The Top Ten Things That Threaten to Topple This Theocracy

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Theocracies are typically defined as "states governed by a deity or a priesthood," but in today's modern society even some people of faith also subscribe to another almighty: Science! It, too, is often perceived as infallible, omnipotent, and the cause of earthquakes and plagues. But the following things threaten to shake people's core scientific beliefs:

1. Thing
   It's a disembodied hand that can think for itself. Need I say more?
    
2. The Thing
   He's a man made of rock who, when he died, was resurrected by God. Need I say more?
    
3. Thing 1 and Thing 2
   They have wild, natural blue hair and hang out with a talking cat. Need I say more?
    
4. Time-Traveling Tyrannosaurs
   What's that? Dinosaurs are actually from the future? Fossils are the result of time-travel missions gone awry? Biology and geology, you're officially on notice.
    
5. The T Party
   No, not the Tea Party; they're hardly a threat. I'm talking about the rabid fans of Mr. T, who are fervent believers in pitying the fool. Thus, they always vote to fund idiots who spread incorrect scientific information, which will cause the public to distrust science more and more every year.
    
6. Toothless, Tongue-Tied Thespians
   Because the success of Cats with an all-gum cast is in direct opposition to Darwin's theory on natural selection.
    
7. Tool Time's Tim Taylor
   With his incessant grunting, his poor grasp of language, and his propensity for smashing things, once the reruns start playing on Nick-at-Nite, people will soon realize evolution is a myth.
    
8. Tattle-Tales
   A highly-respected member of the scientific community, under oath, will admit in the next inning of the steroids scandal that we still know next-to-nothing about almost everything. Whether steroids can help you hit a baseball, what causes cancer, the secrets of DNA, proper nutrition, weather forecasting, what's keeping Dick Clark alive... it's all guesswork.
    
9. The Truth Theorem
   This theorem posits that science is a fad and will soon die out on account of its constant need for proof.
    
10. Ten Thousand Teeming Tapirs
    Swarms of pig-like mammals from out of nowhere. Explain that, science.

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, hosted by Karen Gowen and seven others. Go check out the other participants!

Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic

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Math isn't just a numbers game. Like with most everything else, letters have greedily horned in on the action. Yet they always try to pretend they're something else. Here's one possible interpretation for each, in the realm of math and science:

a	acceleration (you'll go faster if you skip these snarky comments in parentheses)
b	the length of the second side of a smart triangle1
c	the speed of light in a vacuum2
d	diameter (yours will get larger with too much π)
e	Euler's number/Napier's constant (Napier took partial credit on Euler's day off)
F	the Force (which, as I proved on D-Day, is hard-coded into our DNA)
g	how quickly you're falling toward earth (depending on the gravity of the situation)
h	height (I've always been tall for mine)
i	a number for those who miss their imaginary friend
J	joule (I'd have chosen Joule over Jinger and Jordyn-Grace, too)
K	a base unit of temperature3
L	likelihood (as in the likelihood you didn't know this)
m	mass (not Churchy mass, unless you take up the whole pew)
n	the size of a statistical sample (which can go to infinity, and beyond!)
o	a circle, or possibly an ellipse (it really depends on which font you're using)
p	momentum (move along, nothing to see here)
Q	heat (and Q's vehicles always pack heat... coincidence?)
r	radius (it's half of d: flip r upside down and you'll see the resemblance)
s	second (not as in "I second that" or "the second one," but "in one second")
t	time (it used to be on my side, but then Morris Day took it)
U	union (if you don't approve of this, speak now or forever hold your peace)
v	velocity (you shall know mine)4
W	What's that? That's watt.
x	any damn number it wants to be
y	the vertical axis (where everything's on the up 'n up)
z	the it's-coming-straight-for-us axis (now in 3D!)

¹ I call it a smart triangle both because it's not obtuse, and because it's always right.
² As measured by vacuuming up a firefly, followed by a miniature cop with a radar gun. Oh, and he'll need a miniature walkie-talkie, too, to radio back the findings.
³ For reference, 0 K is not OK. You've never felt such cold.
⁴ I reached 28mph during The Great Plummet.

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, hosted by Stephen Tremp and seven others. Go check out the other participants!

