high voltage installation which was probably diverting taxpayer funds from something more meaningful.

The problem was noticed by interweb boffins who were monitoring LTC data online, presumably taking only a brief respite from their usual pestering of hardworking journalists via confusing web hate-site Twitter.

Hilariously, it's not the first setback for the anti-God machine. After being switched on last year in an effort to eradicate family values, it broke down within days due to a leak of helium, which is understood to be the party drug currently en vogue with Kids These Days.

The LTC attempts to hasten the spreading of immorality by firing family values campaigners into each other at almost the speed of light. This creates a vacuum, which is filled almost instantly by hardcore pornography, crack cocaine and massive amounts of gayness.

The device's experiments are expected to bring about the end of the world as soon as the problem of divine intervention can be solved.

Unwilling as usual to accept the existence of God, the series of technical glitches the LTC has suffered has resulted in some members of the notoriously carnivorous scientific community speculating the machine is being sabotaged - by itself. Dr Miles Dyson mumbled something about the LTC being self-aware, adding that its obvious mechanical depression and fondness for self-harm was pretty much the only thing saving humanity from total and utter destruction.

Some physicists have said that time-travelling particles from the future could be damaging the machine in an attempt to thwart any further experiments. Crazy old Dr Emmett Brown warned of possible disruptions to the space-time continuum and insisted that people keep their speed below 88mph.

Cancer jab and booze turns girls into lying floozies, studies find

Alcohol and the HPV vaccine are creating a generation of young hussies hell-bent on drinking themselves to oblivion while tempting unsuspecting men into illicit encounters in WKD sodden hotel rooms before blaming the whole thing on male trickery, it was claimed today.

A study of 200 harlots in Greater London found up to 75% of them rated innocuous 'date-rape drugs' as a significant risk factor in sexual assaults, instead of real causes such as short skirts, high heels, and shameless flirting. Many said they would attribute symptoms such as sickness, blackouts and dizziness to Rohypnol or GHB poisoning despite the far more likely explanation that ladies simply can't hold their drink properly - especially when it comes to beer.

A local alcoholic explained: 'Ha! Wimmin, eh? Can't hold their drink. I've sheen girlsh shtop after only a couple of lagersh in cashe they get shloshed - pfft! I've had eight pintsh thish morning and I'm fine.'

Dr Adam Burgess of the University of Kent agreed that young women were probably just making it up when blaming blackouts and unexpected nookie on 'date-rape drugs': 'There have hardly been any cases where it has been proved that sedatives such as rohypnol and GHB have been used in a rape incident. Yet it has been a storyline that has appeared in virtually every TV soap. Maybe that tells us something about the programmes these women are watching.'

The study comes as a survey of pre-pubescant proto-strumpets found that the HPV vaccine probably might encourage some young girls to maybe be a bit more promiscuous, or not. Alarmingly, as many as 100% of school girls aged 12 and 13 said that the HPV vaccine made them feel protected from getting cervical cancer, while a massive 1 in 7 girls confused by the question and unsure what 'promiscuous' meant, said that the jab would make them 'take more risks'.

Unnamed family groups and imaginary experts expressed fears that HPV would lead to a rise in unplanned pregnancies and a fall in house prices. One girl said: 'I don't like jabs. They hurt my arm.'

More: NHS Choices

Wind turbine syndrome: Who to believe?

"Living close to wind farms can lead to a greater risk of heart disease, panic attacks and migraines, according to a study.

The farms can cause 'wind turbine syndrome', the symptoms of which also include tinnitus, vertigo and sleep deprivation"

...said a journalist, yesterday.

But a scientist added...

"This study provides no conclusive evidence that wind turbines have an effect on health or are causing the set of symptoms described here as ‘wind turbine syndrome’. The study design was weak, the study was small and there was no comparison group.

Asking this particular group about their symptoms prior to their exposure to wind turbines was not a sufficient ‘control’ measure. Many of the participants were reportedly already convinced that wind turbines were to blame for their symptoms and were actively trying to move out of their homes or had already moved."

Allergic to microwaves! How Wi-Fever leaves DJ Steve in imagined agony

We've all heard of people with real medical conditions such as agoraphobia or being ginger, that tragically prevent them stepping out of doors.

But spare a thought for Steve Miller, who is unable to set foot in most ordinary public places because of an entirely imaginary disease.

