We Can Thank Geckos For Stickier Tape
It’s true I sometimes make fun of scientific discoveries that, in my opinion, seem a little silly—such as genetically altering a mouse to glow in the dark. That’s because I just can’t see any benefit to creating a rodent with its own built-in night light. While it might make for goofy fun at the lab when all the lights are out, should one of these neon mice manage to escape and reproduce, I’ll be the one stuck taking my cat to therapy twice a week.
However, from time to time, there is a scientific breakthrough so significant, so far-reaching, so groundbreaking that even I—a trained humor columnist—must stop and say:
Wow! This is quite possibly the most important scientific discovery since….
The glow-in-the-dark mouse!
(For me, the yardstick by which all modern scientific discoveries are measured.)
Thanks to researchers at Lewis and Clark University and the University of California Berkley, we are on the verge of another milestone in scientific achievement—something that could quite possibly change the world as we know it!
At least in terms of adhesiveness.
Gecko Tape.
After hearing this exciting news, you’re undoubtedly thinking the same thing I was:
Ewwwww.
But rest assured that this new tape is NOT actually made from geckos. However, it is strong enough to support the entire body weight of a full grown elephant—which apparently is just one of its many practical applications.
However, before we get to that, part of my job as a journalist is to take highly technical information and, through a rigorous process of study and research, find a way of explaining it to you, the reader, in such a way that I, the journalist, look smart. To do this, I will be using terms like setae, and spatulae, and Van der Waal forces. I might even include the term proluminal crotominoids (pronounced pro-loom-i-nal crow-tom-i-noids), which essentially means that I’ve run out of actual scientific terms and am now making them up.
That said, I will explain the science behind Gecko Tape. To begin with, geckos have 100 times the wall-climbing ability of spiders. Something that, back in the 1960s, nearly led Marvel Comics to pass up spiders and introduce the Amazing Gecko-Man! who, along with his ability to climb walls, would possess other gecko-like superpowers—such as licking his eyelids and detaching his rear end as a means of escape. (The idea was shelved after sketching just three panels of a fight between Gecko-Man! and Doctor Octigrab.)
The secret to the gecko’s clinging ability lies in its toes, each of which contain microscopic setae (tiny hairs). At the tip of each setae is a spatulae (pad) that is approximately 10 millionths of an inch across, which the gecko laces with poluminal crotominoids (Super Glue) before climbing. This produces an effect called Van der Waal forces, which I haven’t figured out yet, but nonetheless would be a really great name for a Bruce Willis movie.
After years of study, researchers have discovered that the combination of setae and spatulae cause electrical charges around molecules to become unbalanced, resulting in an unnatural attraction to each other, such as Brigitte Nielsen and Flava Flav.
Scientists have now found a way to duplicate the gecko’s setae and spatulae in order to create the most adhesive tape known to man.
The next big challenge, of course, will be packaging. It’s not like you can sell it in a roll like duct tape. How will you ever get it apart?
Still, when they do eventually figure it out, I’ll be the first one in line. I plan to buy several rolls and leave strips of it all over the house.
I mean, heck—what better way to catch a glow-in-the-dark mouse?
(You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR. 97439)
Laws Of Science Don’t Apply To Our Family’s Laundry Basket
My wife and I have been trying to come up with an explanation for the volume of dirty clothes that accumulates in our laundry basket on a daily basis. In an attempt to explain this phenomena by utilizing mathematic principles, we went through the laundry, separated the clothes, subtracted how many days since the basket was empty, and then divided it by the number of children in our home — which lead to an important discovery:
We had become trapped in the bathroom after our pile of clothes fell against the door.
While it’s true we have four children between us, according to my calculations they are changing their clothes every 18 minutes. This includes through the night, when they apparently take turns changing EACH OTHER while sleeping in shifts. This would explain how they can have a closet full of clothes at bedtime, then wake up and have nothing to wear. It would also explain why their bed sheets are always untucked and strewn on the floor by morning; they are using the sheets to drag each other’s sleeping bodies back and forth to the closet. Also included in our mathematical equation was the “X” quotient, which represents clothes that don’t actually make it home from school until the end of the year, when they magically re-appear in the closet two sizes too small.
