As I begin to write my third series of Essays on Science for the Common Good in the third week of March 2020, We-the entire human race are right in the midst of disastrous cataclysmic events that none of us has ever witnessed before. Schools are closing, entire businesses and industries are failing, stock markets are crashing, and the word pandemic is taking on a personal meaning to us. More and more cases of COVID-19 are burgeoning and the death rate too keeps rising. Social distancing has become a household word as many of us are beginning to feel not only physical isolation but psychological separation as well. The world has changed faster than the human brain can comprehend amid social disorder; it’s hard to make some sense out of chaos. Many of us turn to one of two magisterium, religion or science for comfort. Since both have been very influential in my life I turn to both. After all with no sports of any kind at any level what other choices are there. And I’m talking not only spectator sports, but participant sports as well. The last week of bowling, was canceled and a spokesperson for two local golf courses today could not confirm whether golf courses are considered “essential businesses” and, therefore, will be able to open… Oh well, such is life.
Sunday, March 22, 2020 Listened to part of a Lutheran sermon to an empty church building and viewed a Methodist sermon streaming on my PC also of an empty church, spent half an hour listening to a favorite website that not only has awesome spiritual music but also excellent secular music. It is 12: 30 CDT and I should soon be turning on a Cubs spring training game-maybe in a couple months. Just to catch my past readers up a little, we had very little snow in our locale in North-central Illinois this past winter; I cross country skied (Nordic to you European skiers) only about four times this winter and zero times downhill (Alpine). At seventy seven (just 8 days ago and yes I often say I share a birthday with another genius) I think my downhill days are over. I have done several labs (Vernier) and in non-Vernier labs I just recently did a lab on the effect of stimulants (e. g. caffeine, and sucrose) on the motility of planaria (flatworms in phylum Platyhelminthes) and just finished doing a lab on the effect of NaCl concentration, temperature, and pH level (a lab on natural selection) in Artemia (brine shrimp) in which eggs were placed in different environments and hatching viability percentages were calculated. In the first base (no baseball pun intended) experiment, salinity was the independent variable. In two extensions that I designed, temperature and pH were the independent variables. In all three experiments the dependent variable was, of course, the percentage of hatching eggs. And in an ongoing lab I have a colony of mealworms to study the effect of temperature (independent variable) on metamorphosis from eggs to larvae, to pupae, to adult. Eggs are very small and thus hard to find. Both larvae and adults were placed in the growth chamber (pan) and kept warm at about 30°C (86°F) One group of pupae were incubated in an incubator set at 30°C while the other group developed at room temperature (approximately 20°C (68°F))
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I have an electrophoresis and Simulated Genetic Screen lab to do. I still have some yearly (winter) tasks to do, shredding, recycling / tossing) documents, receipts, etc. and probably will not get around to converting old photos to digital images. In other news our beautiful 10 year 9 month old collie, Brandie really suffers from arthritis in both hips and hind legs and often needs help getting up. She has almost as many meds to take as my wife and I have. We’re hoping some of last year’s foxes will return to raise their young even though they, along with dropped bird seed hulls, wreak havoc on our perennial garden.
Before I conclude this introduction to my third series of essays I would like to make a few offerings to our present situation worldwide. In all the gloom and doom of the present there are some silver linings. I am going to use a trite cliché that I detest. People are “reaching out to connect.” Maybe a temporary hiatus in youth sports will mean more family dinners here in the United States, more phone conversations with family and friends near and far, more family games. (I have talked to all of my sisters at great length in the last few days). Perhaps more people will agree to agree rather than agree to disagree and perhaps-just perhaps politicians and lawmakers will rediscover bipartisan politics and put their constituents first before their own selfish personal agendas. Specifically here in Illinois maybe fairly drawn districts and term limits will replace corrupt government. A few weeks ago when the last corrupt Illinois politician was pardoned from prison it marked the first time since 2007 that no Illinois politician was in a prison. Wow!
At the risk of sounding preachy, in these troubled times find solace and hope in something/someone. I go back to an inspirational song that went to my very heart, core, and soul that kept me going in 2013, a song that brings tears to my eyes yet: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Elvis’s rendition especially) It ranks up there with “It is Well With My Soul”, now perhaps my favorite hymn.
I will have an outline coming soon but be looking for some essays on the two magesteria mentioned above and, of course, more on global warming. (That’s still there).