Now, wait just one second for

a note about myself...

Sometimes I pretend I'm still a kid. But, not in a creepy-fetish way, and not in a psychotic, or a can't-grow-up way. I am capable of being a mature adult, paying my bills, taking responsibility, being boring...

What I mean is, sometimes I do those things that, when I was a kid, I promised myself I would not get too old and crabby to do. Sometimes I climb trees; sometimes I play with crabs. Sometimes, I blow bubbles in my chocolate milk.

Which is probably why I like working with children so much. It turns out that five-year-old girls don't see a problem with wearing an astronaut costume every day of the week, that three-year-old boys are a-okay with everything being about dinosaurs. It just so happens, that it's ok to use an ostrich's bones to build a 6-legged, saber-tooth tiger. It's ok to enjoy making colorful coffee-filter butterflies. It's ok to not know where your finger prints are and, IT IS O-K TO ASK QUESTIONS.

... followed by a point of clarification:

So, when I talk about the disconnect between scientific language and the general public, I'm not trying to point out that people don't know about science. And, I don't want you to think of this as another "for dummies" info source.

What I would like to point out here, is that science is not disconnected from every day life, and that there is a way of talking about it that reflects that, that doesn't dangle it in front of you at arms length. And that this is the most pertinent way to talk about it.

I Spy...

See if you can work this one out:

If you've been to Boston, then you've probably heard of, if not seen this famous scientific landmark. However, you've probably never seen it form this angle.

Guess what it is! or check the October post "I Spy: Welcome to "Heaven"?" for another clue.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

No, it does not refer to the fear of monstrous hippos. Tragically, hippopotomostrosesquipedliophobi refers to the fear of long words.

But why start a blog about science with a quip about vocabulary expansion? Well, while I myself realize that science is a fascinating lens through which to see the world, and an amazing tool for uncovering answers to basically any question you could possibly have, not to mention, pretty fucking cool, I do realize that others might not share my “hard-on for science,” as a friend politely put it.

I can only imagine that this is due, at least in part, to the unique vocabulary that so many professionals build up around their studies. Because a good deal of science involves studying things encountered nowhere else, a good deal of talking about science involves devising new terminology to differentiate between the anatomy of different species, or say, to distinguish planets from asteroids, from… other orbiting things.

The point is, by using terminology that people cannot easily understand, scientists create a barrier between themselves and their audiences. Nobody really wants to hear about the chemical properties of borax. Nor do most people care about the lifecycle of the honeybee, the habitats of extremophiles or the degree that changes in atmospheric density affect sound waves. And they especially don't want to hear about it when you have to learn what amounts to a new language in order to figure out what the fuck people are trying to tell you.

In any case, I promise not to speak in other languages or to scare you off with titles like "Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia" ever again.