1. Switch birdfeeders from nuclear to solar. 2. Fill in backyard Superfund pit with cement. 3. Paint cement over Superfund pit green, with cute little flower designs. 4. Adopt one of the polar bears at the zoo (the one that doesn’t look so scraggly). 5. Print out a picture of Al Gore and pin it to something. 6. Get rid of the corpses. 7. Wash dishes by hand, with sand. 8. Will make a Styrofoam replica of the Earth and hang it on the front porch (will pin Al Gore’s picture on it). 9. Will walk to Walmart to get…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From humour
POSSIBLE REASONS I WOKE UP TO FIND I HAD NO LEGS THIS MORNING
Avian leg flu. God is cruel and vengeful and this is how he really spends his Sundays. There is no “God”. Nor “legs”. Someone I know was jealous of my legs and recently found a lamp containing a genie. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle argues that something that is observed is forever changed by the mere act of being observed. In laymen’s terms, it means that once you see something it’s not the way it was before you saw it. Maybe I sawed them off. Times are tough. When I threw that penny into the well and thought I was wishing…
ABHORRENT TO NATURE: NOTABLE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
“A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the [Large Hadron Collider], might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one…” (The New York Times) – – – In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider short-circuited, infusing the soil under the border area between Switzerland and France with over a ton of helium, and thereby causing the largely cuckoo clock-making communities along the border to inhale toxic doses of the noble gas. Many clock-makers weren’t taken…
PROFESSOR J. BLUCHER AND THE PROBLEM OF THE CLASSROOM
I thought I would share a funny story of what recently happened to a colleague of mine. The fellow in question, Professor J. Blucher, was recently trying to schedule a room for his undergraduate class, Mastering Sextants. This year, the class, which usually numbers only a handful of students, had nearly 150 sign up. Initially he surmised that perhaps people were finally taking global warming seriously and had decided to brush up on their nautical skills. However, it was later discovered that, due to certain constraints in the new course offerings software, the class was listed as: MASTERING SEX. So…
THE PHYSICAL LAWS (OF THE UNIVERSE) ON TWITTER
(You too can follow the @physicallaws of the universe). – – – The physical laws of the universe have just started a twitter account. Not surprising, but the 1st law of thermodynamics doesn’t think much of unicorns. The physical laws of the universe are at the mall. As usual, Archimedes Principle is hogging the bathroom. Even @rainbows should follow the physical laws of the universe. The physical laws of the universe have a thing for graphing calculators. Are you there @God, it’s us the physical laws of the universe. The physical laws of the universe would just like to say…
MY DINNER WITH MIKHAIL BAKHTIN
[We see the ‘father-of-global-warming”, James Hansen, walk out of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in downtown New York City. James has a blank expression. We hear his voice commenting on the action, as the narrator would. This narrating voice will be labeled “JAMES’ NARRATION” to distinguish it from James Hansen’s actual words within the story.] – – – JAMES’ NARRATION: The life of a preeminent climatologist is tough. You waste away your youth studying advanced math and physics, hunker down in a university library, eat only cereal, write a dissertation on the atmosphere of Venus, slave the next thirty…
HOW MANY SPECIES ARE THERE ON EARTH? A FINAL, DEFINITIVE, AND PRECISE ANSWER
ABSTRACT There are 42, exactly. – – – Key acronyms: JAL, EO, UW, CSU, MSU, ATBI, INBio, OUTBio, NTFC, and BINGO! INTRODUCTION For what seems to be an interminable period of time biologists have been whining that all of the other sciences know more about their basic inventories than we do. Chemists have filled out the periodic table (except for rare reports of newly discovered, ridiculous elements, such as Whocaresium with a half-life of a picosecond); physicists have completed their quark menu (including all 31 flavors), astronomers have catalogued the stars (in fact, they have a few dozen catalogues suggesting…
INTERESTING AND SOMEWHAT RANDOM ASSORTMENT OF ORGANISMS OR INAPPROPRIATE ANIMAL NAME FOR BROWNIE GIRL GUIDE LEADERS
Barricuda Fox Tit Minx Cougar – – – Greetings everyone! Please join us in ushering the International Year of Biodiversity! For those with science and badge affections, this includes a special New Year’s resolution whereby an amendment to the Science Scout drinking game rules is hereby now effective. For the year 2010, any mention of the word “biodiversity” during drinks, merits an upstanding hoisting your glass and cheer of recognition.
HOW THE PINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS!
(There are more science Christmas plays by Vince LiCata here, here and here). Cast: Generic Faculty Member Pinch Narrator The Dean The Chair Cindy Lou Who Darth Vader Santa – – – NARRATOR: Every Who Down in U-ville Liked their research a lot… FACULTY: (pipeting): I sure like research a lot. I love running gels, I get bored when I’m not. NARRATOR: But the Pinch Who lived just North of U-ville Most certainly, did not. FACULTY: Now, who wouldn’t love labwork? I’m sure I don’t know. They’d have to be a real jerk, Or perhaps a bit slow. He sings:…