GMO. Wait. Slow. Are there enough tests on you I just don’t know. Yo (Haiku by Azar) – – – – – Am I Everywhere? (by David Ng) Help, I need a Vaccine! (or H.I.V. for Short) (by Anupam Singhal) Research Fraud: Trust and Money (by Ben Montpetit) The Biotech Game of Life (by Kaan Biron, Stephanie Cheung, Arthur Kwan, Mei Mei Tian, Jane Wang, and Sara Wilcox) A Manifesto (by Patrick Francis)
The Science Creative Quarterly
From January, 2006
A WEEK OF “KEYWORD: EVOLUTION” PIECES
There once was a scientist named Wallace Who knew just what fate would befall us We’d hit selection’s locked door And like all others before Into a museum our descendants would install us. (With apologies to Darwin, “Wallace” is much easier to rhyme — Kelvin Walker) – – – – – Evolution (by David H. Thomas) Cow: A Story (by Carolyn Beckman) Which Came First? (by Richard Harter) A Misplaced Chapter from the Book of Genesis (by Vince LiCata) Limulus and Charlie (by Jim Ruland)
LIMULUS & CHARLIE
(WINNER OF OUR KEYWORD: EVOLUTION CONTEST) Charlie wears broken glasses held together with tape and toothpicks. He is unemployed and occupies a one-bedroom apartment in Westchester, California, a half-mile northeast of LAX. Charlie eats in his car. His 1991 Nissan Stanza is a mausoleum of fast food, Frito Lay and Little Debbie wrappers. When Charlie was in the sixth grade, some of his classmates took to calling him “blubber butt.” Although the nickname didn’t stick, he has not quite gotten over it. Limulus is a distant relative of the sea spider and one of the oldest creatures in the ocean.…
LIMULUS & CHARLIE
(WINNER OF OUR KEYWORD: EVOLUTION CONTEST) Charlie wears broken glasses held together with tape and toothpicks. He is unemployed and occupies a one-bedroom apartment in Westchester, California, a half-mile northeast of LAX. Charlie eats in his car. His 1991 Nissan Stanza is a mausoleum of fast food, Frito Lay and Little Debbie wrappers. When Charlie was in the sixth grade, some of his classmates took to calling him “blubber butt.” Although the nickname didn’t stick, he has not quite gotten over it. Limulus is a distant relative of the sea spider and one of the oldest creatures in the ocean.…
A MISPLACED CHAPTER FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS
And lo, it came to be that God was sitting around in his Lazy-God recliner one quiet millennium, and He sayeth unto His Godlike self: “God is bored and needs some entertainment.” And lo, God created the Earth and all it’s inhabitants without getting up from the Lazy-God chair, even whence God needed the occasional short beer break while working, still He did not leave His chair, but simply reached into His Almighty Demi-God Fridge which He always keepeth beside the Lazy-God chair. Late in the week, as one Godlike afternoon twinkled into evening, God looketh down upon His new…
WHICH CAME FIRST?
There has been some discussion in this venue of that ancient question, which came first – the chicken or the chicken egg. The answer is quite simple. A chicken, by definition, is a bird hatched from a chicken egg. A chicken egg, by definition, is an egg laid by a chicken. It follows immediately that there can have been no first chicken nor any first chicken egg. Ergo, if there is a chicken today, there have always been chickens and chicken eggs in the past. It can be shown that there was a time in the past when there were…
COW: A STORY
While waiting for the robot, the cow had built a fire to warm herself. The sun was old and gave little heat this far north. When it came, they both sat by the fire and conversed while they watched the moon rise. The cow asked, “You don’t feel cold and yet you enjoy the fire. How can that be?” The robot flexed its arm and replied, “Warmth helps, I haven’t changed to a lighter oil for winter yet. I get very stiff. I suppose you have come for a calf. “Yes”, she replied. “I haven’t had one for nearly two…
EVOLUTION
(Note this is the first of five entries acquired from our “Keyword: Evolution” contest. Stay tune for Friday, when winning entry will be displayed). – – – – – It may take one smart spin or a hundred turns to burn revolutions into our minds, to create new synapses, blunders free of tattered storybook blurbs, to account for brilliant emergence of a universe blinking in billions of years, raising us from turds through countless failed goals into dreams of souls. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
WHEN CELEBRITIES, WHO HAVE BEEN CLONED IN THE MOVIES, GET TOGETHER FOR A COFFEE
SETTING: A Starbucks in L.A. – three celebrities are sitting at a table with their coffees and sharing a newspaper, a fourth is walking towards the table with his coffee. FADE IN MICHAEL KEATON (Approaching the table) Man, I really need this now. (Sits down, whilst the others nod or wave). Is there a free section of paper? ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER You vant the sports section? MICHAEL KEATON Sure. (Takes the paper and starts looking at the front page) (A few minutes of silence as everyone reads their newspaper) HITLER (Slams his paper down and stands up). Dis ist terrible! As…