The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (9 page)
Read The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool Online
Authors: Wendy Northcutt
Tags: #Humor, #Form, #Anecdotes, #General, #Stupidity, #Essays
Reader Comments:
“A true frond.”
“Power lien strikes again!”
Darwin Award: Ditched
Confirmed True by Darwin
22 NOVEMBER 2007, NEW YORK
Joe, twenty, was drunkenly driving through Wayne County farmland in upstate New York. With the utmost of inebriated care he steered his car directly into a ditch. Knocked over a power line too. Oops! How could he rescue his car from the ditch without getting a DUI?
The only way out
was to steal a nearby farm vehicle and winch the car out himself. So he approached the nearest farmhouse, managed to start a tractor, and motored over to the scene of the crash. With the utmost of inebriated care he then proceeded to drive several tons of metal directly into the downed power line.
Good-bye, Joe.
Hello, Darwin Award.
Reference: democratandchronicle.com
Darwin Award: Copper Kite String
Confirmed True by Darwin
19 MARCH 2006, BELIZE
One string short of a kite.
Benjamin Franklin reputedly discovered that lightning equals electricity when he flew his kite in a lightning storm. However, certain precautions must be taken to avoid sudden electrocution. Kennon, twenty-six, replicated the conditions of Ben Franklin’s experiment but without Ben’s sensible safety precautions.
Kennon was flying a kite with a short string that he had extended with a length of
thin copper wire
. You see, he was an electrician, and copper wire was just handy. The copper made contact with a high-tension line, sending a “terminal” bolt of electrical lightning sizzling toward the man.
Just bad luck? Not according to Kennon’s father, who said his deceased son was an electrician and “should have known better.”
Reference: Belize
Reporter
Reader Comments:
“Let me put it this way, I wouldn’t want him wiring my house!”
“An electrifying experience!”
“Shockingly stupid.”
At Risk Survivor: Revenge of Mother Love
Unconfirmed
An example of temper overriding thoughts of safety.
Father was watching a soccer cup final on TV with his two sons. As Mum set about her seemingly endless rounds of household chores, she bemoaned Father’s lack of interest in washing the car, mowing the lawn, et cetera. Guys, you know the drill.
After ten minutes of ironing and griping she uttered the classic female complaint, “You never pay attention to me!” This met with the usual response from the sofa. “Yeah, in a minute.” This was the final straw. She decided to take charge of the situation.
Dramatically, she huffed into the kitchen and returned with a large pair of scissors, stomped loudly around to the back of the TV, grabbed what she
thought
was the cable, and cut through it with one deft movement of the shears. She then made an involuntarily deft movement herself, flying across the room and crashing against the door into a dazed and electrifried heap.
At that point Father and sons started paying attention to Mum. She survived, and she even laughs about it today. But Father always seems sheepish when the story is told.
“This was the final straw. She decided to take charge.”
Reference: Anonymous eyewitness account
At Risk Survivor: Orca Made Me Do It
Confirmed True by Darwin
15 MARCH 2008, WASHINGTON
Zachary, twenty-nine, said he did it to punish the rich white people for the death of the whales and the depletion of the rain forests. He sought revenge by sawing through a sixty-nine-thousand-volt line.
With a tree saw.
On a long metal pole.
Wearing dishwashing gloves for insulation.
He certainly succeeded in making at least one person “suffer just like the whales and trees.” Thousands of households experienced a temporary loss of power when he shorted out the power lines. Zachary was found lying on his back, with the gloves partially melted on his hands and his pants burned away from his body.
The unlucky environmental activist was flown to a local hospital and is expected to survive.
Reference: islandguardian.com
At Risk Survivor: Molten Copper Shower
Confirmed True by Darwin
9 FEBRUARY 2008, ENGLAND
Police are hunting for a badly scorched copper thief after finding a hacksaw embedded in an eleven-thousand-volt power cable. The would-be thief also left a lit blowtorch at the scene. He is presumed to be badly charred, and not the brightest bulb in the socket.
