Today is Groundhog Day,
which leads me to ask,
what the hell is Groundhog Day?
People pull a rodent out of the ground
and then ask the animal to predict the weather?
Really? This is so unfair.
Because if Africans were doing shit like this
and you heard that we pulled animals out of the ground...
Like, there are villages in Africa
where people wear animal skin,
and if I try to explain to them
that Americans use groundhogs to predict the weather,
they'd be like, "But why not use satellite data?"
But let's move on from talking animals
to e-mailing vegetables.
It sounds too crazy to believe
that scientists really have taught spinach
to send e-mails.
All right, here's how it works. Let's break it down.
Engineers at MIT report that spinach roots
can detect a compound found in explosives like land mines.
When the roots detect the compound,
molecules in the roots release a signal.
That signal is then read by an infrared camera,
which sends an e-mail alert to scientists.
The purpose of the experiment is to detect explosives,
but scientists believe it could be used
to warn researchers of pollution.
The experiment is part of a wider field of research
that involves engineering electronic systems into plants.
It is also called plant nanobionics.
All right, I'm sorry, guys,
this is insane.
I mean, who e-mails anymore?
Just DM me, spinach.
Seriously, spinach,
DM me.
But you also know what this means.
If spinach just got on e-mail,
it means that they're not as savvy about it as everyone else.
So let me be the first to say...
(accented): Greetings, my dearest friend spinach.
I have a million dollars in a trust
that I suddenly cannot access until the first day of March.
If you are able to wire me $10,000,
I will pay you back 15 times over.
-Please, spinach, I need you. -(chime)
And now we play the waiting game.
(cackling)
But congrats, man. Congratulations
to the scientists who were working
on this breakthrough.
And now that they've taught spinach how to send an e-mail,
maybe they can move on to the next scientific frontier:
teaching your mom how to use FaceTime.
"How do I turn the camera?"
"Mom, I got to go.
Just ask the spinach."
Moving on to the coronavirus pandemic.
It's the reason sweatpants are now a business expense.
Yesterday, Western Australia went into total lockdown
after discovering its first coronavirus case in ten months.
You see, Australia
is very different from the United States.
In the U.S., water goes down the drain clockwise.
And in Australia, they care about stopping coronavirus.
Now, part of the reason for Australia's success
is that Australians don't resist the government as much
when they tell them that they should stay at home,
and it's partly because these people know
that COVID is a serious disease.
It's also partly because it lets Australians stay away
from all the other things in Australia that could kill them.
"Yeah, mate, it's bad enough that the scorpions
"and snakes are trying to kill me,
but there's a koala that's trying to give me an STD."
Now, eventually,
of course, the world will reemerge from the pandemic.
And I know everyone thinks that they're gonna jump right back
into their old lives, you know,
like going to bars or theaters
or using the bottom half of your face to express emotion.
But you might want to prepare for a period of adjustment,
because some things apparently take a little time to relearn.
A new report says some pilots are getting rusty on the job
due to the pandemic because, well,
there are fewer planes to fly.
Some pilots grounded for months by the pandemic
have seen their skills and proficiency suffer.
For instance, one pilot forgot to disengage the parking brake,
damaging a tow truck
that was trying to pull that plane from the gate.
In another case, the pilot, well,
forgot to turn on the anti-icing mechanism.
Other reports include lining up the wrong runway for landing.
To counter such rustiness,
the FAA stops pilots from flying a commercial jet
unless they have performed at least three takeoffs
and three landings either on a plane or in a simulator
in the previous 90 days.
All right, I don't know about you, but this is kind of scary.
Apparently you never forget how to ride a bike
but you forget how to fly a plane after, like, five days?
Man, this is gonna change everything.
Next time the plane hits turbulence,
the pilot's gonna jump on the intercom, like,
"Uh, are there any hijackers on board?
"We need someone who knows how to fly the plane.
"I repeat, any hijackers,
please make yourself known to the cabin crew."
And, listen, I get that pilots are human
and everyone makes mistakes at their jobs,
but there are certain jobs
where there is way less room for error.
You know? Like, as a mail carrier, you might say,
"Oh, whoops. This package was supposed to go to apartment 2,
and I accidentally sent it to apartment 3."
But as a pilot, it's more like,
"Uh, whoopsie, these people were supposed to go to Miami,
and I accidentally sent them to heaven."
And trust me now-- this is not just gonna be pilots, people.
Everyone is gonna be rusty after COVID.
Projectionists are gonna be showing movies upside down.
Bouncers are gonna be letting in groups of ugly dudes
and telling beautiful women they got on the wrong shoes.
Bullies are gonna give you their lunch money.