Archive for the ‘Everyday Science’ Category:
Weed Wars: Calling Dr. King
Recently we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. Facebook and Twitter lit up with MLK Jr quotes and bold statements about acceptance. Though I have never heard this quoted anywhere else, I have always thought that MLK Jr had the following principle at heart: if you wish to be accepted by society, you must first show society that you can be a useful part of the culture. King suggested that his people be peaceful protestors who advocated their own worth, and even today this continues to be a valuable idea.
There’s value to the other side, too. You don’t have to conform to what’s already in a society to prove you can have value in it. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” has its own merits. And every year I lived in Los Angeles, you can bet I wasn’t going to miss the West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade on Halloween. I have never seen better costumes anywhere than what I saw there every year, everywhere I turned. One year, the string quartet from “Titanic” played as they walked, complete with old-time life vests and icicles hanging from their faces and sleeves. Another year, a human Oscar and an Emmy stood on raised daises at one end of the walk. Parade goers could grasp them by the calves and get their picture taken as if accepting a life-sized award. But wearing your purple, thigh-high shazam boots with only a green over-the-shoulder thong isn’t really the way to convince society that you belong.
But the issue of one group trying to get a legitimate foothold in society doesn’t end there: anti-weight discrimination groups are in the mix now. (“We’re here, we’re spheres, get used to it”). But a new group has a dog in the fight, too: the medical marijuana contingent.
Let’s start with a breakdown:
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Daylight Saving – because time zone math isn’t hard enough
We just recently went through the end of Daylight Saving Time. Well, most of us did, some didn’t. Lucky Hawaiians and Arizonans. Actually, Hawaiians have it the best, what difference does it make if they do daylight saving time or not? No one can correctly calculate what time it is in Hawaii anyway.
It’s Arizona that may have the most trouble. No one ever knows which time zone they have an alliance with. On the upside, they don’t have to remember to spring forward or fall back, and never pull themselves out of bed an hour early complaining about farmers. Nor do they get that blissful extra hour of sleep the other 48 enjoy.
Oh wait. Half the time we don’t enjoy it, because we forget about it. We often spend our ‘free’ hour in the fall having shown up for something at the time we thought was ‘on time’. So we waste our hour mad at our friends who stood us up or wondering if no one got the memo . . . only to find out that it was our own fault, and that our hour is gone for another year.
Somewhere there should be a “An Affair to Remember”-esque love story about a couple who agrees to meet, at a certain point and time in mid-November. Only they miss each other, because she realizes it’s Daylight Saving weekend, and he shows up an hour earlier because he forgot to ‘fall back’! Or was the one who set the clock forward the one who’s early?!?!?! It’s just so confusing. That’s why no one has written this epic love tragedy! Who can possibly get it right?
It’s Not Rocket Science, Just Regular Science
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In the olden worlde, the earth was flat. It was the center of the universe and everything else revolved around us. Electricity and natural disasters were caused by gods and magic.
And then, we found SCIENCE!
Electricity became the movement of electrons – which we harnessed, wired and put a dimmer switch on. We realized the stars didn’t work with us at the middle, and it all made a lot more sense if we gave ourselves less importance in the grand scheme of things. We discovered magma and tectonic pressure build-up and virgins everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.
And still we discover more. We can see direct evidence of our postulated atoms. We believe in dark matter. And right now, I’m working on a computer that makes the green DOS prompt of my childhood look like it came from the same time period as the American Settlers. (You have died of dysentery!)
What’s next – Soylent Oreos?
When we see an ad on TV, we usually know it’s an ad. Even when it’s product placement you can usually tell. Done badly (Alias: “Take the Ford F150! It has a hydroformed frame and rear shocks!”) or done well (Handing off Twizzlers or Coke with the label exactly framed to the audience) it’s usually clear.
