Nanotubetops Enable XXXFL

Feb. 11, 2016
MIAMI–Recently released details concerning Fox Studio’s planned May launch of the XXXFL confirms that players will be outfitted with high-tech, mesh nanotube uniforms designed by Fox Labs scientists in collaboration with researchers at IBM and Stanford University. “We’re very excited about the XXXFL and about the innovative technology that will make it the hottest new sport since Survivor,” explains Fox Sports Programming VP Jerry Reale. “These new uniforms offer superior injury-protection to the players and still let us bring you the first all nude full-contact sport. This is another perfect example of cutting-edge technology enabling great TV.”

Constructed of bundled and twisted-pair carbon nanotube fibers, the uniforms are the first to realize the promise of years of applied “nanogarment” research. “I pioneered the whole field of nanogarments years ago with a simple goal,” notes Stanford Professor of Nanoscience Lars Figgs, “I simply wanted to design the skimpiest garment possible. After some early missteps, I had a paradigm-shaking realization. Rather than enhancing skimpiness by minimizing coverage, I could, instead, engineer garments that covered most of the body but which were made of a nano-scale mesh effectively invisible to the human eye. Nano-mesh garments both maximize exposure and, when tailored, offer superior body-sculpting support.”

The invisible mesh of the XXXFL nanogarment uniforms protects players from injury during the games’ rambunctious “downs” by exploiting the superior strength of carbon nanotube fibers, engineered versions of which enjoy nearly 1000 times the strength of steel at one tenth the weight. “Because the XXXFL is a full-contact, co-ed sport, we were looking for an equipment solution which would offer some equalizing protection to our smaller players,” explains Fox’s Reale. “The piezoelectric joints and seams absorb tackling impact, reducing the advantage of brute force. And, the push-up tubetops and codpieces make sure the players always look hot.”

The uniforms have also been designed to take advantage of some of the semi-conducting properties of nanotubes. Powered by piezoelectric “buckyball-and-joint” nodes, the uniforms act as wireless, wearable computers, offering full player motion-capture and high-resolution impact-capture. “By the end of this first season, or, at the latest, the beginning of the next, we’ll release full-contact immersion uniforms for home viewers under the ‘NakedI’ label,” notes Reale. “Through Fox, you’ll be able to subscribe to your favorite players, and, once you’re online, we’ll send the impact data to you realtime. When Rod Steele or Lily Lush get tackled, you’ll feel it at home just the way they do on the field.”

The XXXFL uniforms also implement nanotube based Field Emission Displays (FED) that emit colored light in response to impact and body heat. “When players are hit, you’ll see kaleidoscopes of color dance across our bodies,” explains a uniform-demonstrating player from the Miami Goo Fighters. “When we’re injured or flushed, you’ll see that too.”

Responding to critics, Fox’s Reale is quick to point to the history of sport for precedent: “Some people have said that the XXXFL is exploitative and that it’s not a real sport, but look at the Olympics. Classically, Olympians competed in the nude. Sports is a celebration of the human body, and that’s what the XXXFL is too.”

The XXXFL season is scheduled to begin May 15 when the Tennessee T&A play the Dallas Drillers in Enron Arena.

‘Mouth-in-Mouth’ Disease Decimates House, Senate

Oct. 31, 2014
WASHINGTON DC–The mysterious disorder that has afflicted more than a dozen members of the U.S. Senate has recently spread to the House of Representatives where 42 new cases were reported during the past two weeks. Known as ‘Mouth-in-Mouth,’ the disease interferes with the ability to speak, alternately causing “unwanted” speech and preventing victims from speaking at all. “This is killing our effectiveness,” notes House Appropriations Committee Staff Counsel Judy Ale. “Governing is a verbal process. When Members can’t speak, the work of governing doesn’t get done.”

Mouth-in-Mouth, formally known as Uvular Alter-Mandibular Tourette-Variant Disorder (“UAT”), causes a secondary, toothless “mouth” to form in the back of mouth, around the posterior border of the soft palate. Through interaction with both involuntary and speech centers of the brain, this second mouth causes sometimes explosive and inappropriate speech. Dr. Jules Nobe of Johns Hopkins Medical Center explains: “The UAT ‘mouth,’ though not, anatomically, a true mouth, develops neuro-muscular structures of surprising complexity, complex enough to, in effect, speak.”

