Colds and flu not even vaguely similar

PEOPLE with colds who claim to have the flu have been reminded that the two things are entirely f*cking different.

Doctor Mary Fisher said: “If you have a cold you do not have the flu, in the same way that having indigestion is not that same as having measles. Or a migraine is not the same as a sprained ankle.

“In fact, in the same way that any two things that are not at all the same are different, unless you are either a malingerer or an absolute moron.

“Flu is a week-long drugs trip during which the sufferer lies inert and shivering while hallucinating about going on a car journey with a clown and a cat they owned when they were eight.

“Sweat fucks out of them as they lose all grip on reality, and after several days of writhing in their own steaming fluids they will either stagger to their feet or die.

“A cold is a having a runny nose.”

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Petri dish goes viral

A PETRI dish has become the centre of attention after developing a new strain of thymosin-derived ACT1 peptide.

Just hours after being implanted with an ordinary amino acid sequence, the Petri dish has been hailed as 2015’s next big thing, thanks to its developing relationship with a set of viral proteins.

Scientist Joanna Kramer said: “I had all this nutrient agar lying around, so I bunged it in a culture plate for a laugh and introduced an ACT1 peptide vector, just to see what would happen.

“I shared it with my colleagues by streaking their dishes with a sterilized inoculating loop, but then word got around that the genetic material was replicating exponentially.

“The attention’s got a bit out of control. Just like this new strain, which is self-assembling faster than we can log it.

“Hashtag plaque-forming units.”

Lab assistant Emma Bradford said: “It’s all over Ars Technica and SciTech Daily, and the Smithsonian Magazine just said on Twitter that it makes the vinegar and baking powder experiment look like the Queensland pitch drop experiment.”

Kramer’s work has already spawned a host of imitators, with virologists creating their own versions of the Petri dish which they will then submit to peer-reviewed scientific journals for the banter.

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