Shark Attack The shark that ate Tom Hanks was one of many, and not even a man-eater. For that honor you have to go to the aptly named Great White Shark, who has bitten some 30 people since 1990. It's not really clear what the shark was hungry for, although its "prey" were, mostly, young adults. It's also possible that the shark attacked to express its displeasure with our treatment of sharks, which is a perfectly reasonable and understandable response to the whole Shark Week charade. Shark Of The Day Sharks attack people to eat them. That's their idea of lunch. As any responsible parent knows, that's why we should respect the shark's need to survive: because it also happens to be the single largest natural predator on the planet, and can single-handedly put a lot of unwanted pressure on species with larger population numbers and quicker reproductive cycles. That may sound a little like we should be thanking sharks, but that's not really the issue here. Still, it's nice to think that even the apex predators understand that there's more to life than just tearing things up for fun and/or the thrill of it. Also, we've been messing around with their food supply for so long that we've completely destroyed any chance for a balanced ecosystem, which is the kind of problem they solve routinely. No surprise, then, that many ocean species are dwindling, including the fish that makes up their favorite snack. So we've got that going for us too, you know? Shark Week Is Bad As much as you might enjoy Shark Week, it's pretty bad that it's making kids think it's OK to eat sharks. The answer to the question "Who killed JonBenet Ramsey?" is almost certainly "A person," but let's agree to call this a crime of passion in order to be consistent with the evidence. Orange Is The New Black This isn't a question about Orange Is The New Black, but we felt we should point out that that particular prison is the largest in New York State, home to many, many, many orange inmates who have all been made to serve long, hard sentences in what we assume is a cruel and unusual punishment. (What? It's called the "New York State Department of Corrections.") Pollution Affects Wildlife While most people believe that air pollution doesn't affect animals directly, a study of bears in the Canadian Arctic showed otherwise. Researchers discovered that increased pollution was correlated with decreased reproduction and survival of female polar bears, making them more susceptible to starvation. The study was done by the Canadian Wildlife Service. Ghost Pepper's Not What You Think It Is You may know that Ghost Pepper peppers don't actually have any ghost peppers in them, but then you might not know that the spicy stuff also doesn't exist in real life. The peppers are essentially just a marketing ploy, conjuring the ghost pepper out of some sort of marketing wizardry. Rabid Dog Syndrome Rabies is a horrible disease that's hard to detect and requires a human vaccine. Still, it has been documented once and now the disease has broken out again, this time at a shelter in Maryland. This marks the third time rabies has broken out in the U.S. since 2006, and it has all the makings of a disease that's going to be pretty hard to eradicate from the canine population. So far, all the cases we've reported on the last five years have been in dogs, so we're going to consider this section basically a PSA for pet owners. If you're going to let your dog loose in public, especially if it's your dog that breaks out of a containment facility and goes rabid, you're going to be sorry. This is it for our daily roundup of weird stuff. We'll be back tomorrow with more weird stuff, all related to the strange world of sex and sex-having. You know how we do. Comments ADD COMMENT Related Content It’s that time of year again: another round of television pilots. It’s the same for every show, we get to watch the pilot, look around at the cast, and do some comparisons with past pilots we’ve seen. That might sound boring but it’s not. We got to do that last year with Community, and last week with The Last Man on Earth. For us, being a pop culture snob, it’s not enough to just like a show. There has to be something more. There has to be some sort of weirdo character that we like, even if it is just to remind us of other characters we like. What’s cool is that with internet access and instant reviews, we can keep tabs on what other people are saying as well. If it’s not a great show then we need to let you know that now. And with a show like The Last Man on Earth, we’re very interested in getting any insight into its weirdness. It’s only natural. We saw a bunch of people tweet their theories about what the final season would be about. Most of the tweets and fan forums were all over the place and pretty contradictory. What we’re left with is some interesting possibilities for a truly idiosyncratic show. At the end of last week’s post we were left with some interesting ideas, and this week there’s more from us, and a great guest column from a guest writer who we love, David Lozier. For those of you out there who like to watch new television (we’re talking about you, but you know who you are), these posts are a great way to keep track of the newest shows. You’ll also get a lot more insight than you will from the press release. Not everything is going to be a great show (just like your friends) so we’ll fill you in on the ones that aren’t great. And if you think this place is full of dudes, you should check out the rest of our podcast, in which I yell at the audience about pop culture and we talk about things the rest of the week. The first trailer for the pilot was really quite good. I really liked it. I knew just from looking at this clip that it was something worth watching. Some people don’t like the idea of a one hour dramas or comedies that are just a story about a bunch of people doing something that isn’t really new, and can’t compare it to any other show on television. But that’s boring. You’re not watching TV anymore; you’re watching The Last Man on Earth. This is a show about a TV show, and here’s a little fun fact about that: the show has been described as