SCIENCE "in service to civilization"

Please, whether or not you read the rest of this blog post, watch this video and think about it. It's only 4 minutes long. It's about our future. Our children's future. Our grandchildren's. Our Human Species'.

I'm just a little more than three weeks out of my second total knee replacement and that many weeks in physical rehab, so I can't participate in person in tomorrow's March for Science in Denver.

See this. These scars are what science has done for me.

I know knee replacement is not a question of life and death like a heart transplant is. Like Insulin is. Like an intrauterine blood transfusion providing blood to an Rh-positive fetus is when fetal red blood cells are being destroyed by Rh antibodies. Like antibiotics and antivirals and vaccinations can be. 

Benjamin Franklin was a rock star of a scientist at the birth of our nation. Electricity. No, he didn't invent it or, for that matter discover it, but he did identify it.
 

image from Wikipedia     

And look what our scientists and engineers and inventors have done with it. Light in our homes, cooling, heating, preservation and preparation of food, transportation, communication, access to information from anywhere in the world and the universe. 

               
a fan, a lamp, a computer monitor         image from the ESA/Hubble telescope        
in my living room                                                                         

Dr. Franklin had no idea that all these things would come to pass. He just had an idea. And that's what continues to go on to this day. Scientists who discover something today or next week will likely have no idea what wonders can come of their discoveries. Can we deny these possibilities to our children and grandchildren? Imagine babies born without cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, children who do not develop diabetes, grandparents who do not develop dementia. No more cancer.

Those are just the medical marvels. My medical wish list. The other things that will come along I can't even imagine in order to wish for them. Maybe even an Earth that is a healthy habitat for life and colonies of human beings in Space.

Stand with me for Science

P.S. I just got a telephone call rescheduling my post-surgery follow-up. My surgeon, Dr. William Peace is being deployed to Afghanistan. Please keep him and all those in harm's way in your thoughts and prayers.

#atozchallenge

Better to Listen -- Flash Fiction

Image from archive.randi.org

"Look." He nodded toward the girl in the stacks. "She's beautiful. She's in my English Lit class, but she's never talked to me."

"Have you talked to her?" his friend asked.

"Nah. I don't want to bother her."

"Just talk to her. Give her a chance."

Leaving his friend at the head of the aisle, he wandered along looking at book titles as though for a particular book. An older woman entered the aisle and moved past him, shelving books. He waited until she left.

"Hi," he said to the young woman. "Come here often?"

She looked up at him and smiled. "English Lit, right?"

"Right." He read the titles of the books she was holding. "Tyson?"

"Your name is Tyson?" she asked.

"No, no. Neil deGrasse Tyson," he said indicating the books in her arms.

"Oh, yes. He's brilliant."

"He's got a TV show," he said sticking his hands in his pockets.

"I know, but I don't have cable," she said. "Do you watch it?"

"No. He's made some pretty controversial moves."

"Oh, yes?" she asked.

"Like downgrading Pluto to a dwarf planet."

"Yes. He was in on that. His argument seemed very sensible to me."

"Then he stirred the old religion-science pot with that tweet at Christmas time," he continued, crossing his arms and settling into his professorial mode. "You know. 'On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642.'" He was sure he'd quoted it accurately.

"Yeah. I was one of the thousands who re-tweeted it." She held the books closer to her chest.

"Next thing you know, he'll continue his crusade against astrology."

"Yes, he probably will." She arched an eyebrow.

 "My grandmother reads her horoscope every morning." He thought the girl had beautiful eyes.

 "I gotta go." She turned and left the stacks.

He went back to his friend.

"Did you see that?" he asked. "She just blew me off. It's because I'm a geek, isn't it. Girls just don't like intellectual types. I bet if I had a cool car or played guitar . . . ."

His friend shook his head. "She was in the library. In the physics section of the library. You love astronomy. She had two Neil deGrasse Tyson books. Why were you talking bad about deGrasse Tyson? You like him. And your grandmother's horoscope?" His friend crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. "You're not a geek. You're an idiot."

