My Scientific Observation of The Blood Red Eclipse

This past week, Wednesday, October 8^th, there was an eclipse of the moon here in the United States. This eclipse was called a Blood Red eclipse, due to it being close to dawn and the moon taking on a reddish hue at the height of the eclipse.  I remember as a youngster my parents awakening us one late night to see a lunar eclipse. I was fascinated to watch the moon slowly disappear as a bite shaped piece of shadow kept growing. At that young age, it reminded me of Cookie Monster from Sesame Street slowly devouring the moon like some celestial cookie.

For this most recent event, I was at work. There were a small number of people who were standing outside to watch the eclipse. I stood back from the group and watched both the eclipse, and people’s reactions as they exited the building. I found that there were four distinct categories of reaction.

The first group of people fell into the “Wise-Acre” group. These were mostly men who would say, “Oh, you are looking at the moon? I got another moon I can show you.” To which the only appropriate reply was, “If it is all the same, we would like that moon to remain eclipsed.”

The second category were those people who have an affinity towards agriculture and farming. They would look at the group of watchers, glance at the moon, and immediately begin to sound out, “Moooooooooon.” This was humorous the first time, but soon it became rather ridiculous, prompting me to think, “Holy Cow people, that joke is done, stop milking it.”

The next group of people were those who don’t believe anything, unless they see it on the television or internet. Their reaction to seeing the crowd and never even glancing skyward was, “Oh, are you watching the eclipse? I saw it on the television.”

Really? You saw it on television?

In this same category were those who pulled out their smart phones to open up some star tracking app so they could see the moon. Come on folks! It is the moon! How did Newton ever find the moon without his apple product?

The last group was the Sci-Fi nerd group. These wonderful people walked out the door, saw the moon gazing group, turned towards the moon, reached out with their hands in the air and begin to utter growls and grunts. I must say, I was speechless.

I enjoyed watching the moon as it slipped behind the earth’s shadow, but that enjoyment was eclipsed by my co-workers reactions.

The dirty dish dilemma

Ancient cooking pots reveal diet of 6000 year old Europeans. Well, not really 6000 year old Europeans, rather Europeans who lived 6000 years ago. Using complex chemical analysis of scraps of food left in cooking pots, scientist determined these people ate fish and other seafood. If there were any 6000 year olds around, scientists concede it would have been much easier to ask them what they ate for supper. They also postulate that the presence of fish and other seafood indicates these ancient Europeans did not start farming until more recently than 6000 years ago and up until then were primarily hunter-gatherers. Since hunter-gatherers is both a long word to type and hyphenated, I will refer to them as fishermen in the following paragraphs.

This information is extremely important to those who like to argue the corollary to “which came first the chicken or the egg?” question. That question being, which came first, the farmer or the fisherman? While people who argue the chicken/egg dilemma are better known than their counterparts in the farmer/fisherman camp, they often are accused of being scrambled eggheads.

The farmer/fisherman argument has a long history of violent rivalry. This is evidenced by the Biblical story of Cain and Able. God was displeased with Cain’s, the farmer, sacrifice but accepted Able’s, the keeper of animals, sacrifice. Cain, as you probably remember, was angry, took his brother out to a field and killed him; thus ended the first discussion of the merits of farming vs. fishing.

Although the animosity between farmers/fisherman has quieted down over the past few thousand years, there is still a sense of distrust between the two camps. From those who are vegetarian comes the cry, “How can you eat that sweet innocent creature?” This outburst is even greater at this time of year when hunters roam into the wooded areas to cull the herds of white-tailed deer here in the northeast. Now the cry is, “How can you hunt, kill, and eat Bambi?” Seriously folks, Bambi is a cartoon character. Just like the cucumber and tomato duo of Bob and Larry in the animated video series, “Veggie Tales.”

On the other side of the debate are the carnivores, or perhaps more correctly, omnivores, since most of us eat both meat and vegetables. This, however, is not a true omnivore. A true omnivore is a toddler, who will eat anything, meat, potatoes, vegetables, crayons, glue, shoelaces, and smaller children. It is, in fact, the toddler who, with tears in his eyes, would say to the vegetarian as they are munching on salad, “How can you eat Bob and Larry?”

