2018: What’s the worst that could happen?

By: | January 3, 2018

a bird on a wire

“It is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just a creation of some other entity for their entertainment.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, on the odds that all human existence is a simulation

“Two tech billionaires [are] secretly engaging scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation.” – The Guardian 

“What is going on with all these spammy pitching bots in my inbox?” – Chief Features Editor, New Scientist

 

From: Alyssa Callaway
Sent: 22 September 2017 09:59
To: Sally Adee [New Scientist technology news editor]
Subject: Can I contribute!!

Hello Sally,

how are you? I first want to take the opportunity to congratulate you on your blogs, quality of writing, intellectual viewpoints and diverse underpinnings. I have read your blog many times and love the content you post.

I recently saw that you write on Bitcoin related items. What do you think of Bitcoin and Blockchain related issues post publishing? Continue reading →

The Historically Slippery Age of Puberty

By: | January 2, 2018

Puberty is happening earlier now. Girls in the West, particularly those living in poverty, get breast buds a year or two earlier in the 21st Century than they did in the mid-20th Century, and on average the age of menarche—a girl’s first period—has fallen by about 3 ½ months per decade. Boys’ development is accelerating too. We see this trend tracking childhood obesity rates and other endocrine disruptors, and there has been considerable handwringing in the media about this divergence from nature.

The worry is justified in the sense that the sorts of things that currently cause it are worrying, as I wrote recently in Nature. Childhood obesity is worrying. Endocrine disruptors in the environment are worrying. Sexual abuse, which also leads to earlier menarche, is awful and must be fought. But as for the age of puberty itself, the story of the last half-century or so—that our twisted lifestyles warp our children into adults before their time—is only part of a much larger and more interesting story.

Throughout human history, puberty has hopped back and forth along the timeline of our lifespans. Boy’s voices tend to break around age 11 now, whereas in 1960 that age range centered around the 13 year mark. But keep scrolling back and you’ll find choirmaster’s records show chorister’s voices breaking at age 18 in the mid-1700s. Girls get their periods on average when they are 12 now, whereas in 1920, the average age in the United States and France was 14. Again, scroll farther back and you get up to age 16 in Northern Europe during the 1800s. Continue reading →

Walking Into the New Year

By: | January 1, 2018

Well now then.  Here we are.  The first day of another year.  What to do about that?

January 1 is a day for looking forward.  Kids mostly look forward, I think.  But any adult knows you make sense of any given situation only by looking back, by remembering.  Memory allows the comparison between then and now by which we more thoroughly understand the now.  The fact that memory is also a complete crapshoot just makes life more interesting.  Where was I going with this?  Ok, I remember now.

I’ve lived in Baltimore since 1980, longer than I’ve lived any other place.  Most people from where I grew up move a lot: I remember a guy telling me the average stay in my home town was now 2.5 years. I remember thinking that 2.5 years doesn’t give you much chance at maintaining a community.  I’m digressing again, please forgive me.

Back to Baltimore.  I’ve lived here long enough that places, buildings, streets, sidewalks, aren’t just themselves any more, they’re colored by, or they resonate with, what happened there in the past.  The street corner where I fell off the curb and cut the hell out of my knee and my husband took me to the crowded ER where I didn’t make the triage and when I finally got into an examining room, flat on my back looking up at an examining light, and the doctor said to my extremely-curious husband, “Sir, your head is between the light and her knee,” that street corner is a little scary and mostly funny. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | December 30, 2017

December 25-29

The People of LWON took a short winter’s nap this week and revisited a few favorite posts from years past.

On Monday, Erik writes about pilgrimages, both his own and others’. I believe in the open road and the open air and people together on a journey and sore legs and a rejuvenated spirit. I believe in the mountains and the sea and little Medieval villages and canola fields and the sensation of seeing it all with people who feel the same way.

Christie loves some words, and chronicles the People of LWON’s loathing for others. English also has no true equivalent to my own favorite foreign word: gemütlichkeit, a German term that connotes the kind of warm coziness you feel when gathered around a fire with your dearest friends, perhaps drinking Glühwein.

Jennifer gets snarky about Chihuahuas on Wednesday. I’d rather cuddle and kiss a used Bandaid from a public pool. I’d rather spoon with Golem on a bed of cricket shit. Inexplicably, none of the Chihuahuas I’ve met like me, either.

Ann goes to the coffee shop, finds the origins of science. If 1000 years as a science writer have taught me nothing else, it’s 1) that science is the way people think when they’re admiring their worlds, when they’re thinking of explanations of their worlds that they can most reliably believe.  And 2) that scientists are just specially-educated versions of the guys in the coffee shops.

