"Sure been a heap more work for ME around here since those Biologists got granted research time on the ol' Supercollider.."

DON'T MOVE, or I'll fill you full of LEAD!!! / HAAA!! I happen to know that the lead in bullets is in the METALLIC form! This chemical form of lead has an intrinsically low bioavailability and toxicity!! / YES, but EARP et al (1886) have recently reported that the gunpowder-assisted acceleration of this form of lead to 1000 ft/sec substantially enhances its ability to penetrate biological membranes, effectively making it a whole lot MORE toxic!!! / I don't believe I've read that paper. .. // Environmental Scientists in the Wild West

You can't go to the afterlife looking like THAT! / First up, you need a shave. .. / Now let's tidy that hair up a bit. .. / And for pity sake, put on a shirt and tie..! / There! That's MUCH more presentable! / SWISSH!! // The Prim Reaper

Add the puppies. / Throw in the intern. // After years of experimentation, scientists remain dubious about whether there really is such a thing as the Cute Particle.

8000 B.C. Invention of the printing process.

"Bravo Professor, you stumbled upon the one fact that makes sense of it all. Unfortunately humanity is not permitted to know that the Universe was designed by a committee of ducks."

Fluffy, the "Galileo of the Lemmings," with his stopwatch.

Biggins watched incredulously as Santa's sleigh, port stabilizer torn away, flipped gracefully over and entered a terminal dive to destruction. / Oh just great, thought Biggins, the night before Christmas and there goes my last chance at getting research funding.

[Carbon Dioxide Emission Control Authority] / ['SUPER-STICK' MASKING TAPE]

Eustarch the Younger. The kid who brought the Trojan Horse in through the gates of Troy "just to play with for a while."

"So what if I'm a duck too..!? There's nothing in this permit that says that ducks can't hunt other ducks at this time of year..!"

Hmmm, interesting. . . Now, Thog, next YOU go in there and see where all my OTHER research students have gotten to. . . / Proto-Professor Algarth Zag, pioneer in fire research.

Large and hitherto uncatalogued lifeform on the windscreen, Jim. . .

Scientists devise yet another way of delaying death.

It's so UNFAIR..!! Why do people always take out the GOOD books..?!?

NEIL / ERIC / KEVIN / GARY / The Four Hearsemen with the Alpaca Lips

Yes I know I LOOK ugly, but I'm really a PRINCE! Kiss me and we'll live happily ever after..! / HEAR YE! HEAR YE! Local maiden dies horribly after being poisoned by skin-absorbed nerve-toxins..! Bizarre morphing amphibian-boy to hang for murder!

Too bad Desmond never learned to recognize the early warning signs of a heart attack.

Hmmmmm, wrong bottle. I guess THIS one must have been the Elixir of DEATH. ..

My friends, as a result of our experimentation, we have just lost a dear and valued colleague. .. On the other hand, we have just gained a publication.

Yello..?

Discovery of Crime Waves

[TODAY'S HERETICS: MR AND MRS SMITH] / What annoys me the most about all this is that I used to ENJOY church barbecues. ..

Same greasy residue as the other victims.. . / Poor bastard's been seasoned to perfection.. . / Another case of Salt and Battery

Larry will be sorely missed in the fishtank, but we console ourselves that he is going to a batter place. .. / FLUSSHHHH

"I'm sorry darling. I'm not very good company tonight. .."

Screw the Mombasa Convention! All these hours that bastard's been deliberately teasing us! / Use of a sniper-rifle was technically prohibited, but the last straw for Melvin was when he noticed that the antelope had bought along his own water bottle.

"So - it seems that ancient hunter-gatherers hated the Barney creature almost as much as we modern humans detest him today. .."

[Father to son] Remember son - when life throws you a lemon, make lemonade. .. / [Fly] Where'd you get to son? / I'm by the lemon tree dad! / Kid - I learned this from the humans. "When life throws you a lemon - / SQUITCH!

65 MILLION YEARS AGO: Relax everyone, it's just an asteroid. Asteroids are natural. / 79 AD: Don't worry Pompeii, it's only a volcano! Volcanoes are perfectly natural..! / APRIL 14, 1912: Good news everybody - seems we hit an iceberg! We're sure lucky that icebergs are natural..! / TODAY: Droughts, floods, wild weather, rising sea levels, the whole climate change thing .. . all natural. / Experts through the ages

"Okay, I'll admit it. Your dog is VERY good at playing dead."

"It was a good bar before those glow-worms moved in. These days most of the new customers end up as exsanguinated corpses."