Even though they are homosapians capable of walking in an upright position, we have to assume, judging from their pants, our children spend most of the day on their hands and knees trapping moles. As a result, we discussed the idea of getting ahead of the curve by purchasing new pants, and then immediately cutting the knees out. This would effectively eliminate 90 percent of the grass stains from our laundry while, at the same time, providing our children with knee calluses the size of Egg McMuffins. We decided against this because we realized our children would be missing an important lesson about taking care of their clothes.
We also realized we really needed to stop and eat because the phrase “Egg McMuffin knee calluses” made us salivate.
What we eventually decided on was a responsibility checklist for each of our children. This list is designed to encourage them to take care of their clothes as well as themselves. Naturally, there is a reward system involved for completing this checklist each day, such as reward option 1) Not having to go to school naked.
I will let you know if our plan is successful.
As soon as we get out of the bathroom.
(You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439.)
Ron Artest, Role Model?
In case you don’t know who Ron Artest is, he’s a basketball player who hasn’t had a very good reputation. He’s caused problems on some of the teams he’s played for, he spent 10 days in jail because of a domestic abuse charge, and he’s best known for being part of a brawl in which he punched a fan at a game. So why am I saying that he is now a very important role model?
We’re used to hearing athletes after a victory thanking their mothers, coaches, and sometimes even their teammates. They often thank God, and that always seems weird to me to think that God was rooting for one team rather than the other. I’m not even sure He’s a sports fan. So when the Los Angeles Lakers recently won the NBA championship, it was a little shocking to hear Ron Artest saying, “I want to thank my psychiatrist.”
Artest seems to have turned his life around. He hasn’t gotten in trouble lately, he’s involved in some philanthropic causes, and he has started a program called Xcel University to help high-risk kids. Maybe his deciding to see a psychiatrist was another step in turning his life around.
I was somewhat amused by Artest’s thanking his shrink, but a week or so later, a friend of mine said what a great thing it was that Artest made that statement. My friend, Sandra, pointed out that it was good for an athlete like Artest to admit that he was seeing a psychiatrist.
I realized that Sandra couldn’t have been more right. Here was a tough, manly, macho guy telling the world that he was getting psychiatric help — and that it was working. That’s why I think, at least because of that moment, that he is an important role model.
Most male athletes — and maybe most males — have learned to keep their emotions to themselves. Think about the famous movie line, “There’s no crying in baseball.” There’s also no admission of fears, anxiety, or depression in any big-time sport. Players are taught to “man up” when something bothers them. When helmets were first mandated in hockey, many players said they didn’t really need them. If they have to act like they don’t care about their heads getting hit by a puck, they certainly aren’t going to feel comfortable admitting that something is bothering them inside their heads.
When they turn pro, athletes suddenly earn more money than they ever dreamed of. Strangers cheer their every move. And before you know it, they’re in a Holiday Inn with two hookers and enough drugs to sedate the entire population of Rhode Island.
I think teams should have a therapist on the payroll and make it mandatory that rookies see him or her at least once. After that, they should know that they can go to therapy as much or as little as they want. Maybe if they see that the veterans aren’t embarrassed to get help, they won’t be, either.
Like many people, athletes generally only get help after they’ve messed up big time. Maybe Ron Artest wouldn’t have been in that brawl if he had already admitted to himself that he needed help. Maybe some of those athletes who take their guns with them to nightclubs would stay home with their families if they got help for their unspoken insecurities. Who knows? Maybe Tiger Woods would have behaved himself — or at least stopped at two or three.
Athletes are heroes to many people, especially kids. It’s refreshing that for once the message from a big time athlete is not that it’s cool to drive a car 100 miles per hour, that graduating is for geeks, or that the rules of marriage only apply to women. The message was that it’s cool to get help if you need it.
If a six-foot, seven-inch sports figure feels that there’s no reason to be ashamed about seeing a therapist, maybe at least a few people who are shorter than he is will feel the same way. Even if it’s silly, people still seem to believe that truly manly men are big, strong guys. I guess society hasn’t evolved enough to realize that the real manly men are those who look fear in the eyes and man up as they grind out a column every week, without even wearing a helmet.