The opportunistic hypochondriac claims he is allergic to Wi-Fi and that the suspiciously invisible beams make him feel dizzy, confused and nauseous whenever he comes near a wireless hotspot or laptop. DJ Steve, who is apparently best known by his stagename Afterlife, told the Sun: ‘I feel like an exile on my own planet. It’s almost impossible to find somewhere without Wi-Fi nowadays.'

Although there is no research to support the existence of Wi-Fi allergy, or Wi-Fever as we have decided to call it, experts at The Daily Mail say one in 50 people suffer from the make-believe condition, also known as electromagnetic sensitivity. Studies like this, which found that participants who mistakenly believed they had been exposed to Wi-Fi signals were just as likely to report symptoms of Wi-Fever as participants who had actually been exposed, should probably just be ignored.

It is unclear why DJ Steve does not experience Wi-Fever in the vicinity of other sources of electromagnetic radiation, such as mobile phones, televisions, and visible light.

Coincidentally, DJ Steve's new Afterlife album, titled 'Electrosensitive', is out now on Defected Records.

This Quail was brought to you by Wireman.

To submit a Quail, click here.

The Mail's war on IVF

While inferior news sources have been wasting valuable column inches this week reporting such trivialities as a disputed election in some obscure middle-eastern state, The Daily Mail has spent the last few days pursuing a much greater agenda - the tyranny of helping barren couples have children.

Both 'Malignant' Melanie Phillips and Bel 'Looney' Mooney were wheeled out yesterday to wax polemical on the horrors of in vitro fertilisation, following a weekend of eye widening leaders revealing the shocking incompetence at the heart of Britain's IVF industry. Collectively, the Mail's elder matrons spewed an impressive 2,300 words of outspoken diatribe across two full-page articles telling worried readers just why they should be so nervous about the Godlessly futuristic baby making process.

So just why should you be so suspicious of IVF?

Well firstly, as Allison Pearson screamed only two weeks ago, the method allows selfish grannies such as Elizabeth Adeney the opportunity to bring poor infants into the world only to face a childhood of shame as the hands of their contemporaries mocking them for having an old bat for a mother. 66 year old Adeney 'thinks of no one but her blinkered self', spat Pearson after charmingly revealing that the sight of crusty, silver maned Adeney on the front page of The Mail holding her fatherless sprog made her 'shout and hurl the paper across the kitchen.'

So angry was Pearson's rhetoric that several readers complained of bile literally frothing from their newspaper into their cereal as they opened the paper over breakfast. 'I was really annoyed', said Alan from Royston. 'I'd used up the last few bits from the bottom of the packet of Bran Flakes and didn't have another box. I went to work hungry thanks to Allison Pearson.'

But although Allison's disgust with old people having children was generally dismissed as 'a bit silly even for her', she had unwittingly ignited a new Daily Mail agenda. The IVF issue was to explode in a flash of embryonic outrage only a fortnight later.

Alongside a double page spread entitled 'Ten seconds that ruined our lives', Bel Mooney managed to retain her composure long enough to tell readers that having a child 'isn't a divine right'.

Casually mentioning the horror of the white couple who were left with a brown baby after a disastrous IVF mix up, Ms Mooney concluded within four paragraphs that the Mail's recent pearl-clutching coverage of human artificial insemination had raised 'serious questions about the fertility treatment upon which so many couple [sic] pin their hopes.'

'Perilous it is', Bel continued with the gravitas of a 900 year old green Jedi master, before revealing with incredulity that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority recently claimed arrogantly that 'it's impossible to eliminate human error' in IVF processes. And, for good measure, Bel even quoted some science: 'American scientists found that IVF babies were up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from birth defects than those conceived naturally.'

Realising she was losing hundreds of readers for every percentage mentioned, Bel exposed the dark underbelly of the debate, and why you should really be scared of IVF even if you don't understand what it is:

'Behind all these complex issues lies a more simple question: what has brought so many people to the point where they place a faith in the science of IVF that would once have been placed in God (or at least nature)?', she asked with dazzling use of rhetoric while simultaneously taking it as given that childbirth is no longer entrusted to God or Gaia.

Yes. IVF is Godlessness, pure and simple. Like a journalistic Mormon concerned by the corrupting influence of technology upon our frail but sacred human form, Bel pointed out that 'It's impossible not to worry that we have reached an unhealthy state when too many people believe they have a divine right to a child.'

This is the path to a new Gomorrah, with women running amok, working and socialising to excess, using their bodies for things other than God intended. IVF allows these 21st Century harlots to remain scandalously unchaste for far longer than the holy scriptures ever foresaw: 'Few professional women considering having children until they are well into their thirties...It's as if they are thinking that if they fail to conceive, IVF will come to the rescue.'

