Cerebrate Good Times

So I happened to move to a place in the totality of the 2017 eclipse. It was certainly not a factor in the decision to move, but when I learned about it I was excited. I don't know nearly as much about astronomy as I would like, but I still enjoy it. I imagined myself driving slightly farther north to Rexburg, where it would be the best possible viewing. Then I started hearing about how crazy other people were about this event. Phrases like "once in a century" were thrown around, and hotel rooms were supposedly going for $1,000 per night or more. Rumors started circulating that the city was expecting 500,000 people and hospitals were preparing for an influx of more patients. The city was even bringing in 5 life flight helicopters from Utah. Expectations were that driving up to Idaho the weekend before the eclipse would be awful. Then I learned that I would be traveling to Las Vegas the week before, and would get home the night before the eclipse. Moreover, I would act...

I usually prefer to generate my own content rather than just post links to amusing things, but today I'm going to make an exception. This is so great I had to share it with all of you.

It’s not often that I run across a true mystery anymore, at least not one that seems very interesting. In the course of rummaging through the dusty corners of the internet, however, I have come across a couple within the last few months. And now, thanks to the marvel of Wikipedia, it’s easy to find possibly-accurate information about them. For example, there’s the “ bloop .” It’s a mysterious sound recorded in 1997 by undersea microphones off the southwest coast of South America . Analysts say it fits the profile of a sound made by a living creature, but the nature of the sound is such that it would have to be made by something with a much larger vocal apparatus than any known animal. The sound apparently recurred several times over a few months, but it hasn’t been heard since. The second is something called the Voynich manuscript . This is an illustrated book which is thought to have been written in the late 15 th or early 16 th century, but it’s written in a language that is und...

I feel so ashamed that I used to be in the dark. I mean, I actually used to eat tangerines. I know, it’s shameful, but I had not yet tasted the sweet manna of clementines. Clementines are a particular variety of mandarin orange, and they are so wonderfully sweet and juicy that I’m salivating just thinking about them. They’re really easy to peel, too. If you have never had one, I insist that you drop whatever you’re doing and head off to the store to find them. I know it sounds strange, especially if you’ve had canned mandarin oranges, which are pretty terrible to eat plain. But you won’t regret it. One other fruit that might be even more delectable than clementines is the Asian pear. You occasionally see them around here, but they’re about the size of an apple. The pears they grow in Korea are the size of a grapefruit. They have the delicious taste of a pear and the crisp flesh of an apple. You can sometimes find them in Asian markets; they’re not quite as good when they’ve had to t...

I’d just like to state, for the record, that I don’t care in the least about the private lives of celebrities. I don’t read star gossip magazines, I don’t watch Entertainment Tonight, and I probably wouldn’t recognize Brad Pitt on the street if he stopped to ask me what time it was. I think they’re entitled to live their own lives. Now, with that little disclaimer out there, it’s story time. One night when I was in college, my roommates wanted to get some people together and go play a game they called Bigger and Better. The idea is that you pick a small, worthless object and go knock on somebody’s door. Then you offer to trade the item for something bigger or better. The idea is that as you keep doing it, you end up with something really good, like a Wonder Woman action figure, or an aircraft carrier. Well, on this particular evening we decided to drive out to a fairly nice neighborhood in the hopes of finding some generous people. There was nobody home at the first house, so we ...

Don’t yawn. Seriously. Okay, after you read that, did you have an irresistible urge to yawn? I certainly did after writing it.

Last night I was watching PBS and saw a story about a molecular biologist who discovered how bacteria communicate with each other. Through transmission and reception of certain chemicals, they are able to detect how many of them there are. When a critical number is reached, they then do whatever it is they do, whether they light up by bioluminsecence or make us sick. This knowledge might help us manage bacteria when antibiotics inevitably become totally ineffective. We may be able to inhibit their communication and prevent disease that way. Not to be outdone, however, the cold virus in my body decided last night was the time to remind me that viruses are around too...