“The sheer stupidity of cutting through power cables should be glaringly obvious.”
Copper prices have more than doubled in the last four years, sparking a wave of copper thefts across the globe. Thieves targeting copper wire and copper pipes have suffered many fatalities and serious blows.
“The sheer stupidity of cutting through power cables should be glaringly obvious to everyone,” said a spokesperson for the power company. “At the very least it would have created an almighty bang and showered him with molten copper.”
Reference: uk.reuters.com
Urban Legend: Taser Test
STATUS: Urban Legend
Darwin says: “This story from 2004 is an Urban Legend, according to Snopes.com. Since it’s a phenomenal tale of nearly fatal poor judgment, it merits being included among the Darwinian Urban Legends. It is found ‘in the wild’ as a letter….”
Dear Carl,
Last weekend I was at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn looking for a little something special for my wife, Toni. I came across a hundred-thousand-volt pocket Taser. Its disabling effect on an assailant was described as short-lived, with no long-term consequences, but would allow my wife—who would never consider a gun—adequate time to retreat to safety.
WAY TOO COOL!!
Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed, but then I read (yes, read) the instructions. If I pressed the Taser against a metal surface and pushed the button at the same time, I’d see a blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs, to verify that it was working.
Awesome!!!
I have yet to explain to Toni that new burn spot on the face of her microwave.
There I was, home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, right? I sat there in my recliner reading the directions, my cat, Gracie, looking on intently, trusting little soul. I got to thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh-and-blood moving target. I admit I thought about zapping Gracie for a fraction of a second. She is such a sweet cat, but if I was going to give this device to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?
So there I sat in shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand and Taser in another. The directions said a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant, a two-second burst would cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control, and a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water.
A burst longer than three seconds would be a waste of batteries.
I’m sitting there alone, with Gracie looking on, her head cocked to one side as if to say, “Don’t do it.” But I was reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little device couldn’t hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one-second burst, just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and…
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
Jesse Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up from my recliner, and body-slammed us both onto the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, tingling legs, nipples on fire, and testicles nowhere to be found.
SON OF A…That hurt like HELL!
If you ever feel compelled to “mug” yourself with a Taser, you should know that there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that Taser until it is dislodged from your hand by your involuntary violent thrashing about on the floor.
A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was relative), I collected what wits I had left, sat up, and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. How did they get there? My triceps, right thigh, and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it was shot up with novocaine. My bottom lip weighed eighty-eight pounds. And I’m still looking for my testicles!!
I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return.
Still in shock,
Earl
Reference: Urban Legend
By Shelley Batts
Y
ou stand at a precipice looking down. Forty feet below is a water-filled quarry. Your friends are urging you to jump. Although your brain knows the water is shallow, those beers you drank have imbued you with false bravery. With a running start and a barbaric yawp you fling yourself into the air, landing on your head and breaking your neck. You’re dead.
Game over.
What did alcohol do to your brain to make your estimation of risk so far off-base?
The Darwin Awards provide ample evidence that humans have no problem shuffling off this mortal coil as a result of plain old bad decisions. But adding mind-addling drugs to the decision-making process further impairs judgment and increases risk-taking behavior, setting the stage for some amusingly lethal acts of stupidity. From jumping into a bear cage while drunk to partaking in alcohol enemas acute inebriation has been the impetus behind many Darwin Awards.
Some people turn bright red when they consume even a little alcohol. A person’s ability to eliminate alcohol depends on the enzymatic activity of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in the liver. Three genes encode this enzyme. A dominant mutation in one of these genes reduces its ability to break down acetaldehyde, resulting in symptoms of acetyladehyde poisoning—a flushed face and increased heart rate and respiration. People with this mutation are less likely to become alcoholics, but more likely to suffer liver damage from overaccumulation of acetaldehyde.
