The Gurly Life

Visiting Griffith Observatory

On Saturday I got up to Griffith Observatory again, this time with an Italian friend, Federica. It was daytime, the air was not clear and I had my point and shoot so the photos aren't great. But it's still fun no matter what. To begin with, some scenic shots.
 

The Observatory has several really interesting displays. On one side of the atrium (kinda below the right cupola that you see above) is a very interesting display about the sun and the elements and the stars. You get to see this a live image of the sun if it is out while you're there, which is awesome because really, when do you ever get to stare at the sun and get anything but burned out retinas?

They also have this terrific display that shows the relative sizes and types of stars. If you look towards the bottom of this photo, right near the Q, is a representation of stars the size of our sun. The sun on the model is about an inch across.

Here's a close-up of the supergiant.

Note that it says that the model's diameter should be 1.5x the size of the room. The room was about 30 feet (10m) across, so you can now go back up to the other picture and compare it to the sun, which as I've mentioned is about an inch in diameter in the model. That is just mind-boggling - a supergiant would be almost the size of our solar system. Science is sooo cool!

Then we climbed up to the telescope. Even though it's in the middle of Los Angeles with all that light and smog and mist, it gets some pretty decent images of the planets, which you can watch on a video loop when you get near the telescope.

We also got to stare at the Foucault Pendulum for a bit, but this time I did not need to argue with a guide trying to convince me that the sun rises in the West in the southern hemisphere. Does anyone else think the telescope looks like it's a miniature? Weird.

Anywho, the Observatory is really amazing, each time I go I find something else interesting to check out. You can also take a look at this debunking of the 2012 end of the world theory on their website. I can imagine a bunch of scientists getting incresingly frustrated by the nonsense and someone finally saying, oh enough of this bullshit, let's put some facts out there for people to read. Of course, the superstitious have never been persuaded by facts, but the intellectually curious might.

I recommend a visit, and if you're so inclined, you can also support the Observatory by becoming a member of the Friends of the Observatory.

Another videoblog

Oooh - you can see my bra strap in this one. [Snicker!] The science tag on this post should really be "science."

The sand, the surf, and the physics of poop

At last, the weather has warmed up enough to go to the beach. I know for many people it's been warm enough for a while, but as far as I'm concerned, if it's less than 80F, it's not warm enough. This morning I took off around 8:30 and made my way to Point Dume -- by the way, I will probably not be returning there, I left at 1pm and it took me 2 hours to get home. At 4 or 5 in the afternoon, it would not surprise me, but at 1? No, thanks, I think I'll just have to be one of the people crowding the Santa Monica beaches.

Anyway, it was a gorgeous day, and the waves were pretty impressive. As the morning wore on, it got choppier, too.

Needless to say, I got nowhere near those waves. Eeek!

I sunned myself for a few hours, and just as it began to get crazy busy, I left. Here are some photos from the morning:

I also learned something, which brings me around to the title of this post. I learned that when a flying seagull poops, the poop doesn't just drop straight down but follows the seagull in a downward arc until it finally lands. Here is a drawing to illustrate [click on the picture to enlarge]:

Here, the seagull poops at position A and continues to fly. The poop hits the beach at about the same time as the seagull arrives at position B, having travelled part of the way along the same path as the seagull, except of course gravity pulls the poop down to earth. And the poop misses me by inches. Phew. The lesson here, of course, is that a flying bird projectile poops, and that's why you should always have a hat on at the beach and not fall asleep with your mouth open. Ah, science...

Some thoughts on the modern family

[Note that the names have been changed to protect privacy. While I may have no sense of my own privacy, I try to respect yours.]

The other day I was talking to my friend Jon, the father of Annie, a beautiful little girl who was born in vitro, about her "brother," who Jon and his family had just met. He emailed me a recent photo of Annie, who is about 10 years old, as well as the photo of a little boy about 4. The little boy is Jon's biological son, in part, but he is also the adopted son of another couple in another state. The woman in that couple was the one who carried the baby to term.

I'll explain a little further. Jon and his wife Louise, who is much older than he is, decided to get pregnant in vitro. It was his sperm and a donor egg from a healthy 20 year old woman. A number of embryos were created. Jon and Louise used some, and Annie was born. The remaining embroys were cryogenically frozen ("cryopreserved") until a few years ago, when the remaining embryos were adopted. Yup. Adopted. They decided on an open embryo adoption, giving the adopting couple the opportunity to meet them.

This idea of adopting embryos opens up a Pandora's box about whether or not embryos are human beings (they would seem to be so if they are 'adopted') or property (they would seem to be so if they can be destroyed for stem cell research). Even more interesting: their designation as property or human beings can shift. An embryo can be property but if it carries to viability it is a human being. Blows the top of my head clean off just to think about. Messy. Like I said, a Pandora's box, but since this is not what this post is about, I'll just leave this rather provocative statement floating out there, in the ether. Who knows, I might get an interesting comment in response.

The boy resembles Annie, only a few years younger. Jon, Annie and Louise had lunch with the couple and the little boy. There they sat, strangers, linked by some strands of DNA. There Jon sat, across the table from his "son," Annie's "brother." At this point, my head implodes, which is not as difficult as it normally would be since the top of my skull is already missing.

Three embryos are left. The couple could try to have another child, or put them up for readoption by another couple, or Jon and Louise could adopt them back themselves. And now my arms fall off (cos remember, I got no head anymore). This is wild!

Are they family? That is the question that has been bouncing around in my mind, but I can't say that I have an answer. I keep thinking yes if they decide to be and no if they decide not to be. Like whether or not the embryos are human beings or not, I can't find an absolute answer: it's all in our interpretation. Or more accurately, the answer is what we decide.

Which then leads to several other queries: if family is what we decide it is, and ultimately it's all about who are you going to love no matter what, then why are people against gay marriage or gay couple having babies? (And the religious answer simply won't cut it, sorry.) Why are people so nutty about having their own biological children, and they will spend tens of thousands of dollars to have said children, when there are easier alternatives, such as adopting or surrogacy? What does it matter where a person comes from, if you love them no matter what?