Kurious Khemical Kompounds (wherein K = Potassium)

No, I'm not saying you should translate this post's title as "Potassiumurious Potassiumhemical Potassiumompounds." I've already covered gobbledygook.

I'll fess up: I was planning to use this topic for C, but then I hit upon my From A to Z Contest (with over $100 in prizes—enter today!). I needed a new spot for this, and K seemed like the logical choice.¹

Anyway, I suspect that like me, some of you got bored in chemistry class and started making words with the symbols on the Periodic Table of Elements. It's harder than you'd think, since 10 letters only come as part of a pair (ADEGLMRTXZ) and two don't appear at all (JQ). And it's even more difficult if you don't allow symbols to repeat within the same word (which I don't).²

Of the eight co-hosts for this A to Z Challenge, only one can spell any part of his name with elements: STePHeN (Sulfur-Tellurium-Phosphorus-Helium-Nitrogen), which is rather fitting, considering his love for science. The other 15 first and last names? Can't be done.

In Period Table English, you can't spell PErIOdiC, TaBle, or eNglISH. CHemIStrY doesn't exist, and neither does ScIeNCe. You're out of luck with OUt and lUCK.

You can have an AmBiTiOUS RhInOCErOs, but not an eAgEr BeaVEr. InTeRnAtIONAl SPIEs, but no FOReIgN AgeNtS. Plenty of FLaSH FICTiON, but not one NOVel or SHort StOrY. Yet, surprisingly, you can have both SYNeCdOCHe and ScHeNeCTaDy, NY.

SO I WAs ThInKINg I WOUld AtTemPt StrIVe trY
IF I CaN FInISH ONe SeNTenCe
ThAt'S WHAt I WaNt HOPe
'TiS SO VErY HArd tOUgH dIFfiCult dArN ImPOsSiBle
FUCK ThIS. No MoRe, GdAmMt!
I'MdONe.³

SiNCeRelY,
Sodium Tellurium (NaTe)

¹ If you consider pulling letters randomly out of a hat logical. Luckily, I do.
² By the way, this type of wordplay is the only (arguably) legitimate reason to ever capitalize every other letter when you type.
³ P.S. ScReW YOU, HErSHeY! I TaSTe ArSeNiC. ThAr Be PoISON In ThIs HeRe CHoCoLaTe! NOW I PErISH. (SCeNe.)

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, hosted by Stephen Tremp and seven others. Go check out the other participants!

Deoxyribonucleic Awesome!

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I expect if you were to ask most people what DNA stands for, even avid CSI watchers would respond IDK.¹ Scientists, on the other hand, would tell you that DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is made up of letters.

And D isn't one of them.

Specifically, it's made up of A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine), and T (thymine). Together, not only can these spell the name of an underrated 1997 film that deals with genetics, but they also combine to form the building blocks for all known living organisms. That's great and all, but what's really exciting is that they are proof Star Wars is hard-coded into our genes.

No, really.

In DNA, the nucleotides form base pairs. Adenine always bonds with thymine, and cytosine always bonds with guanine. So what does this mean? It means, like Star Wars, our DNA has many AT-ATs which are made with CG.²

That's right: The Force will be with you, always. Science fiction has become science fact.

You're welcome.


¹ I have no idea what that last one means. Illegal Donna Karans? Illustrated Donkey Kong? I'm David Krumholtz? Yeah, I don't know.
² That's computer graphics, for those who don't speak geek.

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, hosted by Stephen Tremp and seven others. Go check out the other participants!

Blissfully Bare

English is so inconsistent. Where else can you find so many words that are spelled differently but pronounced the same (the towed lode toed the load), and so many words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently (I plough through rough dough. Cough.). And of course, let's not forget the rule everyone knows by heart:

I before E except after C, unless it's for SCIENCE! Or, you know, if it's weird or foreign (or neither).

Which brings me to the Barenaked Ladies, who are both weird and foreign.¹ In 2008, they put out a kids' album titled Snack Time. It's decent, but doesn't quite match the quality of the Ladies' adult entertainment. (Yes, I went there.) Personally, I prefer the four children's albums put out by They Might Be Giants, though that's neither here nor there.² Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is because of the second-to-last track, a song called "Crazy ABCs."

