Mocking Advertisers

Have you ever noticed the secondary message of advertisements? The thing that the ads say besides the obvious "Buy my product, it's really great!" Like when they're saying unintentionally, "People who buy our product are truly stupid." For example the advertisements where a guy on the verge of death gets out of his hospital bed to go to a sale. When I see that I can't help but think, "Well... yeah. Okay then. So what you guys are saying is that fanatical people who make poor choices buy your stuff. M'yeah okay then I really want to be like them."

My other favorite is the classic big stupid guy who's apparently dating or married to the thin perfect woman. Well right off that does nothing for me at all, but obviously the message they want to send is if you're an overweight straight guy you should get our product. Then for some unaccountable reason the beautiful woman will stay with you. So it isn't just a wine it’s a mind control substance. Cool. Oh but wait... I am one of the thin pretty people. <worried> Okaay going to avoid that and run away from guys who offer me Arbor Mist. "Aiieee!" Especially dumb overweight ones. Of course that last prescription is pretty good advice under any circumstances.

Or Arby's: eat our sandwiches and you'll be so addicted by them that you'll randomly burst out saying the name of ingredients. M'kay yeah I want that. Plus the commercial is painful to watch; poor guy disintegrating under the weight of addition on national TV. Stop mocking him and get him into a 12 step to deal with his meat addiction! Ow, who wants to watch that?

Green Skinned Animals and Other Unlikely Things

Recently I finally got a clue as to why animals with chlorophyll in their skins to produce "free" energy and oxygen are unlikely. In theory it would work out just dandy to have sort of an onboard symbiotic relationship with some little chloroplasts or some simple algae as I've heard is the case with some sea organisms. Cyanophyta (Blue-Green Bacteria) in some sea squirts and the more common zooxanthellae (brown algae) in corrals.

Easy enough to extend that thought out to aliens of bioengineered cows, right? Well it turns out that chlorophyll is a pretty simple little molecule. In fact that's a good thing because the lower its molecular weight the less light it needs to get excited enough to do its clever little trick with water and carbon dioxide. But this also means that it doesn't have an excluder device to get rid of the oxygen and if it accidentally grabs an oxygen instead of a carbon dioxide it can run the process backwards. That's the job of the cell. Get rid of oxygen and let in carbon dioxide, but that right there should give a clue as to the problem.

Animals need oxygen and try to get rid of carbon dioxide as fast as possible. In order to have the two states in the same organism you'd need specialized skin cells that push the O2 out and get the CO2 right next door to cells that do the opposite. Possible but not as simple as just adding chloroplasts I would think. Especially since there is a bit of a bug where at warmer temperatures oxygen dissolves easier in water than carbon dioxide.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Just rather complex and so while in theory it all works out in practice it is probably a better engineering solution to have plants that do their thing and animals that do their thing. Unless they come from an environment where it is the only way to live like for corals.