In conclusion, it is obvious that this study has a fundamental flaw. The scientists failed to understand that they were studying the bowl of a bachelor. It is a well-established fact that bachelors do not properly load the dishwasher when they are finished using their bowls. My wife, like all other wives, is an expert on the loading of dishwashers and she consistently reinforces this lesson with our daughters and me. Do not leave your plates lying around, rinse them immediately; do not put dishes in the washer with food still on them because they will not come out clean.

It follows therefore, since the bowl had scraps of food left in it, that it was a bachelor’s bowl. Someone who was not blessed with the consistent reminders from a loving wife regarding the appropriate way to load a dishwasher. Let this be a warning to present day bachelors, clean your bowls thoroughly, or in 6000 years scientists will be poking around in your dirty dishes.

Research shows...

Research has shown that 90% of research is unnecessary, or in other words, that only 10% can have real- world application. Even then, sometimes it takes a creative genius, such as myself, to discover those applications.

Take, for instance, the well-known statistical research that 90% of accidents happen within 10 miles of home.  This, on the surface, may seem like most people only travel within 10 miles of their own houses, when in actuality, there is a statistical personal ring-of-death that extends 10 miles from each person’s home. The actual reasons behind this are too mystical and complicated to examine here. The more important question is “what do I do about it?”, or “what is the real world application?”

First, I took a map and drew a circle representing a 10-mile radius around my house-- my personal ring-of-death. Next, I asked my wife if I could use the scissors. one should always use scissors with adult supervision! When she was able to supervise, I cut that circle right out of the map.

Then I went to the phone book and found a place to store my car, outside that 10-mile circle. When I need to drive somewhere, outside of my ring-of-death, I walk a block, get on the bus and ride to my car. Once I am safely outside that 10-mile radius, I get in my car and drive to my destination. Provided, of course, the destination is outside my death ring. This has brought great peace of mind, knowing that this simple change in my behavior has resulted in a 9-fold reduction in the possibility of my dying in a horrible fiery wreck. Thank you research!

The next item for consideration is glasses. Not the ones you drink from, but, more correctly, corrective lenses. Research shows that people who wear glasses are perceived as being more intelligent than those without spectacles. I also have applied this to my everyday life. I have a pair of glasses that I usually keep perched on top of my head and when someone asks me a difficult question, I slide them off the top of my head and perch them on my nose. Now there is something in that very act that makes me feel more intelligent and it seems to shock and awe innocent bystanders as they are bedazzled and bewildered by my brilliance.

Just the other day I was shopping at Wegmans, with my corrective lenses smartly perched on my lush head of hair, when an unsuspecting shopper was caught in the glare of my obvious brilliance. She handed me a package and asked if the item was worth buying. I slid the glasses to my nose, almost causing the entire population of that row to swoon in wonder, and read that it contained bromated bromesium, apopleptic arsenic, seizium citrate, red dye #3, yellow dye #4, and love potion #9. I responded to the fellow shopper that it would be better to go to the produce aisle and buy some fruits and vegetables for the following reasons. First, they only have one ingredient per package, i.e. apple or banana, or yellow squash. B, the packages are much easier to open, I had opened one of the items she had in her cart, and the package split open, spilling the entire contents all over the kitchen, dining room, and much of the Yucatan Peninsula. The packaging on produce is much easier to open, and in some cases, such as apples, is edible. Finally, I insisted that the produce tasted much better than the item she was considering buying. The now wise and well-informed shopper put her box of dishwasher detergent back and the shelf and hurried to the produce aisle. Research yet again saves the day!

The last item of research to be considered is new research that shows that technology actually keeps people awake. This has something to do with the wavelengths of light coming from computer monitors causing the body to not produce the appropriate amount of melatonin to make people feel drowsy and fall asleep. This has the potential to be one of the most lifesaving pieces of research in recent memory.

Most lawmakers generally wear contacts, which greatly dulls their intellect. However, they have been smart enough to notice that a driver staring at his or her lap trying to spell words out on a tiny one- inch by one-inch screen tends not to notice traffic conditions around them and have been known to bump into other drivers, signposts, and even wayward jet airplanes, all with great violence. Thus the lawmakers, whose entire existence is wrapped up in making laws, made it illegal to text and drive.  They then sat back to watch the number of car accidents decrease and the number of happy-to-be-alive voters increase . These happy-to-be-alive voters would, of course, vote for them. The increase has been only slight. Why? Because the emissions from the screens of phones were keeping drivers awake, so now they are bumping into things because they are falling asleep.