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at <lloydgarver.com> and his podcasts on iTunes.
Protestant Colonists Had No Better Friend Than Irish Priest
Catholicism was the state religion of Mexico, and conversion to the official faith was a condition of citizenship for all immigrants. This religious requirement rankled the vast majority of Anglo-American settlers, who had been brought up as Protestants, but they had to swear allegiance to Rome or lose their land grants.
The awkward arrangement made hypocrites out of the colonists, whose convenient Catholicism was a sham, as well as the authorities who pretended not to notice the charade. The one troubling catch was that Mexican law recognized only those marriages performed by a priest, which meant that with each passing year more and more couples were living in sin and raising their offspring out of wedlock.
By 1830 the Austin colonists grudgingly accepted the need for a padre to sanctify the ties that bound them and to sprinkle their children. But he had to be an understanding cleric, who would respect their peculiar relationship with mother church and not try to cram Catholic dogma down their throats.
Early the next year on a visit to Saltillo, Stephen F. Austin found the perfect pastor for his finicky flock. His excitement leaped off the page as he described his discovery as “a very intelligent and gentlemanly man quite liberal in his ideas.”
Father Michael Muldoon was a middle-aged Irishman, who had been forced by the repressive British occupation of his homeland to go abroad to study for the priesthood. As a member of the Dominican order, he was sent to Mexico on the eve of independence with an ill-fated traveling companion – the last Spanish viceroy.
After ten years in the interior, Muldoon was ready for the change and challenge Texas offered. To Austin’s delight, he eagerly agreed to serve as spiritual shepherd and started making the rounds of the scattered settlements in April 1831.
Before long the good-natured friar learned there was no pleasing his many critics so zealously certain he had been sent by Satan to subvert their souls. They complained he overcharged for his services, while taking little interest in their salvation.
But those that gave Father Muldoon half a chance invariably wound up liking him. And as momentous events soon showed, they never had a better friend.
Gen. Manuel de Mier y Teran, military commander of the northern district of Mexico, came to Texas in November 1831 to check out reports of seditious activity. Muldoon accompanied his old friend on the inspection tour and filled his head with praise for the salt-of-the-earth newcomers. At the same time, the clever priest, who must have been a spy in a previous life, kept Austin posted on the investigation.
If Muldoon had done nothing more than leak vital information to the colonists, he would have been worth his weight in gold. But the fearless father was not content with working quietly behind the scenes and gladly stuck his neck out for his adopted congregation.
When push finally came to shove at Anahuac in June 1832, Muldoon was Johnny on the spot. He volunteered to trade places with the Texans taken prisoner by government troops, but the officer in charge wanted no part of a swap that left him holding a holy man hostage.
Muldoon returned to Mexico two months later and published a spirited defense of the much maligned colonists. Strong suggestions from secular and ecclesiastical sources that he stop dabbling in politics only served to strengthen his resolve to aid the Protestant pioneers.
Muldoon was living in Mexico City in 1834, when Austin was detained in the capital on the vague and unfounded suspicion of plotting rebellion. During the three months the frail empressario was held incommunicado, the courageous clergyman was his sole contact with the outside world. He even persuaded an American businessman to post bond for the prisoner, but Santa Anna insisted on keeping Austin under lock and key.
Muldoon’s most audacious act of Christian charity occurred in Matamoros in the spring of 1837, when the engineered the escape of William H. Wharton. The Republic of Texas diplomat, who had been thrown in jail after a high-seas kidnapping, walked right past the guards disguised as a priest in a robe secretly supplied by the daring Irishman.
Father Muldoon’s last recorded visit to independent Texas took place in 1842. Secretary of state Anson Jones presented him with a testimonial tribute which read in part: “The people of Texas will not cease to have an abiding recollection of the great friendship you evinced and the valuable service you rendered our distinguished Fellow Citizen, Gen. S.F. Austin, while detained a prisoner in Mexico.”
And with that Michael Muldoon vanished leaving no trace of his later adventures or the date and place of his earthly departure.
Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549. And come on by for a visit!
