questionable taste

Not exactly a metaphor, but certainly of questionable taste in this story titled, "'Sex Pest' Seal Attacks Penguin":

Marion Island is the only place in the world where Antarctic fur seals are known to hunt king penguins on land, so the idea that the fur seal was trying to eat the object of its attention made sense.

"But then we realised that the seal's intentions were rather more amorous."

So, a monkey in North Carolina was controlling a robot in Japan, using only its brain waves.

"It's walking!" Dr. Nicolelis said. "That's one small step for a robot and one giant leap for a primate."

Well, what else did you expect him to say? Maybe "Mwa-ha-HA-HA!"?

Anyway, the study looks kind of cool -- they had a monkey on a treadmill for an hour, got the electrode reading neurons related to walking, and had the monkey watching the robot's legs on a television screen. Once the monkey got used to the idea of controlling the robot's legs, they stopped the treadmill. At this point, even though the monkey had stopped, its brain kept the robot walking.

The next step: virtual robot monkey reality:

In the near future, Idoya and other bipedal monkeys will be getting more feedback from CB in the form of microstimulation to neurons that specialize in the sense of touch related to the legs and feet. When CB's feet touch the ground, sensors will detect pressure and calculate balance. When that information goes directly into the monkeys' brains, Dr. Nicolelis said, they will have the strong impression that they can feel CB's feet hitting the ground.

At that point, the monkeys will be asked to make CB walk across a room by using just their thoughts.

Unfortunately, they will have to move offshore to have virtual robot monkey knife fights.

In a press release about the successful application of green bottlefly larvae to cure (by chewing on) foot ulcers in diabetic patients, by University of Manchester researcher Andrew Boulton and colleagues:

"Maggots are the world's smallest surgeons. In fact they are better than surgeons - they are much cheaper and work 24 hours a day," Professor Boulton jokingly said.

And then this stomach-turning idea:

"There is no reason this cannot be applied to many other areas of the body, except perhaps a large abdominal wound."

Uggh!