CERN and NIH Race To Map Oprah's Ego

Basel, April 18, 2019 -- Five years after Brown Thursday and the total collapse of the New New Genomiconomy, legions of unemployable genomicists have found hope in a new venture: mapping the ego of thin-again, fat-again American talk show diva Oprah Winfrey.

Genomappers and surveyors are being snapped up by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States and the Center for Excellent Research Notes (CERN) in Switzerland as the huge government cost centers pursue "the last humongoloiditudinally ginormous frontier of science," says Jarls Bergstrom, CERN's Chief of Oprah Notation.

"Oprah's ego is vast, multidimensional, self-fueling and megametrically replicating as we speak," asserts Bergstrom, currently under investigation by the Hague for his alleged diversion of CERN research funds toward the hiring of lithe Nordic teenage volleyball-playing female assistants.

Trying to put the magnitude of the Egonomic Project into perspective, Bergstrom points out that "the human Genome was what—20, 25 thousand genes? Sheesh." And Bergstrom adds that "my long-limbed model-thin blonde assistants Ulla, Ella, Uta, Ola, Helga, Ulrike, Erika, Carla, Durta, Jarla, and Heika have been working day and night for weeks in small outfits under sauna-like conditions, and we've haven't even begun to map the basic components of the Oprahnome."

"The dude is not wrong," asserts Ellis "Toasty" Bunce, NIH's director of Strategic Oprah Ego Mapping. "We're all just getting started on this thing. And have you seen Bergie's volleyball team? Holy Moly."

Bunce and Bergstrom may be in competition for the ultimate prize—comprehensively mapping the Oprahsphere—but they concur on the basics: Oprah Winfrey's ego is a pulsating primordial soup consisting of "at least eighty bajillion" twisted pairs of Oprahsomes lined by several trillion Winfranelles, each powering an indeterminate phalanx of lipid-based rough Oprahplasmic Winfriculums (rOW's), forming "about four dozen" globular polyunsaturated Oprahphrastic Winicules (pOW's).

"This baby could take decades," insists R. Graydon Pratt, newly appointed director of the Ken Burns Center for Boring Science Journalism. "C-SPAN is looking at live coverage, and they might get beat out by CBS. Have you seen their fall line-up? CSIdaho? CSIowa? CSILove You? Who are they kidding?"

"This isn't going to end like genomics did, with that unfortunate albino incident in Cleveland," insists Bunce. "The Oprahsphere is actually useful already." Bunce's team of researchers has already isolated the region of Oprah's ego that triggers what is now known as the fat/thin/fat/thin/fat/thin/fat/thin/fat response, and Bergstrom's nubile CERN contingent has since linked this region to "other inexplicable decisions, such as her book club selections." These breakthroughs have already yielded a lucrative joint NIH-CERN licensing agreement with Nabisco, which hopes to create a new cracker based on the findings.

"There are just so many questions," beamed Bergstrom. "I mean, Oprah is an unmarried billionaire with no children and a huge, frightened staff. What gives her the temerity to speak for millions of women trapped in soul-sucking jobs and dead-end marriages with gaggles of screaming rugrats?"

Bunce concurs with Bergstrom that the allegedly gargantuan "gall" center of the Oprahsphere may be the key to understanding the "awesome breadth" of the TV diva's ego. "Even if we never get to the end of that," says Bergstrom, "if we can just explain her fixation with Maya Angelou, or where she gets off comparing her designer poodles to actual children, or why it seems like nothing was ever discovered, imagined or invented before 1985… I mean, what would that do for mankind?"

Boring Science Journalism Director Pratt concurs, while sounding a note of caution. "The Oprahsphere is mindboggling, but it carries risks. You can go down a path—like CERN might do with the Guilty Guilty Dr. Phil Complex—and never find your way out again. And safeguards are a concern," Pratt adds. "What if something goes wrong with the Oprah Override Protection System? Dozens of researchers work deep in the Winfrey Impulse Purchase Rationalization Cluster every single day."

While acknowledging Pratt's concern, both Bunce and Bergstrom have already publicly downplayed this risk, insisting OOPS can handle the volume.

When contacted, Oprah Winfrey refused to comment, except to say that Monday's Oprah will feature Tom Hanks pitching his new movie Just Go Away Already and that the movie, Hanks, her Monday show and the Oprah show in general are "Wooooonnnn—DERRFUUUULLL!"

By Dang Long, Special Correspondent