Snip-snip

I checked one of my Hotmail accounts, and when I signed out, the MSN homepage came up. After I followed a couple of links, I found the "weirdest science stories of the year" on MSNBC. The page has links to items on LiveScience.com, with descriptive paragraphs and illustrating photos. The stories are odd enough, I suppose, but what I found most interesting was a couple of the photos used to illustrate them.

First, for the story "Whales found to speak in dialects," which is about blue whales in different parts of the world making different sounds, they used this picture:



I guess knowing that dolphins photographed through a blue filter aren't the same thing as blue whales isn't one of the qualifications for being a science editor at MSNBC.

But my favorite photo is the one they used to illustrate "Penis transplant removed." Of course, a mainstream American website won't show a photo of an actual penis, so I guess they thought something "medical" would be most appropriate. This was their choice:



Kind of gets you right there, doesn't it?