Adding political balance to Bel's holy argument, 'Malevolent' Mel Phillips weighed in but six pages later to ask just why, oh why, for goodness' sake, 'are taxpayers' picking up the bill for IVF?'

Unable to believe that Mooney had written an entire article criticising a medical issue without blaming everything on the Stalinist state-funded cash vacuum that is the NHS, Mel quickly elucidated readers that 'the NHS is a health service, not a happiness service', and therefore shouldn't be spending YOUR money on women too lazy to conceive naturally.

The shocking truth about IVF is that it is provided free by a 'Government that controls the purse strings', a bit like how Lenin wanted it. 'What's wrong is that...it's our money, and we should be entitled to decide how to spend it', Mel wept. Her impassioned plea to stop spending tax pounds on such frivolities as children certainly hit the mark; a recent poll shows 72% of Daily Mail readers in agreement that IVF should cease to be provided by the state. The money would almost certainly be better spent on proper things like Britain's woefully underfunded Trident project.

In case there were any readers left uncertain of Mel's message that cash should not be wasted on ridiculous socialist 'improvement' schemes, she yelled definitively: 'The era of paying central government to deliver public services such as health and education should be declared to be over.'

To allow IVF is to ignore the October revolution taking place under our noses. So blinded are we by babies, and science, and Robert Winston's moustache, that we have allowed the State to take away our faith in God and sperm.

In vitro fertilisation is a dystopian nightmare to be sure. But the last words on the matter must be left to pour forth from Melanie's mouth like spittle from a rabid hound:

"Creating potential babies in this way only to dispose of them has undoubtedly helped erode respect for human life"

Twitter breaks your brain, say experts

Twitter is breeding a generation of emotionless sociopaths hell bent on nothing less than the total annihilation of humankind, a study hasn't shown.

According to hypnotherapist and BBC 3 psychologist Felix Economakis, the machine gun quick stream of 24-hour news, email, social networking sites, microwave ovens and colour TVs are overloading our brains with microscopic digital germs of doom.

Emitted by many common household appliances and absolutely everything on the internet, the so-called 'Gigagerms' wreak havoc with the easily corrupted empathy cells and compassion enzymes that make up the brain's squishy 'moral compass'.

Dr Economakis believes that web surfers have been at risk of losing their morals since the birth of broadband, but the problem has been amplified by the surge in popularity of evil social networking video game Twitter.

He said: 'Our poor brains are definitely suffering information overload...Our brains' attention levels are finite. When everything is screaming at us, we start withdrawing so that normally nice people become unempathetic. Brains brains brains.'

Twitter, originally known as Skynet when it was founded by parent company Cyberdyne in the late eighties, poses the most significant risk because updates are presented too quickly for the sluggish human mind to process correctly, the studies show.

Such an 'information overload can trigger the brain's 'fight or flight' response - and sideline more compassionate, thoughtful responses to news and information', Daily Mail science editor David Derbyshire added nonsensically.

Preliminary findings from similar research have indicated that Facebook and Twitter usage is also associated with reduced Midi-Chlorian counts, and may even reverse evolution when used with third party applications such as Tweetdeck which speed up the stream of information crashing into users' faces.

An expert said: 'These studies are irrefutable, and are based on rock-solid science. Everyone should stop using these silly internet things and buy more newspapers before something awful happens.'

World to end in three years, sort of, maybe, say experts

Nearly everybody will die on September 22nd 2012, it emerged today.

Especially you.

In a chilling and factually accurate account of the future, Michael Hanlon, the Daily Mail's science editor, described in graphic detail the full horror of the catastrophe awaiting Britain in just three year's time.

'When it comes', intoned Hanlon, who posesses GCSEs in both physics and chemistry, '[it] will be beautiful at first. Pillars of incandescant green writhe like gigantic serpants across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.'

But the stratospheric light show will be little more than a deadly precursor to months of cataclysmic horror as our beloved life-giver, the Sun, begins hurling gigantic globules of white hot plasma towards our innocent planet.

While millions gaze upwards in wonder at the many coloured lights painting trails across our normally grey sky, high energy particles will have already begun wreaking havoc with our electrical grids, leaving vast swathes of Britain without power.

Hanlon, a fan of dramatic page breaks, continued forbodingly: 'By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air.

Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.'

