Mars & Climate Change: Things I think about in the shower # 2

When I was a kid I really wanted to be an astronaut and in those days, according to my dad (no internet to check in those days), I should first join the Air Force.  My mother, who had decided before my birth that I would be a doctor, told me I was too tall to be in the Air Force.  Again, no internet, so I took her word for it.

The point is that I really think the idea of colonizing the moon or Mars is an awesome idea. There's no arguing that our space program has brought a spectacular number of new inventions and other benefits to our race.  And I loved the Red Earth - Blue Earth- Green Earth Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy, are you kidding me?  Awesome.

But all I hear about on the news is about how current climate change will turn the planet into a fiery lava storm in the next 50 years (okay, I've only read the destruction of planet Earth scenario in a few particularly bonkers websites; at worst it would be an extinction event, one that would likely be survived only by cockroaches and Wonder Bread).  So why is the message: "We need to colonize Mars because Earth will be uninhabitable soon" instead of, "Hey guys, let's fix Earth!"

Shower thought:  Let's use the Mars money to cool the earth, THEN go to Mars later.

I realize most efforts are rightly spent now on prevention of man-made climate change (although according to Hank Green even if we all drop dead today the planet is still going to warm up according to ocean bottom sampling), why not work on a solution too?  I've seen a few space-related ideas about cooling the planet like putting up webs in orbit to block some sun or encouraging plant growth to suck up carbon dioxide. 

The main complaint about curative methods is they are expensive.  But isn't terraforming Mars going to be expensive? 

Maybe it's all because I am a mom:  "Sorry, kid, but you can't go have fun on Mars until you've cleaned up your room."

PS:  Here's an interesting graph (link) I found about the cyclic change of planetary temperature according to ice core samples.  So if modern human Adam and Eve were born around 150-200,000 years ago, and the oldest hand cave paintings were 40,000 years ago, YAY HUMANS for surviving the super low temperatures. Go Team Caveman!

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Word: fartsgrensen
  Pronounced: (yarn-ih-cheer-oolg).
   (Translation: speed limit)
 Exercise: Use "fartsgrensen" in a sentence:
 Example: Fartsgrensen er tretti miles per time.
   (The speed limit is thirty miles per hour)

Things I think about in the shower

Like many people, I do my best thinking in the shower.  Sadly, the things I think about are usually pretty goofy.  

Shower Thought:  Surely the term "Middle East" doesn't really make sense unless you live 1/4 of the way around the planet to the west?  

The website www.worldatlas.com suggests this portion of the world is the MIddle East (evidently what constitutes the MIddle East is disputed).  So it looks to me like Iraq is about the center.

So this looked like a latitude/longitude problem.  I can never remember latitude v. longitude (which I expect would infuriate my geography expert extraordinaire sister Molly) but I found the public domain image at right that explains the difference.

Okay. So Google says the middle of Iraq is about 33 ^o N by 43.5 ^o E.

So Baghdad is 44.3 ^o E. I grabbed a blank image off freeUSandWorldMaps.com and did a quick photoshop to add the numbers. Since right angles are 90^o, then perpendicular to Baghdad is 45.7^oW. The only named place at around 45^oW I could find in this northern hemisphere map is a place called Nunataaq, Greenland.

(Fun fact: according to the Italian Wikipedia, Nunataaq is a village with 2 inhabitants as of 2005. I feel rather nervous that the latest data is from 2005. What's happened in the 12 years in between? Did the two inhabitants go on a quest northward only to freeze in the ice, never to be heard from again?)

How I spent my summer vacation:  Well.  That's an hour spent coloring and labeling this image that I will never get back.

In conclusion, if you stand in Greenland (or in the eastern portion of Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere), then it would be correct to describe the Middle East as the "Middle East".  Otherwise you are just confusing our alien watcher overlords on the moon.

Q.E.D.

The sad part about all of this, of course, is that you would have no one with which to discuss the Middle East in Nunataaq, Greenland, because presumably everyone there has been eaten by polar bears.  

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Word: for eksempel
  Pronounced: (for eks-emp-ull).
   (Translation: for example)
 Exercise: Use "for eksempel" in a sentence:
 Example: "Jeg elsker katter. For eksempel, jeg elsker min lille katt Kishi.
   (I love cats. For example, I love my little cat Kishi.)

See one, do one, teach one

(I'm writing thi at 4 am after waking up from a nightmare where I couldn't find my car in a parking structure; the humanity!  I'm guessing it won't seem nearly as deep or witty upon review tomorrow.)

In med school we learned most procedures by seeing one performed.  Then we did one under the guidance of an attending physician, and then, as an intern, resident, fellow or physician, we taught it to the next person, hopefully with a more experienced person on the sidelines, but sometimes not.  (Obviously with the rarer procedures getting a chance to do or teach one was rarer as well.) The benefit here is that you pay a LOT more attention when learning and doing, because you know it will be just plain you at some point.  To be fair, in medical training the goal is to see a lot & do a lot before ever having to teach, but sometimes... youdowhatyougottado.

I find I never, ever learn anything as well as when I have to teach it to another person.

Some random things I have seen, done and subsequently taught, in no particular order:

Tie a shoelace. Open and close a surgical case.  Place a suture. Repair a retinal detachment. Paint walls and trim (latex paint). Laser the retina, the iris or an opacified posterior lens capsule. Play a simple tune on piano. Ovariectomize a prairie vole.  Insert a foley catheter. Sew on a button. Take blood pressure. Refract (Better 1 or 2?  3 or 4?) Take/write a history and physical.  Pronounce a person dead. Give a (good) lecture.  Be compassionate to a crying patient (tissue box maneuver).  Drive a car. Cataract surgery. Use a condom (taught to classrooms of avid high schoolers). Glaze a ceramic piece. Use a microscope. Put in an eye drop. Stoichiometry.  Perform surgery on a patient with no anesthetic (I can explain).  Parallel park. Remove a retinal membrane.  Write an exam.  Fit a contact lens. Draw blood.  Use the F-stop on a camera.  Put on a musical! Play guitar. Perform ultrasound on an eye/orbit. And this week: Paint a RPG miniature.  

Things I've seen and done, but didn't/haven't had the chance to teach (yet), and therefore my proficiency is (even more) suspect:

Frame, drywall & patch an interior house wall.  Do a spinal tap. Plant annuals in the yard. Have a baby.  Deliver other people's babies. Make a stoneware teapot. Mix down musical tracks. Perform CPR chest compressions on a human. Give patients bad news.  Plastic surgery. Ride a horse. Swim (poorly). Perform musical burlesque numbers onstage at both scifi and preeminent medical conventions (I have a lot of tips on this).  Make faux stained window inserts. Sew a costume.  Perform enucleations (surgically remove eyeballs).  

...I should do some YouTube videos on some of these so I can cement my understanding. I'm going to do that. 

 Today's Medical Word: ovariectomize
  Pronounced: (oh-verr-eck-toe-my-zz).
   Definition: To remove the ovaries
 Today'Exercise: Use the phrase "For Pete's Sake" in a sentence. Also ovariectomize.
 Example: For Pete's Sake, I already ovariectomized that prairie vole!*