Alcohol
Besides caffeine, alcohol is the most commonly used legal drug. If you want to be the most popular person at the bar, bring a digital Breathalyzer and test your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) throughout the night. Without fail people will gravitate toward you to measure their own intoxication, often resulting in a contest for the highest BAC. The amount of alcohol circulating in your bloodstream indicates the effects you can expect. BAC levels of 0.03–0.12 percent result in euphoria, which explains why it is a popular social drug. However, as BAC goes up, so does the subjective level of intoxication. Levels of 0.09–0.25 percent induce profound confusion. Levels around 0.35 percent can result in blackout or coma. Levels over 0.4 percent can cause death.
One mechanism of intoxication begins with the metabolism of ethanol into acetaldehyde, which has a depressive effect on the nervous system. Acetaldehyde alters the way that neurotransmitters interact with crucial brain areas. For example, it overstimulates the NMDA pathways in the brain by making receptor proteins more sensitive to the neurotransmitter glutamate. Evidence suggests that experience-driven activity through NMDA receptors wires up neural circuits. When sufficient alcohol is consumed, NMDA receptors get tired from overuse and shut down, resulting in sluggish thought and movements. Alcohol consumption also increases the level of a neurotransmitter called GABA that inhibits brain activity. The affected areas are involved in decision making, the formation of memories, and pleasure-seeking behaviors. Alcohol consumption increases GABA production, thus impairing these brain functions.
After a long night of heavy drinking you may have difficulty remembering what happened the night before. Due to acetaldehyde’s effects on NMDA and GABA, the areas of the brain responsible for capturing new memories were not working well!
As icing on the cake, alcohol alters how you perceive the world. It blurs vision (“beer goggles”) by inducing a sugar-starved state in the visual cortex. It causes vertigo by altering the flow of fluids in the vestibular system, required for proper balance and orientation. Alcohol intoxication also results in delayed response time to environmental stimuli, reducing a person’s ability to protect herself from danger or make quick movements when driving.
The end result of excessive alcohol consumption is a person who is dizzy, uncoordinated, and nearly blind; a person whose sluggish brain is unable to form memories properly, and has limited reasoning and judgment skills. In short, a significantly impaired person who is more likely to make that rash plunge over the precipice into shallow water.
Methamphetamine
Somewhere in America someone is cooking a batch of methamphetamine from a recipe including cough medication and match heads. This highly addictive stimulant can be made from cheap household ingredients and has become a scourge of low-income areas.
“Meth mouth” refers to the advanced tooth decay often seen in heavy methamphetamine users. Causative factors include dry mouth, drug-induced grinding of the teeth, concomitant use of sugary soft drinks and tobacco, and poor oral hygiene. The condition is so disgusting that images of “meth mouth” have been used in billboard campaigns to discourage methamphetamine use.
Meth reaches straight into the pleasure centers of the brain, specifically the mesolimbic reward pathways, causing euphoria, excitement, paranoia, and compulsive behavior. It is a potent psychostimulant, increasing the release of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. This induces the fight-or-flight response. Heart rate, blood sugar, and blood pressure increase; the blood vessels dilate; and energy seems boundless. Such a state can hardly be maintained, and the inevitable crash—low levels of neurotransmitters—is as miserable as the high was pleasurable.
Meth is also toxic to neurons. A high level of dopamine causes reactive oxygen molecules to kill brain cells. So in addition to altering short-term brain chemistry, meth also causes long-term brain damage.
In a nutshell, a person using meth is in an irritable, panicked state. Her brain and body have been chemically tricked into defending her from nonexistent mortal danger. This paves the way for erratic and dangerous decisions. Someone wishing to avoid a Darwin Award would be well advised to eschew recipes based on match heads and cough syrup!
Crack Cocaine
Crack cocaine is a highly addictive and impure form of cocaine. Like methamphetamine, crack releases massive amounts of dopamine into the brain, resulting in euphoria. But crack’s effect lasts only about fifteen minutes. When dopamine levels spike and plummet, the user’s brain function is severely depressed, which motivates the user to find any way to reach that high again. Actions that once were unthinkable, like violent crime, now seem perfectly reasonable if the result is more crack. This is a poor basis for healthy decisions.
