1. Trees in the city (at winter) we are surrounded by pavement. shallow roots and bare branches. perhaps strung with christmas lights or strangled by these strings of lights? fragile / frail / awkward we stand in parking lots, by sidewalks – illusions that the city has not been taken over by concrete and pavement. birds avoid us as if we don’t belong. 2. Vending machines… and their opposites picture, for a moment, a vending machine. what does it see? when we participate in this exchange – money for goods, or not-so-goods. material profit, material waste. do you think we…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From creative
WHAT GOOGLE EARTH REVEALED
Two years later in an ergonomic chair I flew across the screen to gaze again at the blur where I had lived. Two eyes disunbelieving: the town, that time shown from above in all its complex clarity. Google Earth showed, and did not show, the road into town. The middle of nowhere is too symmetrical to be true. East Northeast of our peripheral vision, more like. Where impossible carts full of watermelons rolled uphill along the dry Volta. Where millet stalks, until swallowed by greedy granaries, hid the rotund huts.Google Earth showed, and did not show, the field where two…
EXCERPT FROM THE LONELY PLANET’S GUIDE TO THE HUMAN BODY: NERVE CELL CITY
Nerve Cell City Nerve Cell City, affectionately know to residents as NCC, lies along the great Trans-Spinal Highway. As such, it is a crossroads for endless traffic, mainly in the information industry. Many of the city’s inhabitants work in this field, and keep the Highway running smoothly for the benefit of other cities along its path (see Muscleton, page 160, and Retinaville, page 392, for examples). NCC is one of the oldest cities in the Human Body, and can date its earliest records to within a year of the Human Body’s conception. NCC is a very unusual city in this…
A LETTER FROM MDMA
To: The Brain Uppermost Section, Human Body March 1, 2008 Dear Human Brain, How are you today? Here’s hoping my letter finds you well. I just have to say that you really are a remarkable entity and I admire you greatly. You’re very beautiful with your busy neurons and hard-working glial cells, and all those intricately placed connections… Oh, you’re probably wondering who I am! Please, allow me to introduce myself. My full name is 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. I know, I know… a bit of a mouthful. But you can call me MDMA for short. I’ll also respond to the name Ecstasy,…
TO EAT CHEEZIES OR NOT TO (A CHEEZIE COMBUSTION PAPER)
To eat cheezies or not to…spontaneously combust, that is the question. A recent trip to the West Chilcotin for field work elicited a Cheetos™ snack craving and a subsequent binge on Cheetos Puffs™. You know the ones they make your fingers and everything else they come into contact with orange and a pasty orange at that I might add. During this junk food binge (whereby I set out to devour a bag of Cheetos™ the size of my upper body) friends informed me that Cheetos Puffs™ make a better fire starter than a lunch substitute. I was appalled and declined…
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS EXPLAINED WITH SMURFS
Our Earth is filled with finite resources that we, as the Human Race, exploit for personal gain. Oil, Fish Stocks, Forests, Clean Air, and water are just a few of the resources that nobody “owns,” but everybody needs in order to survive. However, in our current system, nobody who is taking away these natural resources from the whole of us has to pay back into the natural system. Thus, there is a great incentive to consume all of the available resources before somebody else gets to them, Garrett Hardin called this nuance the “Tragedy of the Commons.” Let’s take Smurfs…
THE WIKI HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN 200 WORDS OR LESS
Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual…
THE WIKI HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN 200 WORDS OR LESS
Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual…
TIME TO STUDY FLOWERS
Good morning, class. It is time to study flowers. Johnny, I don’t care if the dog ate your homework. We have our own models right here. Yes, Harrietta, we can start with math: their angles, golden triangles; the perfect addition of a bud, above and below; this segues into physics for the day: the tilt and toss, mechanically correct, the balance of leaf upon root, the pull of earth and sun; light eaters, reflecting pink and lavender by way of leaving them, untouched, on the plate of their surfaces, like broccoli in the cafeteria. Sorry, Charlie, but chemistry is next:…