Salon.com > Pandas

Meet Colin: The porn-watching giant panda

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:16:00 +0000

Vets at a panda breeding and research facility in the Sichuan province of southwest China were concerned that two of their giant panda mates were going through a sexual rough patch.

Colin was under a lot of pressure at work. Yongyong kept insisting he "had a headache."

So the vets intervened. Not with red wine or a week in the Adirondacks, but with porn.

Giant panda porn.

Colin "took great interest in" a film of giant pandas making the beast with two backs, according to a spokesman from the research center. He added that, after a little bit of visual stimulation, there was "no stopping her."

And that's good news, researchers say. Giant pandas remain on the endangered species list and their natural habitat in China is being destroyed by logging.

So good for you, Colin. Eat your bamboo. Watch your porn. Keep keepin' it freaky in the animal kingdom.

Cute science: Pandas can help fight superbugs

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:51:00 +0000

Fighting drug-resistant microorganisms has never been so adorable!

Researchers at the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China recently discovered that the endangered giant panda has a potent antimicrobial compound in its bloodstream. Known as cathelicidin-AM, the compound can kill a wide range of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics.

According to the Daily Telegraph, cathelicidin-AM was able to kill bacteria in less than an hour -- five hours faster than other widely used antibiotics.

The discovery may lead to increased interest in preserving the population of wild pandas. There are about 1,600 left in the wild, and more than 300 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.

And for those worried that this scientific breakthrough will lead to pandas being killed for their amazing antibiotic blood: fear not. The compound can be manufactured synthetically in the laboratory.

Scientist: Humans ate pandas

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 14:45:00 +0000

BEIJING --Early humans used to eat pandas, a Chinese scientist has claimed.

Wei Guangbiao said prehistoric man ate the bears in what is now part of the city of Chongqing in south-west China.

Wei, head of the Institute of Three Gorges Paleoanthropology at a Chongqing museum, said excavated panda fossils "showed that pandas were once slashed to death by man".

The Chongqing Morning Post quoted him as saying: "In primitive times, people wouldn't kill animals that were useless to them," and therefore the pandas must have been used as food. But he said pandas were much smaller in prehistoric times.

Wei said wild pandas lived in Chongqing's high mountains 10,000 to 1m years ago.