Sign: WET PAINT AHEAD. MINED WHERE YOU STEP / The idiots can't spell / KATHOOM!

Millions of years ago, giant marshmallows ruled the earth. Having no skeletal system, they left no fossil-record. / Diabetic sugar-eating dinosaurs were their only predator. By igniting the acetone on their breath they could toast the marshmallows to death. These were our 'dragons' of legend. / They were too successful. Marshmallows are defenseless against fire and were eaten to near-extinction. With no food-source, the dragon population also plummeted. / It is thought that no dragons survived. Yet every now and then, while some hapless supermarket employee is out back unpacking a crate of marshmallows. ..

Millions of years ago, giant marshmallows ruled the earth. Having no skeletal system, they left no fossil-record. / Diabetic sugar-eating dinosaurs were their only predator. By igniting the acetone on their breath they could toast the marshmallows to death. These were our 'dragons' of legend. / They were too successful. Marshmallows are defenseless against fire and were eaten to near-extinction. With no food-source, the dragon population also plummeted. / It is thought that no dragons survived. Yet every now and then, while some hapless supermarket employee is out back unpacking a crate of marshmallows. ..

Dear sir, Could we please have a grant of $5 million from your corporation to allow us to research possible antidotes to a novel new colorless, skin-absorbed and slow acting nerve toxin? / P.S. It is possible that some of this toxin may have been inadvertently spilled on the envelope.

Grimey the myopic spider, another unlikely parable. .. / There was once a spider named GRIMEY, who lived in a red-brick apartment complex. Grimey was a JUMPING SPIDER, and didn't have a web, but would POUNCE on his hapless victims with a "WHOOOOOSSSH" and a "SWISH" and a "PIERCE, SUCK, SUCK, SUCK. .. heh heh heh. .." / About 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time Grimey MISSED his victims entirely and went THUDDING against the wall. You see, poor Grimey was MYOPIC in all eight of his spidery eyes. What SHOULD have looked like THIS: / Looked like THIS: / Grimey often considered getting glasses, but always ended up talking himself out of it. Deep down he was worried that if he did, all the other spiders would mock and call him "SIXTEEN EYES" (spiders can be so cruel. ..) / Finally, Grimey overcame his fear and undertook a long and hazardous journey to the local optometrist. Unfortunately, the optometrist, one DR MUFFETT, had NEVER OVERCOME HER CHILDHOOD FEAR OF SPIDERS..! / However, one thing she HAD learned in the intervening years was that "IT IS BETTER TO CONFRONT YOUR FEARS THAN RUN AWAY." / MORAL: Myopic spiders should avoid the optometrist named "MUFFETT"

Tips pointing skyward in watchful expectation, sophisticated instrument packages tuned to detect airborne objects emitting at the red end of the visible spectrum, the deadly array of surface-to-air missiles glinted menacingly in the moonlight. / Biggins gazed toward the horizon and grinned wryly as his target came into view. "Last year you refused to give me a research grant," he muttered quietly, pressing the launch button. "This year we rid civilization of the scourge it calls 'Santa'."

It was a brighter meteor than most, and Biggins allowed himself a quiet smile as he contemplated the immense speeds involved as it burned itself up in the atmosphere. .. / Who would have guessed, Biggins mused as he fingered his recently delivered lump of coal, that Santa's sleigh would have a detachable heat-shield..?

Biggins regarded his gift from Santa with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he now had a whole year's worth of research funding. .. / On the other hand, the scope of his research project had been modified slightly; from the impacts of global warming on Pacific Island beaches, to examination of abandoned coal-mines in Bosnia.

Biggins emerged from his hiding place and peered up his chemically-treated chimney. Santa had arrived in the dead of night, slid carefully into the fireplace, left a single lump of coal, and departed as quietly as he had arrived. / Biggins smirked with pleasure at a satisfactory exchange of gifts. Yes it's true that I got a lump of coal, he thought, but in sliding down my chimney, Santa got a coating of the most powerful moth pheromones known to science. ..

HE'S MADE A LIST, AND CHECKED IT TWICE. AND YOU'RE ON IT. / BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. / SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN.

"Let's get this straight: either you talk, or we send you to the surface in a polystyrene overcoat."

Wait! I've had a new idea! Let's try it without the big hairy thing on the end! / Disturbing fact: the first recorded boomerangs were made of mammoth tusk

Okay - who removed Jessica's sunhat..? / Kids & global warming

The Wrath of Her Majesty the Queen / Back from the dead to deal with Harry and Meghan

The year that carrots achieved sentience was a bad year for vegans