A Real Gas

From the Darwin Awards Dept. comes some sound advice for parents: 1) television, movies and other forms of entertainment can have a strong influence on a child's decision-making processes, and 2) drinking gasoline does not turn you into a powerful robot.

According to an article in the Shanghai Daily, a 14-year-old boy in Sichuan Province has been sneaking sips of gasoline for more than five years in an effort to become like one of the robotic superheroes in Transformers and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

The boy's parents first noticed a problem when their son began reeking of lighter fluid, and later noticed that fuel was missing from their motorcycle. They locked the motorcycle away, but the child soon began stealing gasoline from neighbors' vehicles. When it was discovered that the boy was consuming two to three bottles of gasoline per day, his parents decided it was time to address the issue and take him to a hospital. Doctors told the parents he had a mental disorder and a "strong gasoline dependence." For the father, the greatest woe seems to be the boys decreased IQ.

"Since my son started to drink gas, his IQ has dropped sharply and now he can't figure out simple addition and subtraction," he said. "Before, he was a very smart boy, and he could even repair the television. But now he does not know the answer of seven plus 17."

Considering the conditions that allegedly caused this decrease, one has to question how formidable the boy's IQ was in the first place.