And if the terrifying new revelations seem like the ramblings of a disturbed street prophet with a cardboard sign reading 'Teh ends are ny!' dangling from his neck, think again: Hanlon's evidence is based on an article that appeared a month ago in The New Scientist - a clever person publication produced by real science journalists.

Improving upon the original piece by copying and pasting the first two paragraphs before writing eleven additional enitrely imagined scenes of blood-curdlingly exciting death and destruction, Hanlon described a post-apocalyptic landscape unimagined by the timid mind of the original author: 'By the end of 2013, 100,000 Europeans have died of starvation. The dead go unburied, the sick untreated.'

Although the article as it appears in New Scientist contains no estimate of the cost to human life, Hanlon's forecasts are 'probably accurate', said an insider.



The grim vision follows other real cataclysms that actually happened after being predicted in The Daily Mail, such as the Millennium Bug, a 50ft tall woodlouse that wreaked havoc in several major British cities as it crushed skyscrapers and bridges, scurrying around in search of a giant warm, damp crevice in which to nest, and the black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider which swallowed Earth shortly before it was shut down by health and safety inspectors.

Even more worryingly, the solar superstorm is not without precedent. As Hanlon, who has done his research, explained: 'It is something that has happened before - not that long ago - and indeed has the potential to arrive every 11 years.'

In 1989 a solar flare caused a stream of stellar plasma to enter the Earth's atmosphere, leaving nearly 6 million Canadians without electricity for almost half a day as magnetic storms affected Quebec's power grid.

And although Hanlon acknowledged that, actually, 'it may not happen in 2012' or even 2023, ' the year of the next solar maximum', he recommended that we should all be really, really worried and start stockpiling candles right now.

A scientist said: 'This is not just rampant fear mongering or exaggeration, and won't come back to make the writer look silly when nothing happens in three years because the Mayans predicted the same thing a thousand years ago, and everyone knows they did all sorts of mystical stuff and rode around in chariots literally made by the gods themselves. Do you think you know better than them? No, didn't think so.'

Mushrooms Cure Cancer

Eating mushrooms every day 'slashes' the risk of breast cancer by two thirds, according to new research by science men.

The findings come after an unrelated study that we can't find a link for revealed that mushrooms mirror the effect of aromatose inhibitors - breast cancer drugs which block production of oestrogen, also known as the 'cancer feeding hormone'.

40,000 British women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and the virus will affect one in nine women at some point in their lives. Diet is thought to be a key factor.

Rates of the disease in China - where they eat mushrooms a lot - are four to five tines lower than in some western countries.

'Scientists found women consuming a third of an ounce of fresh mushrooms every day were 64 per cent less likely to develop a tumour', said The Daily Mail.

However, statist New Labour propaganda mouthpiece the BBC irresponsibly attempted to discourage women from getting cancer, claiming that the results merely showed a correlative association between Chinese lifestyles and cancer rates - rather than the truth, that mushrooms destroy cancer cells and can counter-act the harmful effects of poor diet and a lack of exercise.

The dumbed down, badly run, smug, bloated, leftie broadcast corporation said: 'Researcher Min Zhang and colleagues stressed that their study does not prove cause-and-effect.'

They added facetiously: 'Large scientific studies have proven that the best way to reduce your risk of many cancers is to eat a healthy balanced diet.'

Wine Prevents And Causes Cancer

For millions of middle-class Britons, relaxing in front of The Good Life with a nice glass of English Pinot Noir while the wife does the dishes is the perfect way to unwind after a busy day at the office. And according to new research, it could be just what the doctor ordered.

A study has found that people who enjoy a daily glass of wine more than halved their risk of developing Barrett's Oesophagus, a malignant condition that can lead to throat cancer. Poor person drinks, such as beer and hard spirits, were found to have no beneficial effects, however.

Gastroenterologist Dr Douglas Corley said: 'We already knew red wine was good for the heart, so perhaps here is another added benefit.'

The findings come a week after it was reported that wine increases the risk of developing mouth and throat cancer by 168 per cent.

However, that report was undermined by previous research suggesting that red wine reduced the risk of smokers developing lung cancer by 60%. A study four years beforehand had already established that men who drank red wine were 13% less cancerous than teetotallers.

But this assertion was cast into doubt by an earlier study proving that both wine and beer increased the chance of catching liver and bowel cancer by a fifth.

The news overturned previous research showing that red wine reduced the incidence of bowel cancer by 11%.

Conversely, Daily Mail science editor David Derbyshire revealed last October that wine not only gives you cancer, but Parkinson's disease and heart attacks as well.