The Pluto Files -- a review

See all those pink Post-Its? They mark things I wanted to quote in this review; new bits of information I wanted to remember; funny things he said that I wanted to tell somebody -- my husband, my daughter, anybody who'd listen.

Too many, too many.

In The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet, Neil deGrasse Tyson tells the history of not just Pluto but of our understanding of our solar system.

He explores America's proprietary attitude toward Pluto. Pluto has always been practically an American planet. It was, after all, discovered by an American and made famous as Mickey Mouse's best friend. How more American could it be? How could it be demoted from its planet status by a bunch of mere scientists?

Tyson recounts his own part in that demotion. The decision to exclude Pluto from the new Rose Center's exhibit of Solar System planets was made in order to save money should discussions, then ongoing in the world of cosmology, redefine 'planet' making Pluto no longer a planet and instantly rendering the exhibit wrong. 

Not because he led the anti-Pluto-as-a-planet movement, but because he was Director of the Hayden Planetarium and he had tacitly accepted the role of astrophysics-interpreter-in-chief, he was the lightning rod. He drew the fury of the American Press and school children from across the country, incensed and offended that their planet was no longer officially considered a planet. 

Third grade teachers throughout the nation recognized a teaching moment. 

And suddenly, Tyson (not the boxer) was a household name. Not, in my opinion, a bad thing. Anything that focuses America on something scientific rather than sports has got to be good -- any publicity is good, right? Even bad publicity. Or detestations from third graders.

And it wasn't just children. Songs were written. Editorial cartoons were published. Comedians had fodder. And other scientists, even astrophysicists, took professional exception.

There were debates. According to Tyson's accounts these debates were every bit as passionate and acrimonious as the current crop of political debates, complete with verbal fireworks. (Though I don't think birther considerations came into any of them.)

The International Astronomical Union did not define 'planet' until 2006. The same year the other Tyson retired from boxing and six years after the Rose Center opened setting off the Pluto-as-a-Planet controversy.  

But more seriously, how can it be that physicists come so late to the method of taxonomy long employed by biologists? Tyson does not explain that, but he does explore the current modes of organizing the celestial bodies by their physical properties.

As the brouhaha subsided, the letters from children changed. This letter Tyson received from 8-year-old Siddiq summed it up. "We just have to get over it. That's Science."

As all good scientist should do, indeed sensible humans of any stripe should do with any of our life questions, Tyson leaves open the possibilities of new information changing our closely held views of reality. Again.

To give Pluto the last word, Tyson shares how political cartoonist Aislin in the Montreal Gazette imagines Pluto's concern with all things human: 

Probably the best news for me is Tyson identifies Ceres as a Dwarf Planet. It was the largest of the asteroids in the Main Asteroid Belt when I first started writing Murder on Ceres. A novel my husband describes as science fiction for people who like murder mysteries and a murder mystery for people who like science fiction. 

The Cover Letter

“He’s a nice man,” my husband said.

I know, I thought. I can’t do that. He’s a busy man. Not to mention that I’m more than a little star-struck by him.

“Go ahead. Send him your book. He might like it.”

How cool would that be?!

My chest felt a sudden crushing sensation. You know, like right at the top of the first peak on the roller coaster. The last few seconds before liftoff. That feeling that something awful might happen.

“Write a cover letter and send it to him,” he said.

A cover letter. Of course. I was not at the brink yet. I would compose the perfect cover letter and mail Murder on Ceres to Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s an astrophysicist. He can see that humanity’s future lies off-Earth. He knows we’ll still be humans and, with or without flying cars, he knows that the future will be normal for those humans who inhabit it. It will be different from today, but it will be just as normal to them as yesterday’s future is normal to us. He’ll get what I tried to do in my
sci-fi/murder mystery.

It could take days. That cover letter. Weeks, maybe.