Sally wraps up the week with a story about how people find their way when someone goes missing (in this case, her grandfather). The effects of his loss were pronounced and specific. My mother grew up knowing first and foremost that you couldn’t rely on anyone but yourself. . . Hans’ disappearance had a different effect on her brother Frank. He made it his life’s project to understand how the world works.

See you in 2018!

**

Image by Flickr user Morgan under Creative Commons license

Redux: Fatherhood: the Outline of a Man

By: | December 29, 2017

This was written for Father’s Day, June 11, 2012.  But it also suits this holiday season when too many people are missing too many other people.  That is, you know who a person is by the shape of the hole they leave when they’re not there.

Here you go.  It’s not sad.

Redux: Coffeeshop Science

By: | December 28, 2017

This was posted September 24, 2015.  I go later to the coffeeshop now and don’t run into Larry and John, its chief scientists.  I do have an update on neighborhood-kid questions though.  “Why does this blue flower have a yellow dot in the center?” “Why do birds poop?” “Why are there ants going up the tree and ants going down the tree?”

My favorite, though, happened a couple years ago.  A two-year old’s older brother was talking to a neighbor about rocks.  The neighbor said she had a piece of lava in her living room, did the boy want to see it?  The two-year old, whose speech was just developing and who talked as though he were speaking a foreign language, interrupted the neighbor and asked, “Do. You. Have. A. Volcano. In. Your. House?”

Anyway, here’s the original post.

____

Volcano by Taro Taylor via Wikimedia Commons

Redux: Snark Week: Get Your F^#*ing Chihuahua Out of My Sight

By: | December 27, 2017

Sometimes a little snark does us all good. So I’m resurrecting one of my snarkiest posts from a couple of years back. Enjoy.

shutterstock_282639842Guys, this isn’t easy for me—please know that I’m quite conflicted over what I’m about to write. It goes against a big part of who I am. But judge me as you will. After years of hiding behind a gentle loves-all-animals exterior, it’s time for me to expose this personal inner truth.

I hate Chihuahuas.

There. I wrote it. I put it down on a public page and there’s no taking it back.

I’m a person who chats amicably with the spider living above my shower, who puts worms caught on my trowel back into the soil, who brakes for toads and braves highway traffic to move crossing turtles (even the snapping kind) to safety. If I had the brutal choice to save either a mutt or a man, I’d have to think on it—and I can’t promise that man would make it home for dinner. That’s how much I love the world’s non-human creatures.

But I hate Chihuahuas. They are crazy-eyed ghouls, incessant squeaky toys, rabid ratsquirrels. That air of superiority…have they never looked in a mirror? Not that they’re smart enough to recognize themselves. I have no doubt they’d fight their reflections to the death.

I’d rather cuddle and kiss a used Bandaid from a public pool. I’d rather spoon with Golem on a bed of cricket shit.

Inexplicably, none of the Chihuahuas I’ve met like me, either.

One of my best friends has three of the damn things. Or maybe four. Who the hell can tell when they’re all coming at me at top squeal? (Her dog choice is almost a deal breaker re: our friendship, except that she’s awesome in all other ways, and she rescues these things because they’re too horrible for anyone else to take home.) When I’m at her house, any movement on my part—a nod, a toe wiggle, an inhale—sends them into that full-on freak show barkathon, their little bodies a-bounce with the effort.

Sometimes they just scream from their puffy little beds, too lazy to bother moving, their stupid heads half visible under the blankets they need to avoid hypothermia. It’s tragic. Grow some fur if you claim to be a dog. Dogs have fur. Here’s one of my dogs with the fur he shed after just three passes of my hand. Now that’s a dog.FullSizeRender-1

I’ve decided that a group of Chihuahuas should be called a “nuisance.” A nuisance of Chihuahuas. Or maybe an “itchy rash.” Better yet, to promote their combo of being irritating and evil, let’s call them a “Joffrey.”  A Joffrey of Chihuahuas. That’s good.

Back to the frightful four, I’m forever a stranger no matter how many years they’ve known me, no matter how many hours I’ve been in the room with them. If I step out for a moment, I’m once again a gun-toting intruder when I step back in. One in particular, a reddish bitch named Stella, has a constant growl vibrating against her curled lip as she eyes me tiptoeing around her space. It’s Chucky-doll creepy.