Only eleven months earlier, misguided Bacchic revellers had toasted the news that just half a glass of wine a day could prevent cancer.

The party didn't last long - six months on, it emerged that wine increased the risk of breast cancer by 50%. The revelation was re-revealed the following month, putting the risk up by an additional 50%.

But vinophiles weren't worried, as a previous article had described how red wine had anticarcinogenic properties and could shrink tumours. Combined with the powerful cancer crushing properties of wine, berry and rice pills, drinkers were confident of continued good health.

However, men were warned last year that while they might be safe from breast cancer, they were likely to be left withered and emasculated by drinking red wine or beer and eating nuts.

And there was no escape for those hopeless drunks who, too terrified to drink a traditional ale or box of cheap wine, turned to mouthwash - that kills you too.

Finally, the restorative effects of wine were confirmed when research found that back pain could be cured by a pleasant glass of Cabernet, while fat people were overjoyed that a red wine pill could let them eat all the burgers they could ever wish for without gaining a pound.

One local man said: 'I just don't know what's safe to eat or drink any more. If I drink wine, I'll get cancer. If I don't, I'll get cancer. I might just stop eating and drinking anything at all.'

Facebook Gives You Cancer

For millions, logging on to the social networking website Facebook has become an integral part of daily routine, allowing them to keep track of friends they never speak to and stalk attractive co-workers.

But few are aware that every second spent mindlessly pouring over pictures from Sharon's hen night or reading Nathan's 25 truths increases the chance of catching cancer by up to 100%. Joining 'groups' - pages which multiple Facebook users can join to express either their hatred or love of common interests - is thought to cause strokes and elephantitis of the scrotum.

A study carried out by psychologist Dr Aric Sigman found that social isolation 'could alter the way genes work and upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries' - just like AIDS does.

Sigman's research, published in Biologist, described how social interaction has plummeted since 1987 while the average person's use of electronic media has doubled, resulting in a dark and lonely world where people no longer speak to each other in person or buy newspapers, but instead spend all of their time virtually 'poking' each other and sharing pictures of cats.

Although social networking sites such as Facebook were originally thought to help people connect with others and make them think they have more friends than they really do, Dr Sigman said the reality was frighteningly different: 'Social networking sites should allow us to embellish our social lives, but what we find is very different', he said, adding that 'These are not tools that enhance, they are tools that displace.’

Sigman - who also believes that TV kills people - warned that people are becoming increasingly deprived of real face-to-face personal contact, which encourages 'cuddle chemicals' that make people feel warm and fuzzy and help prevent cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia. Such cuddley molecules are absent in the type of bleak electronic communications found on Facebook. But not MySpace.

Perfectly Safe Food is 'Perfectly Safe' Shocker

Ovivores throughout Britain rejoiced today as tabloid newspapers finally allowed them to eat unfertilised baby chickens again without fear of succumbing to heart disease, cancer or any number of unrelated terminal maladies.

Having scared everyone 10 months ago with a timely Easter warning of the terrifying dangers of eating eggs, The Daily Mail today announced that they had in fact eggexaggerated the whole thing and deliberately misrepresented scientific research so they could sell more newspapers. A source said, 'Well, we all make mistakes. Just some more than others. Deliberately, every day.'

A number of other newspapers agreed that eating eggs not only doesn't give you cancer or cause heart attacks, but suggested that they might even be good for you and taste nice with ham.

Bizarrely, almost every single article included some bewilderingly unfunny variation on the phrase 'Go to work on an egg' - an advertising slogan from the 1950s, when everything in Britain was great unlike today, which is rubbish because of knife-wielding single mothers and homosexuals on benefits.

Eggs had originally been blamed for causing heart disease and increasing cholestoral based on a study that found that people who ate eggs tended to be older and fatter, more likely to smoke and drink and less likely to exercise than average. Therefore, it was clear that it was eggs, not the fags, booze and obesity, that were to blame for incidences of strokes and heart disease.

Experts revealed that a number of other foodstuffs also might not kill you, including bread, water and chicken McNuggets - but recommended that people remain scared of everything they put into their mouths just in case.

An NHS Spokesman may or may not have said: 'But....but, we said all of this the same day that stupid, unfounded article came out in April 2008. Nobody listened!', before sighing dejectedly and trudging back to the office, never to be heard of again.

Coffee Gives Your Children Cancer

Coffee gives your children cancer, doctors didn't say today after not carrying out exhaustive research into the link that doesn't exist between caffeine and babies.

