Chuck Shepherd

Getting Fannies in the Seats The Bunyadi opened in London in June for a three-month run as the world’s newest nude-dining experience, and now has a reservation waiting list of 40,000 (since it only seats 42). Besides the nakedness, the Bunyadi creates “true liberation” (said its founder) by serving only food “from nature,” cooked over […]

Who’s a Good Boy? Life is good now for British men who identify as dogs and puppies, as evidenced by a BBC documentary (“Secret Life of the Human Pups”) showing men in body outfits (one a Lycra-suited Dalmatian, “Spot”), exhibiting sexual expressions (stomach-rubbing, ear-tickling and nuzzling their handlers), eating out of bowls, gnawing on chew […]

Medical Milestone Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced they had recently (a first, they claimed) transmitted high-speed digital data through slabs of pork loin and beef liver. The signal cleared the muscle and gristle so cleanly that it permitted streaming of high-definition video—enough to watch Netflix, said the lead researcher. (Actually, the […]

Google Sees the Future Google filed a U.S. Patent Office application on Apr. 28 for a vision-improvement device in liquid form that, once inserted (i.e., injected directly into the eyeball!), solidifies into not only a lens replacement for the eye but an instrument that carries its own storage, radio and wireless power supply. The idea, […]

The Internet’s Promise Fulfilled Japan’s Tenga toy company appears to be first on the market with a virtual reality bodysuit (for use with the Oculus Rift “Sexy Beach Premium Resort” 3-D game) containing a genital stimulator and the sensation of “groping” breasts — sending “impulses all over the wearer’s body to make it feel like […]

Torch Passed to a New Body-Modification Exemplar Eva Tiamat Medusa, 55, of the Phoenix area, has almost completed her journey (she calls it “transspecieism”) to become a “mythical beast”—like a dragon video-game character—through purposeful facial scarring, surgical implants and even removal of both ears. “Tiamat” was born Richard Hernandez before becoming female and now sports […]

Cat Culture Longtime National Symphony cellist David Teie announced in November that his crowdfunding project was hugely successful, freeing him to produce an album of music meaningful to cats. (Cats, for example, relax in response to the earliest sound of their mother’s purring, which Teie clocked at 23 harp notes a second.) Teie’s work, according […]

Intelligent Design Wired.com’s most recent “Absurd Creature” feature shows a toad devouring a larva of a much-smaller beetle, but the “absurdity” is that the larva is in charge and that the toad will soon be beetle food. The larva’s Darwinian advantage is that, inside the toad, it bites the hapless “predator” with its hooked jaws […]

Unclear on the Concept • Awkward Signals in New Jersey: (1) The government watchdog MuckRock requested records on the cause of death of a dolphin in New Jersey’s South River last year (to investigate larger dangers to the animal), but in January 2016 the state’s Department of Agriculture initially declined to release them citing “medical […]

The New Grade Inflation • They are simply “‘spas’ designed to attract teenagers,” according to one university official — plush, state-of-the-art “training” complexes built by universities in the richest athletic conferences to entice elite 17-year-old athletes to come play for (and, perhaps, study at?) their schools. The athletes-only mini-campuses include private housing and entertainment (theaters, […]