Control of the UAT mouth, however, remains entirely involuntary. Dr. Nobe continues: “The peculiar thing about the unwanted speech associated with Mouth-in-Mouth is how sensitive it is to the conscious, ‘sub-conscious,’ and ‘unconscious’ sentiments of the victim. Most other forms of unwanted speech are context insensitive, but UAT speech appears to articulate thoughts that victims intend to keep secret. And UAT seems particularly sensitive to prevarication. When UAT sufferers try to fib, even just to exaggerate, the UAT mouth intervenes and causes them, instead, to speak the ‘truth.'”

Though little is yet known about the causes of Mouth-in-Mouth, researchers speculate that it is caused by a ‘Distributed Emergent Viral Entity’ (“DEVE”), a class of mutagenic viruses responsible for coordinated physiological and behavioral symptoms. “DEVEs are a perplexing new development,” explains CDC Epidemiologist Harriet Suit. “They affect complex, higher-order behaviors in such a sophisticated and seemingly guided way that we suspect that they possess some sort of collective intelligence. Looking at Mouth-in-Mouth, for instance, we keep asking ourselves why it is only striking members of Congress. Is it just that we can’t figure out the infecting vector, or is there something else going on?”

Reacting to the spreading infection, some Members of the House have proposed draconian containment measures. The House Rules Committee is currently considering a measure requiring the destruction of all affected Members and of all unaffected Members serving on sub-committees with affected Members. The measures call for immediate incineration of Congressional carcasses. “We’ve got to take serious steps to contain Mouth-in-Mouth,” exclaims Rep. Brian Dolte (R-Nebraska). “We’ve got to cut out the infection before it spreads and topples the whole government.”

At least one afflicted Senator, however, is looking on the bright side: “I’ve noticed at least some special benefits,” explains ranking Senate Republican Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “Little ‘o’, that’s what I call my other mouth, sings pretty good harmony with my regular mouth, which is great for my music career. You should hear us do Amazing Grace. He doesn’t always sing the right words, but he sounds great.”

Rupert Murdoch Lobotomized in ‘Iron Surgeon’ Mishap

Aug. 16, 2020
LOS ANGELES–Fox Studios officials today confirmed that reclusive media tycoon Rupert Murdoch suffered accidental injuries during a Wednesday taping of the popular Iron Surgeon program. “Chairman Murdoch was injured when a laser-equipped remote incision and cauterization pistol accidentally discharged and struck him in the head while he was observing the taping from his dais,” explained Fox Spokeswoman Jessica Wrenkle. “We aren’t at liberty to discuss the incident in any more detail until official inquiries have concluded.”

The show, pitting surgeons from around the world against Murdoch’s own hand-picked ‘Iron Surgeons,’ including ‘Iron Surgeon Cardiovascular’ Dr. Theodore Lime, ‘Iron Surgeon Neurological’ Dr. Jennifer Frame, and ‘Iron Surgeon Orthopedic’ Dr. Laura Nimbu, challenges surgeons to complete death-defying procedures on patients using a surprise ‘theme instrument.’ A challenger, competing head-to-head against the Iron Surgeon of her choice, operates on three or four patients selected from a roster and is judged on “artistry, creativity, morbidity, and use of the theme instrument.” Recent theme instruments have included a spatula, a scalpel-shooting crossbow, and a bungee cord. Murdoch has guaranteed successful challengers “the people’s ovation and fame forever.”

Murdoch, rarely seen in public since dedicating much of his fortune to the building of ‘Surgery Stadium’ and the endowment of the program and its proprietary satellite network, routinely appeared on the show to interview contestants and to moderate the judges’ discussion. “He really loved the show,” notes frequent celebrity guest judge Gary Coleman. “Once the cameras were on he was full of witty quips, all totally unscripted. But I never really saw him off-camera. As soon as shooting would stop he’d call for his assistants and they’d drop this big, black sort of tarp over him and wheel him away.”

