Oh my gods. If you like science used for absurd purposes (don't we all?), you'll love this.
Our Ancestors Wore Babies Into Battle
According to MIT graduate student Tomer Ullman, humanity's early ancestors harnessed the "natural adrenaline boost" brought on by the sound of wailing babies by strapping infants to their bodies and wearing them into battle.
Ullman's hilarious presentation on the competitive advantage of "extreme infant distress vocalization" (aka "crying") was named the winner of last year's Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses (BAH!)
I tell you what, crying babies make me go berserk, so maybe he's onto something.
Yes, but everyone stabbing themselves in the ear doesn't seem terribly effective, militarily.
There's a baby in the neighborhood that is driving a few of my neighbors absolutely nuts. (And presumably exhausting the parents, too.) It's weird, because while I've remarked on it, I can tune it out.
Yes, but everyone stabbing themselves in the ear doesn't seem terribly effective, militarily.
If you can get your enemies to stab themselves in the ear and avoid it yourself, you win. Right?
Better or worse than bagpipes?
Why do you think they invented bagpipes? And with babies, you have sonic grenades you can fling at the enemy if you need to.
And with babies, you have sonic grenades you can fling at the enemy if you need to.
I've said something very similar in the past. Which is why it's a good thing I never had offspring.
Unrelatedly, I am continually amazed at how one of my smarter FB friends has bought into the anti-vax movement. (He and his wife are the primary caregivers for their nephew, who is on the autism spectrum, so I'm sure they've done lots of research with the intention to do what's best for him. But that's led them down a rabbit hole of anti-vaxxers, and they totally buy into it, and it blows my mind every time he posts articles about vaccines and autism. I just roll my eyes, hide the post, and keep going, but it really does boggle my mind. I want to yell "You're smarter than this! Correlation is not causation! What is wrong with you?")
If the opposing forces are riding oversized cats they'll be in big trouble. Mine freak out whenever neighbor toddler starts wailing.
(By the way, if the kid's big enough to walk up and down stairs, shouldn't she be talking more than screaming and crying? I know temper tantrums are a thing until at least 3 or so, but I'd expect more downtime between emotional meltdowns based on my little cousins.)
I see kids old enough to be in school--I think--in the supermarket have screaming tantrums. I just want to go up to them and say "Aren't you too old for this?" Then again, they're competing with their screaming younger siblings for Mom's indifferent attention.
