Bark Beetles Hate Rush Limbaugh and Heavy Metal 220
Aryabhata writes "According to scientists, climate change and human activity have allowed bark beetle populations to soar. They decided to fight the beetles by using the 'nastiest, most offensive sounds' that they could think of. These sounds included recordings of Guns & Roses, Queen, Rush Limbaugh and manipulated versions of the insects' own sounds. The research project titled 'Beetle Mania' has concluded that acoustic stress can disrupt their feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other."
Pitiful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly they fail at knowing anything about actual metal.
Listening to Rush (Score:1, Insightful)
After listening to Rush, the beetles decided to get off the dole of this research project and go out to get their own jobs.
+5 Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if this article would have made it to the front page of ./ if it hadn't provided an opportunity for certain folks to get a political jab in again at the "evil republicans".
Front page news? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is some front page news that some people dislike Rush Limbaugh and some old music?
How about this? I kill the black mold in my shower by showing it pictures of Rachel Maddow.
This isn't news for nerds. This is stupid.
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like they only tried "rush," "heavy metal," and manipulated beatle noises, and rush and heavy metal came out *below* beatle noises.
They did not try white noise, other radio commentators (Al Franken, perhaps), other genres of music, or even other animals. Also unmentioned is whether they tried silence.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Biologists manage to get paid for amazingly inadequate experiment, while making jabs at completely unrelated fields they really don't know much about."
Not necessarily the bark beetles... (Score:3, Insightful)
...but the scientists obviously hate Rush Limbaugh. They could have picked anyone's voice - not a polarizing political figure. How about Gilbert Gottfried? How about low male voices like James Earl Jones versus high pitched female voices?
How do you, Mr. 'Scientist', expect me to take your research seriously when you demonstrate that you are irrational and let your politics color your work?
if they want to kill beatles with bad music... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:+5 Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if this article would have made it to the front page of ./ if it hadn't provided an opportunity for certain folks to get a political jab in again at the "evil republicans".
Ah, yes. Republicans. Nature's eternal victims.
Re:The opposite must be true (Score:2, Insightful)
This means that Obama's speeches would really encourage pests to grow and have healthy development?
Well, it's worked that way in the federal government so far.
Re:+5 Flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if this article would have made it to the front page of ./ if it hadn't provided an opportunity for certain folks to get a political jab in again at the "evil republicans".
Oh, it would have been posted for the Beetle Mania pun. The bit with Limbaugh was just icing on the cake.
Re:+5 Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, look at all of the powerful people conspiring to take away the rights of Republicans:
* Illegal immigrants
* Gays
* The poor
* African-Americans
* Environmentalists
* College professors
* Peaceniks
* Atheists
* Potheads
How do you stand up against such massive, organized forces when all you have on your side is caucasians, the wealthy, and evangelicals? It's no surprise that Republicans are so oppressed.
Re:Proof of no scientific method (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, one scientist (truck-driver-turned-research assistant, specifically) thought that certain human based sounds he found offensive might offend the beetles.
Yep, they proved rather nicely that beetles will ignore various human based sounds. That's some good science.
Not quite. Beetles don't like loud 'beetle' stuff and will become very aggressive over it. Beetles will ignore loud 'human' stuff.
Funny how "one scientist" (who, btw, works at the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry lab, which sounds like it's interest in trees, not the climate) becomes "[All] global warming scientists". It'd be just as well if the same person had chosen Al Frankin or whoever they wished, really. The results would have been the same.
Perhaps for you. It's funny how you're not offended at all that Reagan McGuire doesn't like Queen or Guns N' Roses. But, keep on harping on how he doesn't like Rush Limbaugh either. Clearly it's he, not you, with the political calculations.
You well admit that their first hypothesis, that loud Queens, Guns N' Roses, and Rush Limbaugh might aggravate the beetles, was tested and proven incorrect. Hence, they falsified their hypothesis, a rather critical part of science. After, they created a new hypothesis (beetles might well hate loud beetle noise), and tested it out and found that their second hypothesis seemed correct (although it'd take more tests to verify it was the beetle sound specifically and not various other factors). Overall, it sounds like good science. And if some less polarizing celebrity had been suggested as an annoying sound (Fran Drescher's nasal voice seems like an obvious choice), I doubt you'd say a thing.
The only way, then, I see it as clownish is that instead of choosing a different voice, to avoid any reasonably possibly contrived controversy, they allowed the Rush Limbaugh suggest to be used. I wouldn't go as far as say that lack of oversight was a conspiracy to gain publicity, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone involved well knew that the research might be used by someone in the media and hence would drive a bit more attention to their research. Of course, if people like you or me really cared about ending such clownishness, we wouldn't even be talking about the research at all.
Re:Did they ever consider... (Score:1, Insightful)
You keep telling yourself that. The very media you rely on for your sources is the one that is out of touch with reality.
Re:+5 Flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)
Rei(128717) makes a statement that is not just wrong but either deliberately misleading or just plain ignorant and gets modded +5 insightful. I make a response with factual information and get modded -1 troll for disagreeing with him and showing his falsehoods.
I love the hypocrisy of Slashdot. "Conform to our non-conformist believes or DIE!!!"