Science for the Young

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Now is a great time to get our young men and women interested in science. Boys and girls of the next generation have a natural curiosity for how the laws of physics and chemistry shape their environment. Not only are they interested, but they’re very capable. They have a great capacity for scientific information. The future scientists have some wonderful events from recent years to guide them. For one thing, we’ve already discovered a lot about Mars, and we may soon have details of the entire Martian landscape. That’s some knowledge Ray Bradbury would have thoroughly enjoyed. We have probes and satellites and rovers, not only on Mars, but traveling all around the nearest planets. One great place to start is on Twitter. Check out Jason Major’s tweets @JPMajor to get some pretty cool ideas of how you can study your galaxy. He’s a “citizen scientist” who studies the generous amounts of data that NASA produces. You can even look up more citizen scientists at solarsystem.nasa.gov to give you more of the rich scientific info you’re looking for. And if you’re older, you can get your young ones interested in this.

We can show the next generation how great science really is. We have amazing resources compiling data faster than ever before. We can inspire the youth of the world to perceive science, not as dull homework, but as fascinating facts to be studied and pondered. We can inject humor and optimism in our discussions about science. Because science isn’t a pursuit for “intellectuals” only. Intelligence does not guarantee creativity. When we play, we get creative, and creativity is one of the main attributes of being a scientist. Science truly is fun—play with it!

Obituaries

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In my opinion, it’s mandatory in any obituary to tell how the person died. I’ve seen way too many obituaries with that info left out. How could they do that? If a scientist did an experiment and told you what the experiment was related to, how it was similar to other experiments, and then left off the results of the experiment, would you give the scientist any credit? Not likely. You would probably even stop calling him or her a scientist. I would. I would stop recognizing any authority of that scientist on further subjects. Life is like that: it’s an experiment, and how you die is like the result of the experiment.

Or life is like a book. Would you enjoy a book if you were reading along and found out when you got to the end that the last page was missing? That’s what it’s like when you’re reading someone’s obituary and the person who wrote it left out that curiosity satisfier, the reason for death.

And it doesn’t really matter how in depth you go on the explanation. “Heart failure” could be description enough. You’d be forgiven if your relative happened to be executed by the state and you didn’t want to say, “He died peacefully in the chair,” because that would be a lie, and you didn’t want to say, “He died screaming and cussing, tied to a hospital bed, as they gave him the lethal injection,” because that would be too much information. In those cases, you would be forgiven if you just said, “Heart failure.”

But let’s say your relative was a fairly good person and didn’t require government intervention on their behalf (and the rest of societies behalf). Maybe they just died the old fashioned way and took too many mule kicks to the head. Leaving off that they died of brain damage would be cruel to their memory. If you ask me, that is.

I suspect that some people are just cheap and don’t want to spend those few bucks to make the obituary a complete picture of the person’s life…and death. I say, if you’re inheriting anything from the person who died and you don’t spend the money for a few more words to describe them, then you’ll get your reward in the next life, you tightwad.

Tell you what though, you would be sufficiently redeemed if you went all out on their headstone. Those things cost a fortune.

Hemp

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I’m in love with hemp. I have this crazy idea that we will someday have hemp in all of our food.

Hemp is an amazing plant. The fibers of the plant have been used for clothing, paper, rope, and even to strengthen other materials such as plastics or resin compounds, concrete, and (I’m not sure about this one, since I only heard a rumor about it) glass. My first thought on that last one was: “Glass? Isn’t glass already strong enough?” Anyway, I love researching things, so I’m going to have to check that rumor.

Just to get the goofy, teenage, mind-alteration experimenters out of the way, I have to warn you what my opinion is: Smoking marijuana is for losers! If you’re going to smoke it and make yourself a slow-witted, low-energy, chronic zombie, then you and I have completely opposite agendas. If you’re thinking, “Yay, hemp in food, I gotta get me some of them brownies,” then you’re way off. Hemp and marijuana are close but not quite, you know what I mean? They are similar plants but not exactly the same.

I care about the health of my lungs and my brain. I love that hemp has a superb, natural blend of fatty acids: Omega 3 and Omega 6. I have a vision of it being in foods that I already like to eat, such as Pop Tarts, spaghetti noodles, whole wheat tortillas, Cheetos, and, of course, cookies. Some of that sounds healthy, others less so, but the point is to make everything even more healthy than it is. Hemp already comes in a few foods, such as granola bars, protein powder, hemp seed oil, and hemp “milk”. That last one is a weird one, I tried it and it was strange. It’s only ground up hemp seeds and water. My personal opinion is the hemp belongs in the cereal, not the milk. But there are some people out there with milk allergies, and for them, the hemp “milk” might be an adequate alternative.

Some companies that sell hemp based products are:

American Hemp Seed Genetics

Celtic Wind Crops

Hempco Europe, Ltd.

Quattro Ventures

Skate Park Invasion

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(Farce) I visited my nearest skate park today. It had the usual bunch of hooligans and ne’erdowells. I was totally afraid for my wallet. I was even afraid for my women and children, these punks were so ferocious and violent.

(Reality) Actually, while I was there, I saw lots of skaters and one BMX biker, all getting along really well with each other. Nobody was hogging any features. Nobody was even smoking anything, except the tricks, if you know what I mean. One guy had the fakies made out like nature’s butter. Or at least that’s what he told me. I’m not so sure I want to ever see nature’s butter. I don’t mind watching a fake ollie or two, though.

The kid on the BMX was the youngest one there. He had some good tricks, but I could tell he was being timid on a few of the jumps. It’s great to see people making progress. He’ll be even better at it in a few years, as long as he keeps practicing.

Speaking of practicing, I was on my mountain bike, so I tried out a few of the ramps. It was good practice for me too. Spring-time riding makes me feel timid like a ten year old. I needed the practice. By the time I left, I felt like tackling a mountain. In other words, I’m ready for summer now. Wasatch Crest Trail, here I come.

(Farce, Reality, or what?) By the time I left the skate park, I felt the eyes on my back, and all the relieved thoughts, skaters easing up on their tension, punks going back to their mayhem, “Man, I’m sure glad that old mountain biker dude is gone. Now the skate park can be a skate park again, instead of a mountain goat park.”

Staring at the Airwaves

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Staring up at a cell’ tower, imagining all of the dissonance bombarding it night and day.

How many millions of contentious texts are bouncing off of those vented panels? How much trivial pretentiousness is thrown at the tower every minute? How much pompism* is sent on the airwaves to and from the tower? How much bandwidth is plugged up with overly wordy textual intercourses?

Then again, how many birthday wishes are flying across the planet because of the cell’ tower? How many people, who can’t reach each other physically because they’re too distant on the planet, can make contact because of the cell’ tower? How many people get to talk to each other…before they never hear from each other in this lifetime again? How many people get to know their distant relatives through the cellular sound waves? How many men and women meet each other online first and then get together in a permanent married way? How many friends set up D&D games, or Pokemon get-togethers, or pool parties, or sandlot ball games, or sand volleyball games, or mud football games, or road rallies—-and all because of that connection forty feet in the air.

It has its good points to counter the bad.

*Pompism: the use of unnecessarily large words. People who want to make themselves appear intelligent operate under the principle of pompism.