I like the idea of the song, but I don't understand why it's on an album for kids. Most of them won't get it. Hell, without the liner notes, most adults won't get it. Instead of traditional ABCs (i.e. apple, ball, chlamydia), BNL uses words that don't sound the way they're spelled. Words like bdellium, djinn, and mnemonic. The song's full of silent letters and foreign words, not to mention a ZZ Top reference (topical as always).

It's over-the-head of young kids, and too corny for anyone in their teens. Which means it's mostly for 6th graders who dream of one day competing in the National Spelling Bee.

But that's fine. They can get there by flying the czar's gnarly pterodactyl over a tsunami.


¹ Or neither, if you live in Canada. If you do, could you send me some Nanaimo bars?
² If it was here or there, I'd be infringing on Grover's domain, and he wouldn't hesitate to sic his attack Snuffleupagus on me.

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, hosted by Jeffrey Beesler and seven others. Go check out the other participants!

The Scourge of Microbiologists Everywhere

Far too many writerly blogs have been talking about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this past week, so I'll relegate my thoughts on that topic to a footnote,¹ and move onto something far more important:

The NanoRhino.

Of course, "NanoRhino" is somewhat of a misnomer. As you can see from the picture at right, the rhino isn't that small. Although it's typically 1/20 the size of most Rhinoceros beetles, it can still be seen with the naked eye.²

So, why should you care? Well, the NanoRhino (Rhinoceros teenitinius) is nearly extinct. In fact, only six known NanoRhinos still exist. In an ironic twist Alanis Morissette would be proud of (if she knew the meaning of the word), the species has been nearly killed off by the very people who should be trying to study them: microbiologists.³

The problem is rather simple: NanoRhinos are wee little bastards. Unless isolated, they run rampant through all nearby nanobeings and either trample them, gore them, or eat them.⁴ Yet, if isolated, they lose their will to live, and begin to waste away. Maintaining this delicate balance is a conundrum that microbiologists have long decided to ignore, choosing instead to separate the NanoRhinos and let them perish. This way, the scientists can examine the microscopic creatures they're actually trying to observe without nature's diminutive bullies ruining everything.

Only one man, the exceptionally gifted Dr. Heinrich von Heinrichsen, is doing what needs to be done to keep these poor NanoRhino alive. He has four in his Brussels lab, but needs major funding to continue his research (and to get them to mate — NanoRhinos are notoriously selective).⁵ And that is why, during the month of November, I will be trying to raise $50,000 for the Heinrichsen institute in Brussels as part of InSaNaRhiMo (International Save NanoRhinos Month). Who will join me?


¹ I'll be participating for the fourth time, but I don't play NaNoWriMo by NaNoWriMo's rules. Instead of attempting to write a new novel of 50,000 words during November, I'll just write as much as possible on my current novel without sacrificing quality. Then, I'll do the same for December. And January. And February. (I might skip March.)
² The naked eye? How scandalous! (That is, according to microbiologists. They don't get out much. Also, most of their kind wear glasses. (By the way, if you are a microbiologist, please know I meant no offense with my preceding remarks. No offense at all. And can I say? You look very sexy in those glasses.))
³ Very sexy.
⁴ Possibly all three, depending on how insulting the other nanocreature was to the rhino's mother.
⁵ No, they don't judge based on the size of their partner's horn. Shame on you for thinking so. It's the ears.

It's Not Rocket Surgery

My first thought was that it had to be a joke. A parody. There was no other explanation. Clearly, such a headline had to have been pulled from the pages of The Onion, a site which I knew CNN had partnered with before.

But no, they were being serious. It linked directly to CNN.com’s technology section. The headline? Scientists discover massive ring around Saturn.

Were scientists getting stupider? Was this Flowers for Algernon all over again? Sadly, no. Turns out what they were talking about was a completely new ring, undiscovered until now despite its gigantuan¹ size. And how is that nobody had seen this thing before? Well, the scientists say, it’s because the ring is nearly invisible. I almost believed this until I took a look at the picture that accompanied the article. And then the realization hit me.

Scientists aren’t stupid. They’re blind.

¹ What? Of course "gigantuan" is a word. It means "astrocolossal."