I began the next day. “Dear Dr. Tyson.” The honorific Dr. is used only for medical doctors except in the South? I’ve been told. And how many times have I been told that all things Southern are somehow less-than? I think of my poetry teacher in college – Dr. Norman Russell, who was a botanist of the first order. A well-respected scientist AND poet who was originally from West Virginia and I’m originally from Oklahoma. Both states are definitely south of New York where Dr. Tyson is from. But Mr. wasn’t right for Dr. Russell and it didn’t feel right for Neil deGrasse Tyson so I kept the honorific.

I then proceeded to write what amounted to little more than a fan letter, telling Dr. Tyson how much I admire him and his work. That I never took issue with his stance on Pluto. That his Cosmos was great and that I was much relieved to hear him say such nice things about Carl Sagan. That I was impressed that he wrote essays for Natural History magazine home of another of my heroes Stephen Jay Gould. That he has a wonderful sense of humor like so many scientists do – Stephen Hawking being an excellent example.

I did show admirable restraint and didn’t mention that I think he’s hot.

I hardly mentioned my book at all.

My editor (who happens to be my daughter) and her friend kindly read my letter and suggested changes.

The letter morphed into a sensible communication that explains a little about Murder on Ceres and why he might enjoy reading it.

Murder on Ceres is an old-fashioned murder mystery set in the future. The story
itself follows intelligent, by-the-book Police Detective Rafael Sirocco, as he tries
to balance the demands of his job and his responsibilities to his family. Through a whirlwind of illicit drugs, space pirates, and secret identities, Rafe chases the truth
all 270,000,000 kilometers from the shining cylinder of Ceres Colony to the alien landscapes of Earth.

And a more reasoned description of my admiration for him.

I appreciate your treating science as “normal” and humanity’s future in Space
as inevitable. I am a great admirer of your work. I think you share my lifelong
passion for space travel and a faith in our future as a species. I hope you enjoy
Murder on Ceres.

Very truly yours,

I signed the letter, ate two left-over muffins, had another cup of coffee, headed to the post office.

I was going to lunch with a friend so I had on make-up and was wearing a dress. Did I mention that I was trembling as I handed THE ENVELOPE to the young woman behind the counter in the post office?

“Have a nice day,” she said.

“You have a nice day, too,” I said.

Then she said, “You look very pretty today. That’s a good color for you.”

Oh, my. Do you think that’s a good omen? Can I be forgiven a small slip of superstition?

I was over the first peak on the roller coaster. Free-falling. Murder on Ceres and its cover letter were away. Flying. That crushing feeling was replaced by exhilaration and I left the post office with one of those nonsensical grins that you just can’t contain.

I did it!

Editors! Who Needs 'em?

 

   I do. That's who. Everyone who writes for public consumption does. And we need editors for lots of reasons.

   This is a picture of a page from Murder on Ceres, my science fiction murder mystery. Please note all the red ink. That's from my editor. The green is mine.

   I use Spell Check, Google, The American Heritage Dictionary, and Microsoft's Synonyms. I read Isaac Asimov and John Lescroat. I watch Neil deGrasse Tyson and Masterpiece Mystery! on PBS. I am prepared to write (and rewrite) this book.

   Still my manuscript comes back from the editor with blood all over it.

   I read and watch lots of other things, all of which increase my vocabulary. A large vocabulary, unfortunately, does not guarantee clear communication. The picture above is an excellent example.

   In this scene my protagonist is verbally assaulted by his aunt as she takes him in to talk to his uncle. I wrote, "Unaware of his wife's broadside, Dmitri stood and extended his hand."

   My editor wrote in red,  "of her what? It sounds like you're talking about her butt."

   Obviously my editor was crazy. Where did she get THAT?

   Did I mention that I have a long history of reading naval war books?

   So, enter a twenty-something man. I read to him the passage as I had written it, assuming his reading background was sufficient to make familiar to him the term "broadside." And he blurted, "What did he do to her butt?"

   Definitely a laugh-out-loud moment.

   I think my choices are to change the word or send a copy of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander to all who buy my book with the requirement that they read it first so they will be properly prepared to read my book.