back to article Corn-based diet turns French hamsters into baby eating cannibals

French farmers’ embrace of modern farming is turning the already endangered local hamster population into black-tongued baby eating pyschos, scientists have found. Turning over massive tracts of land to maize-raising has destroyed the cuddly cheek-stuffers' previously diverse diet, with their monotonous intake also exposing …

  1. LoPath

    Cannibal Corn Carnage

    Makes me want to go watch "Children of the Corn" again.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Cannibal Corn Carnage

      I think it was in the X-files that corn was used as a means to engineer antidote to the alien "black oil", a parasitic substance creating Muscular Grey Alien grubs in human hosts?

      Maybe it was all true?

    2. Faux Science Slayer

      Help....I'm surrounded by a taco and tamale crazed army !

      Maybe Trump is right about closing the border...

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: Help....I'm surrounded by a taco and tamale crazed army !

        In the US, don't they tend to use corn syrup instead of sugar in soft drinks?

        Just saying...

        1. An nonymous Cowerd

          Re: corn syrup instead of sugar

          No, it is now prevalent: check everything that you buy in your local supermarket - from Austria to New Zealand - everything now seems to contain high percentages of glucose-fructose syrup GFS aka (enzymed)corn-syrup or HFCS (high fructose-corn syrup) or fructose-glucose or isoglucose or . . .

          and I can't see that it should

          Sucrose just ain't what it used to be https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2546703/

          p.s. allegedly the EU market for isoglucose will triple next year https://engineeredignorance.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/isoglucose-fake-sugar/

  2. gv

    "Improperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans"

    Now there's a health warning!

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      It's all Mr. Kellogs' fault.

    2. Snowy Silver badge
      Coat

      Is that why the murder rate in America is so high, too much corn syrup in the diet?

      1. cd

        Not only that, but the cattle are corn-fed. And given various hormones. Easy to tell who eats fast food here, they look over-inflated. If you come to visit, avoid driving by a feedlot unless you want nasal scars. They do not smell like the birthplace of anything called food.

        Other cultures here (hispanic and indian) that eat lots of corn seem to have more diabetes, many look trapped in their own bodies. I wish there was a way to reach out to them and present alternatives. Cultural change is slow, food gets fetishised into roles beyond fuel.

        Over the years I've collected various anti-corn reasons for both human and animal food, it's no longer a part of my food chain at all.

        Except in the gas tank, where there's rarely an opt-out. Don't bother posting about pure-gas.com or whatever, their data set is worthlessly incomplete and incorrect.

        1. Gene Cash Silver badge

          > Except in the gas tank

          On the good side, on the first of last year, Florida made it legal to sell hippie-free gas again. It's hard to find but at least main chains like RaceTrac and Wawa are selling it.

          And yes, that's one of the reasons I voted for Trump. I hope he puts some sort of lid on the EPA.

          The EPA recently tried saying race cars & bikes are illegal because of their emissions. Fortunately, Congress put a stop to that.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Florida is a worthless state of clueless assholes. Voting for tRump is just going for par. Please do us all a favor and suck an exhaust pipe of a running car and let us know how bad those nasty EPA people are ruining your already self-fucked up life? You, silly bastard.

            And stop using computers! Those are a product of NASA and Science and not for the likes of backwards assholes like; yourself, your orange hero, and his shemale companion. You clearly have no idea what to do with one with that last unfortunate post you failed to keep to yourself. :P

          2. Chemical Bob

            The EPA recently tried saying race cars & bikes are illegal because of their emissions."

            The EPA would be appalled at the emissions of football/baseball/basketball/hockey/your-favorite-pro-sport-here resulting from burning all that jet fuel to move everyone about to the different games.

          3. Rattus Rattus

            It's amazing how Trump voters...

            ...are not only unembarrassed by their ignorance and stupidity, they seem to actually enjoy flaunting it! Dunning–Kruger effect in full swing, I guess.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: It's amazing how Trump voters...

              Its amazing how Trump naysayers seem oblivious to the fact that they seem to have some propensity for posting about him in stories that have nothing to do with him.

              More Mus Domesticus than Rattus Rattus eh?

              1. Rattus Rattus

                Re: It's amazing how Trump voters...

                @cornz 1

                Perhaps you should have checked the comment I was replying to, flaunting his ignorance before the world. But no, easier to rant than read, eh?

          4. phuzz Silver badge

            Nothing wrong with ethanol in your fuel if your engine is set up for it. Yes you have much higher fuel consumption, but the higher octane reduces detonation, so you can run more ignition and/or boost. It also cools the manifold more than petrol, so the power increase outweighs the consumption.

        2. lnLog

          No kidding, you should see how hard it it to find animal and dairy products from animals that have not been force fed whilst living in a crowded in a car park (feed lots; now there is a nasal phenomenon). We've had to resort to 'organic' if you want butter to be yellow with flavour and not tasteless white!

          1. tr1ck5t3r

            >No kidding, you should see how hard it it to find animal and dairy products from

            Brexit has its advantages, like getting decent food from the commonwealth countries, even if your lamb and butter comes all the way from New Zealand during our winter months.

            1. tiggity Silver badge

              We have farms here, lots of cows and sheep (way too many sheep, lots of uplands should be covered in forest instead of desolate grassy wastelands due to massive amounts of sheep farming).

              It is (fortunately) the case that most UK cattle & sheep still get to roam.

              We have plenty of good quality butter & lamb here, no need for NZ imports (unless you want a cheaper price as NZ sheep farms are huge so economies of scale makes it cheaper to freeze NZ lamb & ship it here (food miles ahoy!))