The dire warning, as yet unsupported by evidence and based on research that is yet to take place, will come as a shock to the millions of pregnant mothers gagging for a pick me up after a morning's vomiting and coal eating.

Researcher Dr Marcus Cooke of Leicester University said there was a ‘good likelihood’ the study would make a connection but pointed out that it he hadn't actually started any research whatsoever yet. Experts recommended that pregnant women should begin getting scared straight away in preparation for the results and stop their caffeine intake immediately, lest they spawn little cancer babies covered in pustulous tumours.

The unfounded but entirely cromulent 'caffeinogenic' link is based on previous research suggesting that caffeine damages DNA, cutting cells' ability to fend off radioactive cancer rays such as cosmic winds and microwave ovens. Such cell embaddening symptoms have been recorded in children with Leukaemia, which is a cancer. The formula (caffeine+DNA) x babies=cancer clearly illustates just how dangerous coffee, or indeed tea, can be if used during pregnancy.

Dr Cooke added definitively: 'Although there’s no evidence at all of a link between caffeine and cancer, we’re putting two and two together...The idea seems plausible'.

An insider said: 'It would be best for expecting mothers, who are doubtless already quite paranoid about the possibility of any one of a number of actual complications, to take this speculative conclusion very seriously indeed and keep buying The Daily Mail which will almost certainly reveal the cure for cancer any day now'.

Mouthwash DEFINITELY Gives You Cancer, Says Man

Smug people with minty fresh breath were warned to stop being so smug today, because they've probably got cancer.

According to an Australian, using mouthwash is as dangerous as heavy drinking, smoking, or chewing asbestos. Professor Michael McCullough, who reviewed past studies on oral cancer, concluded that mouthwash is fatally dangerous and should carry health warnings and hazardous material stickers warning unwitting consumers of the carcinogenic properties of "tramps' favourites" such as Listerine and Dentyl PH.

McCullough, a halitosis sufferer, said: 'We believe there should be warnings. If it was a facial cream that had the effect of reducing acne but had a four-to-five-fold increased risk of skin cancer, no one would be recommending it.' The alcohol in mouthwash is dangerous because it allows cancer-causing substances such as nicotine to penetrate the lining of the mouth more easily and cause harm, and smokers and alcoholics who use mouthwash are more likely to contract oral cancer.

This, obviously, is the fault of the mouthwash rather than the fags and booze.

McCullough went on to helpfully highlight the difference between mouthwash and alcoholic drinks such as lager and Babycham: 'The most significant difference is that one is for pleasure and the other is being recommended as a health product.'

Despite a panoply of scientists queueing up to criticise McCullough's findings, one newspaper decided that it was beyond any doubt that all mouthwashes cause oral cancer in all cases and cited 'experts' who agreed. It is unclear who the experts who agreed with McCullough are, but it is thought that they wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from powerful mouthwash cartels - known as 'Big Mouthwash' in some countries.

* Update *

If you were in any doubt as to the veracity of Prof. McCullough's claims, don't be. The London Metro agrees that mouthwash is cancerous - although their front page headline is irresponsibly less sensationalist than The Mail's, leading some critics to question their commitment to scaring readers.

'Mouthwash "can raise cancer risk"'

...they say.

Eating Crisps Will Give You Cancer

Disturbing evidence has been unearthed that crisps are nothing more than a cancer-delivery agent, designed to give anyone eating them the deadly virus. Scientists have warned consumers to add snacks such as Pringles, Hula Hoops, Ryvita and Tesco Ginger Nut biscuits to the 'Do Not Eat' list of carcinogenic foods, which already contains over 100,000 other dangerous products like jelly, sandwiches, coffee and heroin.

The cancer-causing chemical acrylamide forms when when starch-rich foods are fried, baked, grilled or toasted at high temperatures, and it is thought that New Labour has been deliberately frying as many starchy foods as possible in an attempt to kill of voters who might otherwise support the Conservatives. Evidence suggests that over 90% of Tory voters have eaten crisps in the last 12 months.

Despite the Food Standards Agency's conclusion that acrylamide in crips and other starchy 'death foods' should 'not increase concern about the risk to human health' and that 'people do not need to change their diet or alter the way in which they cook their food', critics have warned that the situation is indeed very scary and that things that you might eat every day might kill you and your family. Ignoring the FSA's dangerously irresponsible advise, concerned and socially responsible news publications have been carrying informative warnings in the hope of enlightening the general public to the horrors lurking in everyday foods, waiting to eat your insides.