My kids were hung up on infomercials because they were susceptible – they BELIEVED. “Eggies” started a full bore discussion about how commercials play with your mind. I had to remind my kids that not only was peeling hard boiled eggs not hard, but they actually thought it was fun. Still they begged for infomercial items. So as an experiment we ordered a “Magic Tap” – it’s a push-button spout on top of your milk jug. (No more heavy lifting or spilled milk!)
I made my kids go through the online ordering process with me. I made them click all the buttons and watched their horror as they were offered acne medicines, spot removers, table cloth clips and other useless/unrelated items. We declined a second Magic Tap for just an additional $9.99 and had to confirm the order only knowing that we had ‘standard’ shipping and handling. It wouldn’t say how much that was – which I think is illegal.
The kids were shocked to find that the shipping was $13.95 for the $9.99 item. I wasn’t.
They waited for the magic item to arrive. And waited. And waited. Instead we got a letter that they were out of stock and out of business. I wasn’t disappointed though. It was $23.98 well spent. Lesson learned and all that. My kids now mock infomercials.
You Are What You Eat?
We’ve all heard that phrase, and I think it was originally intended as a reminder to eat healthy. In my family, it’s used as a put-down (a good-natured one, but a put-down nonetheless.) But then I started looking at the things we eat, and I got to wondering. . .
I’ve had some of my kids’ friends ask why we don’t eat certain foods (like the cracker packs they sell for 50c at karate class.) After two years of graduate level biochemistry courses, my rule is this: if I can’t identify the ingredients, probably no one should be eating it!
Lately, though, I have been questioning even some of the things I can identify. I think a lot of us are familiar with this standard food used to get gum out of hair: peanut butter. Apparently, it’s just so greasy it breaks the gum right down and out it slides. Did you know you can make your dishes sparkle with a dash of lemon juice and then use that same lemon to remove stains from all matter of things? That is pretty common knowledge. Though it’s not a stretch to realize you can keep your hinges from squeaking with olive oil, you may be concerned to find that it also removes make-up and shines stainless steel.
I start to get worried when I see that vinegar will clean my house. It will make my glass clear and my surfaces shine. Lots of older people associate the smell of vinegar with cleanliness as it was apparently the cleaning agent of choice back before everyone had Windex and 409 in their closet. But when you add in that vinegar will also set dyes (like your easter eggs) and kill weeds (!) I start to wonder. What am I eating???
Don’t worry, the list gets even longer and more disturbing . . .
Walk the Walk
Recently Sis had her second episode of something disturbing. (You should first understand that during the winter months we refer to her as “Sicky McSickerson” or just “Plague”. So Sis having strange symptoms didn’t really strike us as all that odd . . .)
The first time this happened, she found a post on her Facebook one morning . . . a post she had made. And it said she was going to see “Billy Elliot”. She didn’t remember posting this. Nor did she have plans to see “Billy” (She’d already seen it twice!). But lo and behold, her credit card told a different story: Sis was not only the proud owner of a pair of “Billy” tickets, but they were for a show in North Carolina . . . where we don’t know anyone. It’s a good thing she and Brother-in-Law were free.
The thing was, Sis had taken a sleeping pill (something prescription) before bed. And she had gone to bed, then apparently gotten up with a jones for some Billy Elliot tickets. Just this week, she did it again. This time she hit Amazon and ordered up a book of all the dirty signs in American Sign Language. Yes, that’s my sister cussing you out in ASL, we are so proud.
Clearly, if Sis takes sleep meds again, she’ll need to be locked in somewhere or at least have her computer taken away. But who knows? Maybe Home Shopping will be her next stop. I’m not sure she can afford to sleep!
Some Assembly Required
When I was in high school I wasn’t very good at writing essays. (Yeah, bestselling novelist now! Take that Mrs. Finane!) Okay, Mrs. Finane had a point – I DON’T do a good five-paragraph essay. Never have, probably never will. What this meant was that I was bounced out of Advanced English every other year. In the regular English classes I got to diagram sentences and . . . take the ASVAB. (That’s the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.) Apparently, if you couldn’t write a good essay, you should check out the military.
