Slashdot 'em

In order to make a negligible impact on the following sites Slashdot'ed within the last few days, I wanted to point my non-existent readership to the following stories:

Geekiest animals: Flipper writes "CNET has compiled a list of the geekiest animals throughout history. The entries include such peculiar characters as Ham The Astrochimp (the first chimp in space), Schrödinger's Cat (used to demonstrate quantum superposition) and Hans, a horse who could apparently do complex mathematics and read words. The classics are there too, Pavlov's dogs get a well-deserved mention, as does Dolly The Sheep. What sounds like a pretty bizarre list is actually strangely interesting — some of these animals are seriously geeky."

Alcohol to the rescue: Adolytsi writes "MSNBC has an interesting article on an Italian study on alcoholism. While the obvious notion of overconsumption of alcohol being detrimental to one's health is supported, apparently drinking it in moderation can actually extend your lifespan. A study on over 1 million drinkers and 94,000 deaths yielded the results: "According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.