        3. Crazy Operations Guy

          @cd

          "I wish there was a way to reach out to them and present alternatives"

          Its not a lack of alternatives, its a complete lack of funds to buy anything else. They know damn well that the food they are eating is terrible for them, but there are no alternatives. The US and Canada have fucked over the native populations' economies by forcing them to live on barren land long distances away from any population centers so that they no longer have either the option of growing their own food or making enough money to acquire food. Although even for those that are near population centers, their school funding and medical funding are so terrible that there is no way to compete with European-Americans (Funny how America is now screaming "Them immigrants are ruining the country, let's deport them all!" when the Natives have been saying that for 500 years now...)

  3. GreggS

    Concrete action?

    Feeding them that will just make the hordes of ravenous psycho hamsters harder to kill. if not just harder.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Concrete action?

      This 'dangerous leaf-eater' theme has already been explored in cinema.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Concrete action?

      I would think you'd get some "concrete action" about 4-5 days after switching to an all-corn diet...unless you're eating the cobs too.

  4. wolfetone Silver badge

    I remember at primary school our teacher had two hamsters in the classroom. One day one of the girls starts screaming, teacher comes over and the girl points at the hamster cage. The girl hamster was giving birth to pups, and eating them. I think three died, two were unharmed, and of the two that died the teacher tried to save them by putting a plaster over the wounds.

    Turned out that the second hamster wasn't a girl at all.

    1. User McUser

      When I was but a lad, my brother and I had two mice as pets. Then one morning we woke to find that we now had one mouse, half a mouse carcass, and some surplus bits of mouse offal.

      Turns out that rodents are, as a rule, horrid little things; probably something to do with their pan-dimensional existence.

    2. DropBear

      Can't imagine how this is news - when I had hamsters (yes the cute, small ones) back in the day it was well known we need to watch and separate the newborns as fast as we can or else the mother "takes care" of ALL of them...

  5. Rich 11

    Eek!

    capable of reaching as much as 35.5cm (14 inches) in length, not including its tail.

    That's not a hamster, it's a monster direct from a James Herbert nightmare!

    Maybe Manuel was right after all.

    1. Alan Stewart

      Re: Eek!

      Sounds like a ROUS to me!

      1. GreggS

        Re: Eek!

        I don't think they exist

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. King Jack

      Re: Eek!

      There is no need to make fun of Richard Hammond's height or lack thereof.

  6. Alister

    Mmmm, corn-fed hamster, lovely!

  7. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Joke

    waiting for "save the hamsters" to intervene

    I'm waiting for some "save the hamsters" society to intervene. Watching the en"sue"ing court battles would require a different kind of corn... popped in coconut oil, with plenty of butter and salt.

    That's right - SAVE THE CANNIBAL HAMSTERS from themselves!

    1. Palpy

      Re: waiting for "save the hamsters" to intervene

      Yes. The logical next step.

      I had not known, before reading that article (on a science site, not El Reg in this case) that there is a wild hamster native to Europe: Cricetus cricetus, aka the black-bellied, Eurasian, or common hamster.

      Dummies like me can learn summat knew every daie, I guess.

      Actually, according to WickedPedia: "The Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Union's highest court, ruled on 9 June 2011 that France had failed to protect the European hamster. The court said that if France did not adjust its agricultural and urbanization policies sufficiently to protect it, the government would be subject to fines of up to $24.6 million."

      Or, instead of a fine, they might release 10,000 deranged corn-fed European hamsters into the Assemblée nationale... sacrebleu.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: waiting for "save the hamsters" to intervene

        Or, instead of a fine, they might release 10,000 deranged corn-fed European hamsters into the Assemblée nationale... sacrebleu.

        Certainly would beat a visit by Pepe the Sadfrog.

  8. whoseyourdaddy

    You should be watching the documentary "The Perfect Human Diet".

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2014248/

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So this now raises the question, who would win in the ultimate battle of

    Corn fed Hamsters Vs Laser Brain Mice?

  10. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Mythbusters

    One of the big questions Adam Savage gets at cons is "are there MB episodes you couldn't air?"

    The strangest such episode was "is the cardboard box more nutritious than the cereal inside it?"

    So they fed cardboard to mice, and came in one day to find one very fat mouse, and various pieces of ex-mice.

    The lawyers and censors obviously put a stop to things.

    1. Old Handle

      Re: Mythbusters

      But wait... which mouse turned cannibal? The one eating cardboard or cereal?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here you go

    Everything is on YouTube. EVERYTHING!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y69sThwgzpg

  12. Herby
    Trollface

    Obviously...

    This is related to Swift's A Modest Proposal.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: Obviously...

      That only applies to the Irish hamsters.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    I for one welcome our giant hamster overlords!!

    And I remind them that as a marketing professional, I am well positioned to recruit my fellow humans into slavery, endlessly running on my lords' upsized exercise wheels to generate electricity for the corn processing plant.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about......

    .....feeding this corn to the Trump Family?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: How about......

      I really want liberals to just leave.

      Go protest with the obnoxious pink pussies or something.

      1. John McCallum

        Re: How about......

        Calm down there is a great European tradition of taking the piss out of pompous politicians even Royalty .Especialy if they are ferriners.

  15. Aaiieeee
    Happy

    Renowned French hamster expert Gerard Baumgart

    Some people have cool jobs

  16. Baldy50

    FFS

    This was on Sciencealert.com three days ago!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too much Cr0n is bad for you.

  18. This post has been deleted by its author

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