many years ago in the lab, there was a day of such awesome awesomeness that it defied all awesomeness that had come before it.
It was nearing the end of the day, and I was sitting at my bench and leafing through the huge pile of journals that had collected next to me (I was the last person in the lab journal rotation). I had a knack, which I’m sure you will all be SHOCKED to learn about, in finding the weirdest, most obscure, and sexually charged articles ever in the journals. You laugh, but yes, they exist. The best places to look for these kind of articles were in the journals of Science and Nature.
Yes, the sciencey geeks are nodding your heads. YOU know.
On this particular day, I found an article about duck phalluses. More specifically, AMAZINGLY LONG duck phalluses. We’re talking in terms of lenth in FEET, not inches, OK? VERY LONG DUCK PHALLUSES! CORKSCREW SHAPED, FOOTLONG DUCK PHALLUSES!
First…WHY do they need to be so long, and second…
WHO DOES THIS RESEARCH??? How amazingly awesome it would be to ask someone what they do for a living and they say “well…uhhh…I’m a graduate student…” “oh, what do you study?”
“dukmphhh phhmmsss”
“what?”
“duck phalluses”
“….WHAT?”
“I MEASURE DUCK PHALLUSES!”
“ohhhh…wow. uhhh…I’m going to go refresh my drink.”
Anyway, today I found the AMAZING UPDATE to the duck phallus story, compliments of BoingBoing. everything you wanted to know about male and female duck anatomy, but were afraid to ask.
this one’s for you, Brenda.
That research would make for some great group T-shirts.
Science and Nature have the best of the best weird articles.
I met a PhD student whose job it was to put various liquids in cows’ vaginas.
Brings new meaning to the game Duck Duck Goose.
Oh Michael…
Can you imagine trying to explain that sort of thing to your new gf/bf’s mother, or grandmother?
Of course, the first thing I did was try to find the original article on duck phalluses. I first I was a bit put off because when you search “duck phallus” or “duck phalluses” on PubMed, there are no search results.
But, when you search “duck penis” it’s the first article that appears! I’m so reading this… I want to know about penises, ducks are otherwise…
I cannot truly think of the words that adequately describe the oddity that I feel this entry encompasses.
If I hadn’t seen ducks mating before, I would think you were making this up, but I have seen the duck phallus. Or what we now refer to as the absurdly long “uncooked curly fry.”
I think the most disturbing part of this article was the part where male ducks lose their phalluses every year. However, my favorite part was when it said that female ducks can control which sperm they allow to fertilize their eggs. Talk about women’s lib!
They don’t “lose” their phalluses. The phalluses simply drain of their lymphatic fluid, and curl up inside the ducks bodies.
ESC, aren’t you moving?
nope. should I be?
Oh I did my undergraduate in Sheffield I used to love the zoology lectures about evolution of insect penises. I didn’t realise that they’d found it in ducks too. Oh and by the way - did you know that possums have a bifurcate (yup splits in two) penis. I studied them for my PhD…
IT LIVES!!!
Someone came up to me Monday in the lab and showed me this article (apparently, I am not the weird person that finds the article, just the wierd person whom everyones knows will be interested in the article!)
After she showed me the article, I related to her the exact same story you told. And how we could never explain this to our relatives. HA!
Although the “loss” and regrowth of the phallus ever year seems disturbing, did anyone catch that the researcher wants to make a clear female duck so that she can witness the USE of the duck phallus (DUCK PORN **bow-chick-a-bow-wow**). OK, wait…. I know that if I take a deep breath and stand back, I can see the scientific reasoning for this. But, really? EWWWWWW!!!!!
I always thought ducks were screwy.
and THIS is why i’m going into Audiology… at least when people ask me what I am studying as a Doctoral student, they won’t run away in fear… lol
Dude. I have no words. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE SCIENCE.
Also, it would seem that Size Does Matter. Wonder about rate of curve and all that stuff as well?
Where are you? We miss you!
I had a Psyc prof in college who told us his job in grad school was to “stimulate” the male monkeys. I could never look at him the same after that.
I am so glad I have no passion for the life sciences. Granted, I may one day die of electrocution by a malfunctioning uninterruptible power supply, but I’ll never need to masturbate a monkey for class credit.
Sixteen Candles - Long Duk Dong
Makes so much more sense now.