Since the ASVAB didn’t care if you could write a 5PE, I scored really well. I can diagram sentences like there is no tomorrow. Throw me a vocab word! I can also fold those odd cut-outs into 3D shapes really well. And there was a mechanics section, too – where should the fulcrum go? What’s the blast radius? How much rope and how many pullies does it take to get enough of a mechanical advantage for a small native boy to lift a wounded 300 lb soldier on a back brace?
Who knew that I had this kind of aptitude? Actually, I could have told you this. In my family, there’s a point of pride about knowing how to put something together . . . without the instructions. I can’t tell you how many futons I helped build or repair in my college days. Yes, you can stack the beds in your dorm room, but you have to go to Home Depot and get the right size dowel, and – if you’re smart – some braces and a few wood screws, but don’t tell them I told you that.
It Just Doesn’t Add Up . . .
If you’ve been paying attention to the other Smart Chickens posts, then you know that my sister and I have each inherited teeth that chip fairly easily [see Dream Weaver post]. When you add in that my sis is one of those people who will always be honest when she can be, you get a conversation like this one.
Dentist: And how often do you floss?
Sis: Do you really want me to tell you?
Dentist: Yes
Sis: Never.
I love that about my sister. Most people lie to their dentist thinking it will make the doc feel better. But I think dentists can usually tell. Unlike my sister, I’m not a ‘never’ flosser, but I totally see her point. My dentist keeps trying to get me to floss regularly – to which point he uses this argument: “But it only takes five minutes a day.”
HaPYbIrThDaY
A few weeks ago my brother-in-law had his birthday. And he’s a science geek like me. (Last year we got him lab glass-like kitchen ware.) This year I found a cake idea so big I didn’t want to tackle it all by myself. Luckily, each spring a bunch of friends get together and stay at my house and my sister’s for the week. As they are all science geeks, too, it seemed the perfect time. . . I’d not only have help making this gargantuan cake, we’d all have help eating it, too.
I emailed around before hand asking a few others with kitchen skills if they’d help. Everyone opted in. (It’s a cool cake!) . . . although we decided to go with brownies instead of the suggested cupcakes. Brownies would be easier to frost and would better retain the necessary square shape. Also, we could make them a little smaller than cupcakes . . .a good idea since we were going to have 114 pieces of ‘cake’ by the time we were finished.
We were going to make a periodic table of brownies!
During this early round of emailing we went a little nuts. By the time we were done, it wasn’t just a periodic table of brownies . . . no, we had four different kinds of brownies to make. Dark chocolate brownies would make up the Alkali and Transition metals. Blondies (chocolate chip cookie-like brownies) would be the Noble gasses and non-metals. And we had half-n-halfs for the area where the two met. But then we had all the ones at the bottom to deal with . . . After several emails we came up with tuxedo brownies: milk chocolate brownies with cheesecake swirls.
All Roads Lead to Regulations . . .
Let’s start with a question: how much time do you spend pondering the American roadway system?
My answer is this: pretty much every time I drive.
I have redesigned cities in my head. And in my head, I am The Roadmaster.
There are little, simple things I would fix first: In Los Angeles, I would label things better. Most of the roads are labeled not by direction but by future towns they will pass. So when entering the 101 freeway for example you don’t choose ‘north’ or ‘south’ you choose ‘Thousand Oaks’ or ‘Anaheim’. You’d better know where those are or the people behind you are gonna develop some road rage. Also, the 101 – which runs north/south – meanders a bit. So in some places you don’t choose from ‘north’ or ‘south’ but from ‘east’ or ‘west’. Yeah, that’s confusing. It’s like they don’t want people moving to LA or something!
There are other things I would fix, too. Tech things. I always heard that, in Rome, they timed the stoplights, and shaved an hour from the time it took to get across town. And in my hometown (‘the city of scientists’) the lights along the turnpike WERE timed. If you drove the speed limit, you hit the first light red, then all the rest green. Pretty cool, huh? (they have since let the lights go to hell, which is sad.) But why can’t the rest of us do that?
