Bonelessness

[Drunk Monk]

Why didn't 'Scanning the Shaft' make it to the great band names forum?

Because you didn't post it?

Can we just have some more Jolene Blalock, please?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Why didn't 'Scanning the Shaft' make it to the great band names forum?

Because you didn't post it?

Can we just have some more Jolene Blalock, please?

I am getting mixed messages here.

[Greg]

Welcome to the Forum.

[thatguy]

More of a boner than a bone...

'ere'd ya tink da fraze "Whoa, Nelly" came from laddie?!

https://boingboing.net/2022/04/13/is-the...penis.html

Is the Loch Ness Monster actually a whale's penis?
David Pescovitz

---

University of Derby molecular ecologist Michael Sweet floated a theory that the Loch Ness Monster might actually be a whale's penis. See examples below in Sweet's tweet. (Of course, the famed "Surgeon's Photograph" of 1934 above is a known hoax but it does have an uncanny resemblance to a whale dick.)

"Back in day, travellers/explorers would draw what they saw," Sweet writes. "This is where many sea monster stories come from ie. tentacled and alienesque appendages emerging from the water.. Whales often mate in groups so while one male is busy with the female the other male just pops his dick out of the water while swimming around waiting his turn," Sweet wrote.

Whales often mate in groups so while one male is busy with the female the other male just pops his dick out of the water while swimming around waiting his turn. Everyone's gotta have a bit of fun, right?
— Prof. Michael Sweet (@DiseaseMatters) April 8, 2022

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

The stuff you can find on the interwebz these daze...

[Drunk Monk]

Not true for boneless bears and entire bear skeletons, sad to say...

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I feel called out.

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

Chinese zoo denies its bears are ‘humans in disguise’ after ‘suspicious’ photos and videos

via Weibo
The zoo said wearing a costume would be intolerable due to hot weather

Carl Samson

AUGUST 1, 202

A ZOO IN China’s Zhejiang province is in hot water after being accused of hiring humans to play bears for one of its most popular exhibits.
What critics are saying: The allegations reportedly erupted earlier this month after photos and videos of a sun bear at the Hangzhou Zoo made rounds on Chinese social media.
In the accusatory posts, at least one black-furred bear can be seen standing like a person with pants-like folds under its rear — raising suspicions that the whole exhibit was just a giant cosplay.
What the zoo is saying: An employee at the zoo reportedly rejected the allegations last week and insisted that the zoo’s sun bears are real. They explained that sun bears typically have a mild temperament that allows them to interact with visitors. Additionally, they said that the high temperature on the day the photos and videos were taken — 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — would make a costume intolerable for a person to wear, according to Phoenix New Media.
They also mentioned that arrangements were made for reporters to see the bears for themselves.
The big picture: This is not the first time a Chinese zoo has been accused of having people wear animal costumes.
In 2013, a zoo in Louhe, Henan province, tried to pass off a large and hairy Tibetan mastiff dog as a lion. In 2019, a zoo in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, dressed staff workers as gorillas, later defending the stunt as an April Fool’s prank.

Now we know what the YetiBear was really doing. 

Trains in Europe my arse!

[thatguy]

we have the technology...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y0svh1ZhsNk

--tg

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Busted.

In my defense: Truth is for suckers.

[Drunk Monk]

I knew it!

The saggy butt was a dead giveaway. I'd know that arse anywhere.

ummm. Have I said too much?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Busted.

[Drunk Monk]

Here’s why men have boneless penises
A bone at the tip is linked with longer intercourse and more competition.
BETH MOLE -  12/15/2016, 2:10 PM

Brown bear penis bones.
Didier Descouens - Museum of Toulouse
The penis bone, or baculum, has long been a knobby issue for scientists. The bone, which dangles at the tip of a male’s reproductive organ detached from the skeleton, pops up in many placental mammals. Mice, bats, cats, dogs, and hedgehogs all sport structural reinforcement in their nether regions. Walruses possess startling two-foot-long models that resemble baseball bats. Most primates, including our closest relatives, also have members in the baculum club—but humans, oddly, do not.
Over the years, researchers have come up with a number of hypotheses for why man’s manhood is boneless, but a new evolutionary study offers some evidence. Analyzing anatomy and mating practices of thousands of mammals, anthropologists Matilda Brindle and Christopher Opie of University College London suggest that humans lost their baculum due to quick sex and relatively little competition.
The findings, published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may finally start to nail down our understanding of the puzzling purposes of penis bones.
For the study, Brindle and Opie started by constructing a large evolutionary tree of mammals, trying to get to the roots of the baculum. They found that it appeared in placental mammals after they split from non-placental mammals, about 145 million years ago. However, the bones were hanging around before carnivores and primates evolved, around 95 million years ago. This suggests that more recently evolved species in these groups that lack a baculum, such as humans, lost the bony package.
Next, the pair evaluated the mating practices of species with and without a baculum, including testes sizes, polygamy or monogamy, seasonal breeding, and the duration of vaginal penetration, called intromission.
Over the course of primate evolution, the presence of penis bones tightly hooked up with longer intromissions—those more than three minutes long, to be exact. And the longer the sex, the longer the bone, the researchers found. Moreover, long bacula were also linked with more competition for females.
Brindle, Opie, and other researchers speculate that the penis bone allows for extended lovemaking sessions—or at least ones that last for longer than three minutes. In this scenario, the bone may act like a supportive rod, strengthening the penis and protecting the urethra while keeping it open.
But this longer sex isn’t a romantic gesture; it’s likely a strategy to not just get busy, but keep busy when there’s a lot of other male competition around. In the words of Brindle, “prolonging intromission like this is a way for a male to prevent a female from sneaking off and mating with anyone else before his sperm have had a chance to work their magic.”
The theory isn’t perfect: Bonobos have maintained a baculum—a very tiny one—yet only have sex for about 15 seconds in one go. Brindle and Opie speculate that stiff competition between males keeps the bone around.
For men, the data points to a softer crotch. The average amount of time between penetration and ejaculation for men is less than two minutes. And with monogamy becoming popular among humans after our split from chimpanzees and bonobos, the evolutionary chances of keeping penis bones went limp.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2016. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1736  (About DOIs).

*cue Yeti's line again next*

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Wait — longer than 3 minutes? That’s a thing that happens?

Oh.