The space shuttle Endeavour made it to the international space station where it offloaded a crate filled with an extra toilet, a refrigerator, an exercise machine, and a new recycling system, one that will turn the astronaut’s urine, sweat, and old shower water into drinking water. Hey, it’s cheaper than carting shuttles full of Aquafina up there.

Scientists at Rice University have created BioBeer, a brew made using yeast that has three genes spliced into it so it produces resveratrol, the chemical in red wine that’s thought to protect against diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. Of course if it turns out BioBeer doesn’t really help, you can always drink enough so you don’t care.

The Mexico City Health Secretary has announced that beginning Dec 1 the city will distribute free Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis to men who are 70 and older because, according to Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, sexuality “has a lot to do with quality of life and our happiness.” Hola, Senor Feliz. Is that a tamale in your pants or have you already been in the free Viagra line?

There’s a shortage of sperm donors in Britain, thanks to changes in the law that used to protect the donor’s identity and limit the number of women who can use sperm from one donor. Authorities say they need 500 donors a year but the number of volunteers has dropped to about 300. Yes, it’s a volunteer donation. No money, just fun. And the prospect of seeing your younger doppelganger walking down the street one day. To do your part, contact the Donor Conception Network at (44) 020-8245-4369 or enquiries@dcnetwork.org. Tell them Mr. Happy sent you.

If you want to buy the DVD of the TV series Little House on the Prairie in Finland you’d better be an adult—the box has a sticker that says “Banned for under-18s.” No, Larry Flynt didn’t do a Nailin’ Palin version of the show, Universal Pictures decided to save the $2.57 per minute the Finnish Board of Film Classification charges to rate movies and TV shows. Sorry. No ID, no Ingalls.

The American Medical Association announced on Monday that text messaging while driving is dangerous and “can lead to accidents.” They also decided that germs cause disease, jumping off a 30-story building can lead to death, and the Earth is round.

What do George Bush and Richard Nixon have in common? Well, besides each involving the country in unwinnable wars, thinking it’s okay to put a wiretap on anyone they want without a court order, and having Oliver Stone make a movie about them, they also share the worst popularity ratings of any president since polling began. But now Bush has beat Nixon. He has a lower popularity rating (75% disapprove of the job he’s doing) than Nixon did when he resigned from office during the Watergate scandal (a measly 66%). Barbara must have done a good job of instilling in George the idea that if you’re going to do something, you should always be the best at it.

62-year-old Don Doane of Ravenna, Michigan, bowled his first perfect 300 game last week, then immediately keeled over and died of a heart attack. When life is complete, it’s complete.

The town council in Bournemouth, England, has had a “plain language” policy for the past two years that includes a list of Latin words and phrases their members should avoid using. They recommend saying “the other way around” instead of vice versa, “genuine” for bona fide, and “and so on” in lieu of etc. Speaking of which, the City Council of Salisbury told staff members to avoid using French phrases, e.g.—whoops! I mean, such as—”in lieu” and “fait accompli.” Hey, at least it’s not as bad as the town council that earlier this year banned the word “brainstorm” because it might offend people with epilepsy. From now on they should all stop using the word council, which comes from the Latin concilium, and call themselves “elected assembly,” which they could shorten to “morons” or “idiots.”

OBAMA WON!

The 2012 presidential campaign will begin in 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . GO!

Scientists at the Australian National University have discovered that bees can not only dance to communicate, they can count, though only up to four. The researchers say they’re puzzled as to why the bees can’t count higher. Uh, because they’re bees? And their brains are smaller than a grain of rice? And not nearly as tasty when served with General Tso’s Chicken?

Hostess is preparing to release 100-calorie snack packs of Twinkies, the perfect thing for dieters who crave spongy, amorphous fluffy carbohydrates. David Leavitt, vice president of snack marketing for Hostess, says “It eats like a Twinkie, it smells like a Twinkie, it tastes like a Twinkie.” I’ll have to get a package when they come out. I wasn’t aware Twinkies could eat, smell, or taste. What if it turns out they have feelings too?

Consumer spending over the last quarter fell by the largest amount in 28 years. During that same time the gross domestic product fell by 0.3 percent, indicating that the country is in a recession. Six governors have asked the Federal Reserve to bailout automakers. Yet Exxon broke its own earnings record, hauling in more quarterly profits than any U.S. company in history—a whopping $14.83 billion—because (“Hold onto your gas tank, kids!”) oil prices were at record highs. That’s right, in the oil business high prices don’t squeeze profits, they squeeze the consumer.

The Vatican has announced plans to give psychological tests to candidates for the priesthood in order to screen out heterosexuals who can’t control their sexual urges and those who have strong homosexual tendencies. The tests won’t be obligatory but will be used when seminary rectors “want to be sure a man was qualified for the priesthood.” In conjunction with this, rectors will undergo advanced Gaydar training so they become more sensitive to candidates’ winks, those who use a wide stance in the confessional, and anyone who “accidentally” says semen rectum when referring to the seminary rector.

A woman crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Hidalgo showed inspectors the soiled baby diapers she had with her. When the brave inspectors examined them they didn’t find what they expected, but rather found chorizo links that the woman was smuggling into the U.S. She was fined $300, her chorizo was seized, and the leaders of the Mexican drug cartels all breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t hired her as a mule.

According to a cardiologist at the University of Michigan, hunters have more to fear than charging animals, falling out of a tree stand, running into PETA activists, or having Dick Cheney as a hunting partner. He says the greatest danger is a heart attack. He recommends that you get a pre-season check-up, follow a cardio training regimen, not hunt alone, carry a cell phone, and preferably stay home and watch Bambi while eating tofu hot dogs.

There are only seven days left to sign up for the Marriage for a Lifetime contest. All you have to do is be an engaged couple and agree to abstain from premarital sex until your wedding night. Prizes include $10,000 as well as flowers and invitations for the wedding. So far there have been no takers. Apparently indecent proposals are more popular than decent ones.

By daylight, it’s your basic orange tabby. By night it’s a walking, mewing, fluorescent green nightlight. Yes, scientists at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans cloned a cat and, while they were at it, gave the cat a gene that produces a protein that makes it glow in the dark. It’s a lot of work to make Halloween at the lab unforgettable, especially since all they really needed to do was put it in a French elevator for a while (see: Fifth Floor—Geiger Counters, Lead Vests, X-Rays).

The Otis elevator company says it’s going to replace the buttons from as many as 500 elevators in France because they may be contaminated with radioactive cobalt-60. On the positive side, the buttons were easy to find in the dark and didn’t contain melamine.

When the alumni association of Framingham State College sent out a fundraising letter, blah blah blah, they decided to gear it towards the younger, recent graduates who hadn’t donated before. Blah blah blah. So in an attempt to be hip and cute—as if just being an alumni association isn’t hip and cute enough—they used the word “blah” 137 times in the letter. Such as the one part that read: “With the recent economic downturn and loan crisis, it has become even more important for Framingham State College to receive your support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Graduates complained, saying it insulted their intelligence, and the school’s vice president of college advancement sent a follow-up letter apologizing. Maybe they should have started it with: “u kewl grads r gr8! got $?”