I’ll begin by apologizing to the media reporters who rushed here thinking they were covering a car accident involving an elderly pedestrian, two kittens, and a baby. To my chagrin, I did not receive any RSVPs to “Shock Rock Talk 2010.” How was I going to know how much sheet cake to order? It’s in the back and it’s chocolate ice cream and it’s delicious. But I’m sidestepping the main event. We must celebrate the once missing link between the zircon rocks of the Archaean era and the pet rocks that roam children’s bedrooms and eBay this very day. Understand…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From archive
VENUS AND THE VEGAN
I was a vegan, you know. That was my choice. All the others—well, as soon my siblings wriggled free from the amber chambers of our pupal stage, they began to indulge their taste for the fetid and putrefying. They dove into the waxy mustard lakes of Aunt Peggy’s deviled eggs, lapping at stale currents of cayenne that dappled her discarded delights; they flew straight through tin-toothed mouths into hollow cans of cat food, kissing every centimeter of metal to sponge up flecks of flesh from what was once a fancy feast. And when Tiger graced the lawn with yet more…
GOODNIGHT LUNA
(With respect to Margaret Wise Brown marvelous words). – – – Goodnight Luna. Goodnight spacecraft orbiting Luna. Goodnight Chang’e, And the Lunokhod rovers. Goodnight norite. Goodnight dunite. Goodnight granophyre, And goodnight vitrophyre. Goodnight olivine, And goodnight pyroxene. Goodnight gabbronorite, And goodnight labradorite. Goodnight orthoclase, And goodnight anorthosite. Goodnight hypersthene, Goodnight troctolite, And goodnight to the reflectors waiting for light. Goodnight Surveyor. Goodnight Ranger. Goodnight landers everywhere.
IF ONLY MORE PEOPLE WERE LIKE THE CHOWDHURY’S
Advanced publicity for The World is Round: A Year of Living Off the Land and Off the Grid, by M. Chowdhury The heroic and humorous account of one Bengali family’s year long attempt to go without the fruits of the world economy. After stumbling across a LiveEarth brochure at a local recycled-goods pile, the Chowdhury family decide to take a principled stand against the worst excesses of global capitalism – environmental degradation, human rights abuses, unfair trade practices – and devote one year to simplifying their lives and lessening their contribution to these problems. Gone are the basic necessities –…
LESSER KNOWN LAWS OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS
The Einstenian Hillbilly Theory of Marriage: It’s all relative. Fermat’s First Theorem: The one he made in pre-school that showed why bullies are idiots. The High School Uncertainty Principle: You can never simultaneously tell how fast you should be moving in a relationship or at what position you are currently in. Central Limit Theorem as Applied To Dancing: In large populations, the drunkest people tend to congregate in the middle of the dance floor. Law of Large Numbers as Applied to Nerds: Just because that girl will go out on a date with you doesn’t mean you got skills. That’s…
LIMERICKS TO PONDER
Creationist theory is moot. Nature chose an alternative route / root. You’ve seen Darwin’s chart. You know me by heart– I’m the white guy up front in a suit. Unfounded beliefs and defiance, In obedience more than compliance. Here’s hoping (in vain?) That good faith will soon gain A greater alliance with science. AGE-OLD QUESTIONS In various legends and labels, Lies are the true term for “fables.” The egg or the hen: Which was first? Tell me WHEN, And did navels precede Cain and Abel’s?
SEXTING: THE “PERFECT STORM” OF EVOLUTION, CULTURE, AND TECHNOLOGY (SOME THOUGHTS)
The “modern” human is the product of evolution, a natural process that operates on scales ranging from millions, to hundreds-of-thousands, to tens-of-thousands of years. The average individual of today is little changed from the average individual 30,000 years ago. We are literally prehistoric when we are born. Culture, our ability to pass information, artifacts, and other non-genetic material from one generation to the next, operates on much smaller time scales: millennia, centuries, even decades. The larger cultural landscape consists of religion, language, governments, laws, etc. and many of these change so quickly that they have only been in their present…
IMPROVING MATERNAL HEALTH IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE BUT REQUIRES POLITICAL WILL
Is it acceptable for mothers to die of preventable causes during pregnancy because they are poor? Sadly, this is the pattern revealed by the United Nations (UN) statistics which show that dying of preventable causes is still a reality for half a million women every year [1]. These women live in the world’s poorest countries and surprisingly, the numbers of preventable maternal deaths in these regions have not improved significantly over the last decade [1,2,3]. But the picture is much different for women in developed nations where maternal deaths are 400 times less frequent [2]. Addressing these inequalities should be…
TYRANNOSAURUS REX JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED
People look at me, and all they see is the most powerful set of carnivorous jaws in the animal kingdom. But there’s more to me than that. I’ve also got a big heart, a heart that weighs close to two hundred pounds. And it’s broken. Caleb dumped me last week. He said that if I want to have someone in my life, I can’t get all territorial about him poaching from the Iguanodon herds down by the river bend. He said I need to figure out what it is I want. He said that being together wasn’t worth the stress,…