Worse yet, crack use depletes the natural production of dopamine, leaving the user increasingly dependent on crack to provide the dopamine needed to function. It is a downward spiral that is difficult to escape. Crack is also notorious for its impurities. Sixty to ninety percent of the street drug is an unpredictable mix of fillers, from baking soda to nail polish remover, that cause a panoply of toxic effects.
Crack and meth both provide an intense high that quickly ropes the user into addiction by depleting the neurotransmitters involved in pleasure and reward. The user must continually seek more and more drugs in order to replace just the normal levels of neurotransmitters, and more yet is required to achieve a high. This dangerous vortex leads to psychosis from brain damage and, eventually, overdose and death.
LSD
LSD or “acid” is chemically known as lysergic acid diethylamide. Albert Hofmann, the scientist who discovered LSD, first accidentally and later intentionally ingested the drug. He experienced extreme visual hallucinations, fear that his neighbor was a witch, and the peculiar notion that his furniture was threatening him. While it is safe to say that he didn’t accurately perceive reality, the next morning he woke up feeling fine. In the 1960s hippies used LSD to achieve a transcendent mental state. It was considered a promising drug for military interrogations, breakthrough psychotherapy, and as a treatment for childhood autism. However, due to contradictory research results, its potential for abuse and exploration of these uses has been abandoned.
“Warning! Batman Cape Does Not Enable Wearer to Fly.”
LSD is exceptionally potent. Bioactive doses are smaller than a grain of sand. The mental and physical effects, such as hallucinations, saliva overproduction, and tremors, vary widely from one person to the next and are heavily influenced by the drug user’s environment and mindset.
Little is known about the specific biochemical mechanisms underlying LSD’s effects. It does alter the activity of many neurotransmitter receptors, including all dopamine receptors and adrenoreceptors, and most serotonin receptors. The psychotropic effects are thought to result from its interaction with the 5-HT(2A) serotonin subtype, but how this interaction produces hallucinations is not known.
It is not unusual for an LSD user to experience dissociation between herself and the outside world. She may think she has superhuman physical or mental powers. This has led to well-known examples of bad decision making, such as being convinced one can fly off a roof. LSD can also induce a highly suggestible state—an effect at the root of the government’s military interest in LSD—so a user could be coerced into performing ridiculously dangerous feats she would otherwise never attempt.
Cognitive Enhancers
While some drugs negatively impact our ability to think, others are “nootropics,” cognitive enhancers that sharpen attention and focus. The stimulants nicotine and caffeine are well-known legal nootropics. They promote wakefulness, increase focus, and improve coordination via complex chemical interactions with the nervous system. Caffeine and nicotine do have some negative effects such as increased blood pressure and toxicity in high doses. But in reasonable amounts they contribute to
good
decision making.
“Ninety percent of Americans use caffeine daily, and another twenty-five percent smoke cigarettes, making caffeine and nicotine the two most widely used drugs.”
One might argue that drug users are primed to make bad decisions, as they already think that intoxication is a good idea. However, there are valid social reasons to use legal intoxicants. There’s nothing like relaxing with a cold beer after a long day! But even legal drugs have negative side effects. And while people don’t need a lot of extra push to do something stupid, why tempt fate? Next time that jump into shallow water appears reasonable, stop and assess your state of inebriation. The life you save may be your own!
The effect of crack metabolites on heart rate: jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/307/3/1179
Current research on LSD: www.maps.org/research/cluster/psilo-lsd/
Shelley Batts
is an end-stage neuroscience Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, a freelance science writer, and a regular contributor to ScienceBlogs. Her work is related to the genetics and cell signaling events occurring in deafness. She enjoys classic Mustangs and teaching parrots to talk.