Scientists Discover what Makes the World Go 'Round

It isn't love. It isn't money. No, it's not even angular momentum.

"Our research has discovered that the earth is, in fact, a giant hamster ball," University of North Dakota geologist Ante Diluvian explained at the 119^th annual world conference on geology.

"In all my 119 years of studying geodesy, I would rank this finding as the oddest oddity yet. What professor of geodesy would ever have suspected that the earth is in fact a giant geode?"

The team making the discovery had originally set out to monitor the heart of the earth.

"We were concerned that with all the saturated fats that used to go into McDonald's fries now going into landfills, the earth may have begun to develop an arrhythmia," an anonymous grad student who did all the work for the report explained.

While Professor Diluvian was busy professing, his grad students set up a World- Wide Web Electrocardiograph (a WWW-EKG) by linking together 12 seismographs from around the world with Yahoo chat and copious amounts of free alcohol. "We're not sure what the 'K' in EKG stands for, but it just sounds kooler," a student explained. Seismologists and other scientists who study size were thrilled to be a part of the research, as the earth is the biggest thing in the world.

The WWW-EKG could detect P, QRS, T and Love waves, as well as stadium waves. However, instead of the expected geocardiological spectrum, all they heard was a low-pitched squealing, 10 octaves below Johnny Cash.

"This is by far the lowest pitched squealing we've ever heard," a seismologist explained, "if it was any lower-pitched, we might have to call it something else, like a 'squeaking'."

The scientists then drew the only logical conclusion: that the squealing was due to a very large hamster. "This guy could eat Godzilla for breakfast. If Godzilla was real, that is," the report noted.

An internet poll is being taken to determine what to name the hamster that makes the world go round. Top contenders include "football", "football", "Pikachu", and "the next episode of LOST".

In addition to answering the age old question as to the earth's rotation, the discovery may explain other mysteries, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"We think he/she might have crawled out of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan and eaten all the dinosaurs for lunch, who were vacationing in Cancun at the time" the report speculated, "A lot of college students have a similar experience there every spring. And all this time, we thought it was the smoking."

The report assuaged fears about the saturated fats going into the landfills, as the hamster is probably active enough with the onerous task of turning the whole earth to eat what it likes. However, the discovery kindled fears about all the caffeine spilled on the ground by over-stimulated Starbucks customers.

"The influx of caffeine may cause the hamster to speed up, increasing the centrifugal force and reducing the apparent gravity, especially in Southern places like Florida," the report cautioned, "This would have the positive effect of making everyone a few pounds lighter, but airheads like Brooke Hogan might float away."

Professor Diluvian, meanwhile, used his newfound notoriety to issue a rambling, incoherent statement about the future of geology.

"Some people don't seem to appreciate this, but you have to be very old to study geology, because geological time is so much slower than Greenwich time. Time flies when you're having fun, but time crawls when you're studying rocks. Young people today, they all want to be part of these new-fangled and rapidly developing fields, like high-altitude feline defenestration, scrofulacybernetics, and subaquatic basketry hybridization. No one has any respect for geology any more, which is as old as the earth, but has been progressing at a sub-glacial pace for all of history."