Here’s what Stella does next. She races up behind me, barking and growling, and, if time allows before I turn and bark back, she’ll lunge at my leg and nab my Achilles tendon with her little devil teeth. She’s chicken shit if I’m facing her, of course. Chicken. Shit. But I turn away and she’s suddenly Satan in a naked mole rat costume. (BTW, naked mole rats are actually fascinating, though ugly as all get out.)

You should know, I would never, could never, kick a dog. But is a Chihuahua a dog, really? Dogs share ancestors with wolves. Look at a wolf. Here’s one.

shutterstock_349196222

Now look at a Chihuahua. This.5085261-chihuahua-in-front-of-a-white-background

Wolf, legitimately pissed (and still beautiful).shutterstock_3249873
Chihuahua, just plain crazy.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

They may be of the same family, even genus, but I suspect, given the chance, any self-respecting wolf would give Cousin Chihuahua a good neck-breaking shake for being such an embarrassment. And we humans should be ashamed of ourselves, because this is probably all our fault.

People have had a hand in dog breeding for ages, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that bloodlines and named breeds came into their own. Since then, to adapt a line I’ve used before, we’ve gone from wolf to woof to yap…to Chihuahua.

Actually, from what I can find on the Interwebs, Chihuahuas have been much like they are today for a very long time, at least since they were scrawny little companions of people in ancient Mexico. They’re likely descended from the hairless Techichi, if you must know. But somewhere along the way there must have been a DNA snafu or two, don’t you think, to get us where we are now? Add in some people with very strange taste mucking around with blood lines, and now some Chihuahuas have “deer” heads and some have “apple” heads. Come on.

And these non-dogs are dumb enough to go up against real dogs, somehow trusting they can scoot out from under big jaws in the nick of time. (They can’t.) If you are one of those owners who leave your Chihuahua outdoors, especially tied to something heavy, you should just start calling it Bait. Bait will no doubt be running it’s mouth nonstop and Bait will be attacked by a real dog and Bait will have deserved it.

I’m a bit of a dog snob, I’ll freely admit. I like primitive breeds with Asian roots, the types that would eat a Chihuahua before even processing hunger pangs. Here’s another one of my dogs.IMG_3852But I’ve owned and loved other breeds, including a happy-go-lucky golden retriever and a peculiar Weimaraner, and on any trip to an animal rescue facility, I’m tempted by a whole host of styles and sizes and personalities. (Even cats.) I love them all. Well, I love them most. Add to my “not actually dogs” list whatever type of yapping terriers live next door to me. (A set of five—or how about an infected scab of five. Intolerable. Hot sauce in the eyes…that’s what they deserve.)

But I harbor a special high hate for Chihuahuas. I’m no longer apologizing for it. I’ve never met a gentle, cute, or generous one, nor one that deserves my attention, pity, or love. So, if you’re a Chihuahua owner, for some ungodly reason? You’d be smart not to let yours get all up in my face. I think I’ve made that clear.

 

—

Cartoon and photos from Shutterstock except the really mad Chihuahua, which is by David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Redux: Sassy Smocks and Moist Panties

By: | December 26, 2017

 

This post first ran on January 28, 2015. But I still love flicker, ripple, chuckle and clusterfuck the word (but not the thing).
Sashay_Britt.Reints

 

Words are a writer’s currency, and we each have our favorites. The first word I remember falling in love with was onomatopoeia. It had a satisfying rhythm, plus there was the delight of discovering, oh — there’s a word for that.

That joy of discovery was exactly what I felt reading Lost in Translation, a delightful new book by Ella Frances Sanders, who draws illustrations to help explain “untranslatable word from around the world” like trepverter (Yiddish for the perfect retort that comes to you later, when it’s too late), iktsuarpok (Inuit for the act of repeatedly going outside to check if anyone’s coming), cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish for a man who insists on leaving his shirt tails untucked) and tsundoku (Japanese for leaving unread a book you’ve bought, perhaps piling it on top of a stack of other books you haven’t read).

English also has no true equivalent to my own favorite foreign word: gemütlichkeit, a German term that connotes the kind of warm coziness you feel when gathered around a fire with your dearest friends, perhaps drinking Glühwein. It must exist in some language, but I’m still seeking a word to describe a dog’s joy while frolicking in fresh snow.

Many of my beloved English words are onomatopoeic ones like flicker, boing, ripple, riffraff, guffaw and clusterfuck. As a kid, my favorite part of art class was the smock. Not the thing itself, but the occasion to say the word aloud, repeatedly. Smock, smock, smock. I don’t know why I love it, but I do. I also love sassy and saucy and, especially, sashay. I could say that word all day. Continue reading →