It's down to Neil (ve6neo) and Timothy Ferguson, it looks like. Unless one of the other players have an idea worthy of 2 points, or someone comes up with something even more stupendously amazing worthy of 3.
The assignment: Abate, prevent, or even reverse aging.
Neil, you have noodles. Timothy, you have tooth fillings.
Everyone else who has won so far is limited to using any out of the above two, Zoroastrian astrologers, checker kings, miniature noses, and soup.
If you have not won any so far, you may use anything you like.
Everyone has exactly one week to finish their assignment. Go!
Well this is easier than it looksb because tooth fillings already contain an anti-aging agent. Let me explain: have you noticed that the only adults who do not have fillings in their teeth are senior citizens? Notice that senior citizens have false teeth that entirely lack fillings? The question, therefore, is what is the substance in tooth fillings that allows people to avoid being elderly persons with false teeth.
I engage in detailled scientific studies of old persons, probing them as necessary, and undertake field studies to see if any of the other effects of aging give me a clue as to the compound in fillings that prvents the onset of aging. During the "Get your ball off my lawn!" study, we note that older people move faster when they have their teeth in. They also move faster with the aid of a Zimmer frame, a device that, somehow, slightly counteracts the effefcts of aging: and thus we have a second clue. What is the commonality of the Zimmer Frame and the Tooth Filling?
We undertake extensive research and discover that the elements in amalgam tooth fillings are silver, mercury and tin, with some chromium. Those in zimmers also contain chromium.
Chromium is, of course, the sacred metal of Chronos, the ancient Greek god of time, who ate his own children to prevent the end of the epoch of the Titans. Time moved forwards, from the golden to the silver age, when he shattered his teeth on a rock, which was swaddled in Zeus's baby clothes. Here we see the basic mysticalness of the situation: Time broke his teeth, losing chromium to Mankind as a less sexy secret than Fire, and therefore so long as we have teeth, and they contain Chronium, we have eternal life.
From this we take the obvious route, we raid Hades and find Chronos, who hasn't been doing anything of significance since the Titanomachy. o get into Hades we will need a large number of people wearing his cult object, but that's easy: we break into a Seiko convention, knock everyone out with giant sdnail mucus and lie them down in an enormous version of the alchemichal symbol for Saturn.
When the gate opens, we abjure him in the name of Rolex and shave his head. Then we wait a while and do the same thing agin...and again...and again. We basically shave the fro of the god of time, here.
Then we need to get this into the teeth of every person on Earth. Fortunately we can do that because it is heavy enough to be absorbed into bone. We just need to get people to drink it. I suggest we include it in infant formula. It's not like we haven't all tried putting stuff in infant formula before...wait...that was just me? OK, so we put stuff in infant forumla. When enough people in the infant formula using world get wind of what it does, we arrange a UN Summit to arrange the distribution of the HolyHeadChrome. We get it passed out by Medicine Sans Frontiers, we get Americans to LoveBomb various countries with the stuff. We tell women it will make them pretty and men that it will allow them to maintain rigidness for an hour.
I'm not one to usually hand in a late assignment, but time has become a little less relevant now that immortality is in my hands. This is my story.
I took some time thinking where I would learn more about noodles and immortality. There are very few places that deal in both so I ended up in an ancient Taoist monastery in the deep of China. Once there, I was taught the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, as well as a simple noodle recipe. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but the moral of the story is that if I continue to eat these noodles every day, I will no longer feel the pangs of aging. Not a bad deal, I think, even if it results in a boring menu for the rest of my life.
Thankfully I'm not an unkind man. For you, Dean, I will ship the Taoist noodles in crates every month. There is enough for the University upper echelon, but then we don't want everybody to be immortal now do we. It's time for me to enjoy the rest of my long life. Now I just have to hope I don't get a cavity, the last thing I want to do is be a part of a class-mate's assignment.
I will once again have to say that Mr. Ferguson's storytelling once again shows a definite style and grace (and how longer entries are far better in this format than real life).
Unfortunately for Timothy , Neil bribed me with an unlimited supply of noodles of longevity, and had a passable project to boot. ve6neo wins the game! 8)
(squarglepipe fanfare)
In honor of your accomplishment, you win all the internets you can eat, and have been awarded a B.S. in Temporal Philosophy.
All other players, please report to the specimen sorting... wait, I played too. Hmm. What say we just give everyone a nice spring break, and I'll see you all back in class when the next tornado hits.
, Neil bribed me with an unlimited supply of noodles of longevity, and had a passable project to boot. ve6neo wins the game! 8)