This Week in Weird News (Boozy Caveman, Bacon Plushie Edition)

(Nov. 13) -- Question: How do you make a caveman attractive?

For centuries, archaeologists have told us that a major leap toward modern civilization made was when mankind began to settle down and start farming, pointing to the sudden development of domesticated grains.

Most of us probably imagined ancient humans kneeling down in a parched field and looking thoughtfully at a handful of dirty seeds as inspiration and hunger drove the breakthrough.

But as paleontologists continue their research, they're finding that as food sources go, messing with planting schedules and everything associated with grain as a food source was a giant pain. No, ancient humans wanted to get their Neolithic drink on, which, let's face it, has a lot to do with helping those ancient humans find each other attractive.

John Kobal Foundation / Getty Images

Before alcohol, this was the pinnacle of Neolithic hotness.

If this week showed beer in a new light, it also produced yet another gut-busting favorite -- bacon.

The endless repurposing of America's favorite crispy treat is bad news for pigs but wonderful news for pig farmers (and/or English gangsters). Humanity's boundless quest to incorporate bacon into everything still has a full head of steam, with bacon soda, bacon vodka and even bacon lip balm being just a few of the recent additions to the thick slab of smoked pork belly products wallowing around online.

Still, there's no success like excess, and so it was probably just a matter of time before ThinkGeek officially added a My First Bacon stuffed anthropomorphized bacon plushie to its collection.

It started out as an April Fools' joke offering, but you just can't keep a good breakfast meat down. While some parents might be understandably disturbed about the thought of their children snuggling up to an 18-inch-tall slice of surprisingly cheerful-looking pork belly, it really does underscore bacon's role as a complete comfort food.

We turn to the other end of the digestive tract for the next notable achievement in weird news this week. If the many varieties of bacon products aren't to your liking, there are still lots of other unique gifts out there for your family or significant other in time for Christmas. Like a big box of decorated dung.

I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

The Topeka Zoo is getting a trunk full of cash thanks to it's newest gift products: Dolls and gifts made from their elephants poop.

Friends of the Topeka Zoo

Painted elephant scat with wigs and eyes: It really is the Rolls Royce of dung gifts.

In Kansas, the Topeka Zoo was thinking of ways to raise money when fertile imaginations figured out a way to take care of two problems simultaneously: raise money and get rid of massive piles of elephant manure.

So self-styled "manurologists" pick through the pile to find appropriately shaped specimens (I really wish I was making this up), let the pieces dry, then paint the dried pieces and sell them as gifts so people really can find a gift for the man who has everything except Painted and Decorate Elephant Dung Roughly the Size of a Small Bowling Ball.

It's the gift that keeps on going -- probably to white-elephant gift exchanges into perpetuity by people unable to appreciate the kind of polished craftsmanship that only an elephant's bowels can provide.

Without leaving the general topic of digestion, a biologist in Vietnam was thrilled recently when he discovered a species of lizard. He knew the local variations of the four-legged critters as well as the next herpetologist, but he wasn't able to announce his find right away. Primarily because they happened to be a delicacy on the menu of a restaurant, so the only specimens he was able to find were already deep fried and tasty.

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Finding the previously undocumented species was a huge thrill, so the scientist convinced the restaurant's owner to hold onto a few of the self-cloning lizards, then convinced his scientist friend to fly from California to Vietnam to help verify the discovery.

The friend arrived a bit too late, though, as the restaurant owner was pretty well drunk when the next batch of lizards arrived and the owner fried the whole batch up before the scientists could officially discover anything more than how they tasted when paired with different beers.

The two scientists were in despair, but after striking out with other restaurant owners in the remote village, they finally figured out the real source of labor: kids who knew how to dig the lizards out of sand dunes. The scientists have named the creature Leiolepis ngovantrii, which is Latin for "deep fry, add salt."

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