Christina wakes up with a huge smile. Christina: Yay! It’s finally summer! Wind comes and Christina shivers. Christina: Oh my gosh, it’s freezing cold today! I guess it’s time to bring out the aerosol cans! Christina brings out the aerosol cans and walks outside and starts to spray the cans while humming the “song.” Elif the butterfly flies towards Christina. Elif the butterfly: Cough, cough! Christina, you’re polluting the air! Spraying aerosol cans in the air is not going to heat up the Earth! Cough! Mark carrying a lunch bag walks gingerly towards Christina and stares blankly at the aerosol…
The Science Creative Quarterly
The Science Creative Quarterly (SCQ) is not a quarterly, but instead publishes new material at a non-linear rate. Currently, it is sleeping and in a sort of stasis (turpor?) It used to seek science writing of any genre, and your contribution would have involved checking out our submissions guidelines.
The Science Creative Quarterly (SCQ) has a single print edition so far (half SCQ pieces, and half fake science journal – see here for more details). Also, badges?
Stay safe everyone!
THE PROBLEM OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
—And today we are pleased to welcome the notorious “atheist creationist.” Thank you for joining us, Dr. Kranish. —Your sobriquet is only half right, but I accept it. It got me on your show. I’m making a fortune. —Why, Dr. Kranish, you sound positively cynical. “When you’re dead, you’re dead,” declares Stanley Kranish, disgraced engineering professor and charcoal chef extraordinaire. His son David watches dutifully. Wielding his long spatula like a baton, Kranish slices through the heat ripples over two hissing steaks and one mute veggie burger, and prepares to utter his key insight. “Like a rock,” he and David…
HELA VS JLO: THE FINAL SHOWDOWN
(HeLa refers to this, JLo to this) HeLa: Cancer. JLo: Not cancer. Advantage: JLo. HeLa: Supreme longevity. JLo: Not so supreme longevity. Advantage: HeLa. HeLa: Interesting model system. JLo: Interesting model. Advantage: JLo. HeLa: Adherent. JLo: “Clingy” Advantage: HeLa. HeLa: No flim credits to date. JLo: Co-starred in underrated movie with George Clooney. Advantage: JLo. HeLa: $349/vial. JLo: $15 million/film. Advantage: HeLa. HeLa: Doesn’t sing. JLo: Sings (sort of). Advantage: HeLa. HeLa: From Henrietta Lacks (not known by her family until much later). JLo: From the block (still knows where she came from). Advantage: JLo. HeLa: Name sounds kinda like…
MARINE MOLLUSC (A HAIKU ON APLYSIA CALIFORNICA)
Aplysia (snail) bunny of the pacific hydroskeleton – – – (And also to say, that at long last our haiku phylogeny project will be coming to a close – stay tuned this fall…)
A LIST OF PROMISING SALES SLOGANS THAT THE TOY MANUFACTERER, MATTEL, COULD POTENTIALLY USE IF THEY EVER DECIDE TO MASS-PRODUCE AND MARKET A “STEM CELL BARBIE.”
“Hey kids, this Barbie might get pregnant!” “Comes with refrigerated unit to prevent mold.” “Stem Cell Barbie uses only materials from the 60 cell lines approved by George W. Bush himself.” “See Barbie scab!” “Watch her fall in love with Cadaver Ken!” “Have fun with your religious friends – tell them she’s made from embryos!” “A quality product: only 1 in 4 will get cancer.” “Feels like real skin because it is real skin.”
BIOSPHERE REPORT CENTRE
This page is the report centre for three biopsheres set up with a class from Vancouver’s Admiral Seymour Elementary School. This is part of the pilot run for the Science Creative Literacy Symposia. Full details for setting up the biosphere can be found at Martin John Brown’s website (direct link pdf of article published in MAKE magazine found here). – – – DAY 01 NOTES:(From left to right), [1] “Shrimpy’s New Home”; (shrimp names) Flipsy, Zippy; (smail names) Floaty, Gary, Boulder. [2] “Biosphere EJKKPPLF”; (shrimp names) Thumper, Jumper; (snail names) n/a; [3] “Schnomadome”; (shrimp names) John Doe, Boe Doe; (snail…
GEOL 1000: SUBDUCTION CAUSES OROGENY
I’ve always loved geology. I don’t know why I do, but something ’bout the changing earth excites me through and through. Subduction zones, orogeny, the earth’s great heaving powers, and cleavage, groins, and hot spots. I could study this for hours. I love to learn of hardness, swells, and continental rise; of columns, stacks, and mountain peaks, all pointing to the skies. Of caverns and crevasses, valleys, fissures, rifts, and trenches. I like to know what’s going on in beds, on floors, on benches. I like to learn near all things geological. And yet, I’m not so keen on permafrost,…
BISPHENOL-A: THE ONE-ACT PLAY
Our evening began in Peter Seychelles comfortable study in his New York townhouse, where the candlelight was just right, the hi-fi was in the background, and the Bisphenol-A was causing a stir. – – – Narrator: A worried friend rushes in worried about recent plastics news. She is worried. The scene is set. Worried Friend, rushing into the study (appears worried, gnawing fingernails, shifty, unsteady eyes, a mauve t-shirt that says “concerned” right across the chest): What do I do? What do I do? Other friend, not worried (puffing a pipe, which he is quick to note is not a…
COLUMN CHROMATOGRAPHY
Purple powder gently falling Safely in my hands Mixing it, shaking it, pouring it Suddenly it forms bands Coming back, finding it Red between white In the light. Picking flowers when I was three Scattering them next to my mother, On a tree Cherry blossoms in my hand Gently land On the sand Of the beach Now its time to go To leave that happy scene And return back home Where I belong with my Column chromatography – – – (Written during a Science Creative Literacy Symposia – more pieces can be viewed here)