The Sky is Falling!

Well it looks like Chicken Little is not the only one who thinks the sky is falling.

I just read the report of the meteor that fell on Peru, causing more than 600 people to become ill. Strange that this should occur just as I was finishing up the book "Hammer of God" by Arthur C Clarke about the possibility of an asteroid falling to earth.

There is a pretty amazing (although not very scientific) YouTube video of a meteor fall HERE

Movies like Night of the Comet (1984) and Deep Impact ( 1998) have sensationalized what might happen to the earth if some big hunk of rock from the sky came calling. The special effects guys were more interested in movie ratings than scientific accuracy, but it's not beyond the reach of imagination to think of some celestial body crashing through our atmosphere and wreaking havoc. Having grown up in Arizona, one of my most memorable school field trips was to visit Meteor Crater near Flagstaff when I was in the 8th grade. Of course, that one came down before people had populated nearly every region of the planet.

A few weeks ago my beloved and I layed out on the lawn late one night curled up in blankets into the wee hours of the morning watching an amazing meteor shower. They are pretty when up in the sky and something romantics hang a wish on.

But it would be a whole different matter if they came down here.

The science of "Hammer of God" was interesting enough, but I was more intrigued by the sociology that Clarke proposed. How would people on earth react if they knew scientists had discovered a huge object on a collision course with our planet that was due to hit us in 1 year or 10 years or 100 years?

Clarke wrote of mass panics and suicides. He wrote of governments having to implement marshall law. He wrote of the scientists scrambling to avert the catastrophe. At one point in the novel, it becomes apparent that there is no way that the scientific teams aboard the vessel that are setting out to change the meteor's course will be able to escape. It's interesting to watch how the various characters respond to that news.

I compare that to what we know of the actions of the folks aboard the Titanic.

I can't help but wonder how I would react if I had word of my eminent doom. None of us are getting out of this world alive, we all know that. But there is something about the great uncertainty of our length of days that keeps us scrambling forward.

What would I do if I KNEW my life, or the whole world was about to end? What if I had a date that was a week away or a year away? How would I spend that time?

Perhaps more importantly, what AM I doing NOW so that I'll be ready to meet my maker whenever it does come?

I can only imagine what those Peruvian people must have thought when they saw a ball of fire approaching out of the sky. It would be interesting to carry on a long range cultural study to see what sorts of legends, folklore and other cultural responses there may be over the next 50 years in response to this.

Flocks, Herds and.....

This afternoon I attended a presentation on brain research that focuses on how our brain function changes throughout the aging process. It was pretty interesting. The guy who was presenting gave several tips for keeping the grey matter spry in later years....among them doing exercises like MemAerobics - things that challenge memory.

In the beginning of the presentation he told us the words that refer to all manner of different congregations of animals and then toward the end quizzed the audience to see if we could still remember them.

Do you know that a gathering of owls is called a "Parliament", a group of squirrels is a "scurry", a collection of Rhinoceros is a "Crash" and a collection of Giraffes is a "stand"?

Apparently there were a bunch of English noblemen in the 1400's who had not much better to do so they went around naming things. Kind of makes you wonder why they called a gathering of crows a "murder" and rattlesnakes a "Rhumba".

All that aside, it was interesting to hear things like how before age 50 most functions occur on one or the other side of the brain but after age 50 (approx) people start using both sides of their brain to do the same sorts of tasks formerly confined to either the right or left.

In the past people believed we had a finite number of brain cells, and once they were gone, they were gone for good. Now it is recognized that the brain DOES generate new neurons, and perhaps even more importantly can build new network connections to compensate for lost functions due to illness or injury.

Apparently Oregon has the second highest (next to California) amount of brain research going on so we head about all sorts of intriguing stuff about things we now know due to breakthroughs in imaging science with things like PET scans and FMRI.

Thanks to Paul Allen's BRAIN ATLAS cutting edge information about the brain is more readily accessible than ever before, making it possible for researchers all over the world to collaborate or benefit from even the most obscure break throughs.

I've long been fascinated with how we learn, remember, imagine, dream. What is it that makes one person's brain be "smart" and another's "average" or "dull"? How much of that is due to the three pounds of squiggly, squishy grey matter trapped inside our skull and how much of it is from the innate spirit we were created with and how much is social training?

Is there any way to ever know? I doubt it. Still, it is amazing how stimulating various segments of the brain can trigger the sensations of smells, colors, lights.

Yep, brains are cool stuff. I've seriously considered donating my brain to science when I get done with it.

Leapin Lizards! NO - it's RAINING FROGS!

In four separate instances between October 1987 and February 1988, small pink frogs rained down from the sky on to various parts of Great Britain. Scientists are still uncertain as to where these frogs originated, although some have traced them back to the Sahara desert. Source: The World's Most Incredible Stories, 1998, page 66. SOURCE

Or you can read more about it HERE

What an odd world we live in.

990 lb SQUID

Have you heard about the 39 foot long "Colossal Squid" that was caught in the Antartic Ocean last month?

According to the BBC News: There have only ever been six specimens of this squid recovered: five have come from the stomachs of sperm whales and the sixth was caught in a trawl net at a depth of 2,000 to 2,200 metres.

Scientists admit they know little about the large squid"It's been known since 1925, but no one really paid any attention to it," Dr O'Shea said.
"Now we can say that it attains a size larger than the giant squid. Giant squid is no longer the largest squid that's out there. We've got something that's even larger, and not just larger but an order of magnitude meaner."

In considering the demotion of "giant squid" to be second fiddle to "colossal squid", I'm reminded of when Pluto got robbed of full planet status.

All I know is that thing would make one heaping pile of calamari.

Endangered Species

On my way to work this morning I heard an NPR report about the Giant Palouse Earthworm. Apparently there are some folks who want to get the thing declared an endangered species. I'm not quite sure how I feel about protecting a rare three foot worm.

Yeah, I know all about that stuff about how we are all part of a web of life and anything that effects one part ultimately effects ALL parts. But there are some things I just squish. This sound a bit too big for squishing. However, advocating for its protection is not a biological battle I'm signing up for any time soon.

The Power of Intention & Prayer

If you would like to help Dean Radin, Ph.D. in his second experiment looking at the effects of distant intention on water crystals, then please click HERE and assess 50 pictures of frozen water drops. It should take about 10 minutes. This study is a triple-blind version of his initial study. Results will appear in the Explore (explorejournal.com) in Sept., 2006.