Witnesses to the Wednesday taping have indicated that the laser incision pistol that injured Murdoch was not the current theme instrument. “They were using this big helium tank,” explains one audience member. “The Iron Surgeon was doing a splenectomy. She’d inflated all these surgical gloves and tied them to the spleen. They lifted it up just like a hot air balloon. Just lifted it right up, right out of the patient. I guess it got too close to a stage light or something, but all of the sudden the spleen started shooting around the studio like a rocket. Then it hit a stagehand who was carrying some stuff and I heard Mr. Murdoch scream.”

Though members of Murdoch’s medical team were not available to comment, sources close to the family confirm that the laser caused significant ‘frontal lobe trauma,’ and that prospects of recovery were not strong.

“It really hurts to see him like this,” explains Sam Bill, Murdoch’s personal fingernail wrangler. “I went to see him to keep up the training of his nails and he didn’t even seem to recognize me. He was just sitting there, smiling, watching TV. I’ve known him for nine years and I’ve never seen him smile. It’s just so sad.”

Transgenic Weeds Help Hackers Poach Corn Computing Cycles

March, 4, 2015
DECATUR, IL–Edible resources giant Archer Daniels Midland today launched a legal and public relations campaign designed to discourage poachers from using new breeds of transgenic weeds to siphon off computer cycles generated by fields planted with SmartCorn, an engineered corn variety equipped with DNA-based computational and networking powers. “We want to make clear that there is zero tolerance for ‘weedhacking,'” declared ADM CTO Alice Montie. “In partnership with Monsanto, the inventor of SmartCorn, we are launching this campaign to educate the public, and to make sure that hackers know that every weed they nurture takes food out of the mouths of hungry children.”

SmartCorn, developed four years ago by Monsanto and University of Nebraska researchers, is one of a number of popular engineered “dual use” crops planted throughout the Midwest. Like ADM’s own Piezowheat, SmartCorn enables growers to harvest a new economy crop while also growing an old economy staple. “Our business, and that of our partner-growers, is enjoying a renaissance thanks to crops like SmartCorn,” explains ADM’s Montie. “In the three years since we’ve started system-wide deployment of SmartCorn, we’ve become the number one supplier of computer cycles to world markets. We’re not just the ‘Supermarket to the World,’ we’re also its Supercomputer.”

ADM’s new campaign targets the practice of “weedhacking,” the use of transgenic weeds with computational capacities like those of SmartCorn to hijack or manipulate fields of the number-crunching crop. Headline-grabbing weedhacking hjinks over the past year, including the introduction of widespread errors into calculations of inventories for WalMart stores and the creation of ‘crop circles’ through directed growth of corn-parasitic weeds, have depressed the market value of both Nebraska and Iowa Corn Cycles. “These hackers have got to face the consequences of their actions,” exclaims Montie. “This isn’t just harmless fun. One DOS attack on a hundred-acre field goes right to our bottom line. When we lose that profit, we have to raise the prices of the underlying crops. At some point, higher prices mean that fewer kids can eat.”

Research carried out at the Universities of Nebraska and Iowa on the weeds favored by hackers, including transgenic versions of Milkweed, Sandbur, Hemp Dogbane, and Leafy Spurge, indicate that each developed as a result of ‘gene flow’ from SmartCorn itself. “The hackers are getting a bit of a bum rap,” notes Iowa Professor Milton Trea. “The weeds inherited their computational and networking functions from the Corn. The SmartCorn genes are acting sort of like rogue genes, inserting themselves easily into other genomes. You can’t blame the ‘weedhackers’ for that.”

Members of the weedhacking community point to research like Trea’s to rebut ADM’s claims. “Most people in the community are just engaged in research into the way these weeds function and how they behave in the environment,” explains one poster in a popular weedhacking forum. “Weedhacking does nothing to interfere with ADM’s business. This campaign is aimed at squashing open, public understanding of these weeds and how they work and communicate. ADM and Monsanto are responsible for these weeds, but they don’t own them. The weeds are free, and we should be free to study them.”

Reached through remailer, Gee Me Crack Corn, a self-described “weedcracker” claiming responsibility for more than 800 DOS attacks and the popular “death’s head” crop circle, remains defiant: “My cracks are legendary. Every crack that makes the news gets more people thinking about what’s going on. ADM and Monsanto are letting understudied genes loose in the environment. Now that’s a crime.”