Pet Peeve Monday

Also in today’s links: cloned dogs, android twins and more.

• You know those people in your office who are always sitting there rubbing in hand sanitizer gel, while you shiver at the thought of the feel of that stuff and wonder why they don’t just stand up and go wash their hands? Well, the stuff won’t even protect you from getting a cold. But washing your hands might.
• Researchers have developed an auto key that blocks the driver’s cell phone from being used while it’s in the ignition. How about if every driver ticketed for talking on a cell phone while driving gets one of these instead of (or in addition to) having to pay a fine?
• A man running a business to clone dogs explains — in great detail — life with these pets. It’s nice that he likes how his dog corners while running — just like the genetic donor! — but is that really a reason for people to spend $100,000+?
• That’s all the pet peeves I have today, so in other creepy re-creation news, a Japanese professor created a really creepily realistic android version of himself.
• And as if cloning doesn’t have enough potential to screw with evolution, hunting is driving a serious change in evolutionary patterns, with smaller animals and individuals with less impressive horns and antlers more likely to survive and breed in some cases. Here’s the quote of the day: “When you take [tusked elephants] systematically out of the population for several years, you end up leaving essentially a bunch of losers doing the breeding.” — biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec.