Plants in a Bubble

Hydroponics on the Destiny. Image credit.

In Stargate Universe, there is a hydroponics lab (see right). What is hydroponics? you ask.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. Simply put, the necessary nutrients for growth are put in water, and the roots absorbs them without ever touching soil. The Stargate version has the plants growing towards a centralized light source while spinning slowly and watering the roots at the base (which you can see in the image). The water is of course filled with the necessary nutrients. You can find more information on this system here.

The Boston Fern is
named Franklin.
He's cute.

I have more recently been interested in plants, especially the live kind that grow (as opposed to the dead kind that don't). My new(ish) apartment actually gets light during the day, so I have found warm and wonderful spots for my plants. Here they all are in a row, happily out of the snow (left). 

When I no longer have an apartment and am also not living with relatives or in a van (this assumes that I can afford a house at some point in my future), I would like to build a hydroponic garden. I have to get to it before the hipsters, though. My other option (if the whole house thing falls through) is to build an ecosystem in a bottle. I guess I could do that anyway. Look at this guy. He appears incredibly happy. I imagine I would also be happy if I had an entire ecosystem that I could hug.

David Latimer, hugging an entire ecosystem.
Photo credit.

Now, if I were to grow an entire ecosystem in a bottle, I would include fairies. In fact, maybe that's what genies are - fairies trapped in one ecosystem that is somehow contained inside a magic lamp. That is probably why genies are always grumpy - weeds are constantly taking over everything! If you don't believe me that genies are grumpy, read Arabian Nights.

At any rate, until I can afford a house and power tools, I guess I will have to stave off my impatience by growing real plants and doodling pictures of plants. Maybe some plants hanging off of walls, or plants stuck inside bottles (see image to right) or even plants that can fly! Plants that can live in outer space! Plants that are intelligent life forms!

And then, of course, I will share my plant pictures with you. 

Hello From the Hurricane!

31 Days of Planets: Earth

Day 4: Earth

The thing about Earth is that there is SO MUCH to know about it. I mean, the same is true for other planets, but our knowledge of them is limited, while our knowledge of Earth is massive and just keeps growing and growing and growing and our evidence is here and now and right in front of our eyes all the time.

Earth resides as the third planet from the sun and the fifth densest in the solar system. Some might argue the the most special thing about Earth are the people that live on it, but I would argue that the planet itself is far more incredible than we are. Holding its position in perfect balance with the sun so that the life stowed away on ts surface can get just the right amount of light and heat; spinning at just the right speed that we don't fly off or die of spinning to slowly; proving food and water and nutrients and everything we need to live healthy and full lives - without asking anything in return. At least not out loud, with words.

It's the perfect spaceship; the perfect home. The place where we eat and drink and think and build and have our children. We might better start thinking now about our elderly mother, who has taken care of us for so long. Perhaps it is time we took back a bit more of the responsibility and began taking care of her so she doesn't rip our inheritance out from beneath us.

Or else we will be alien life forms floating dead in the vacuum of space. Like dried up worms.

Earth is beautiful.

Pictures from NASA and Wikipedia. 

Forecast calls for Moonquakes and Light Wishful Thinking

The problem with planetary science or astronomy is that the word "recent" doesn't mean anything to the average human being. Here's why.


1. First imagine one egg. (Not the yolkless kind.)


2. Now imagine 12 eggs.


3. Now imagine 12 million eggs.


I got lost imagining at about 12 eggs. The reason is because we group things. I substituted 12 eggs for a dozen. If you said to me, "Guess what! I have 50 trillion cells in my body!" I wouldn't imagine 50 trillion cells, I would imagine one body. So when I see an article titled "Moon's Scarred Crust Hints at Recent Activity", I get excited and then I get disappointed. Because the "recent" earthquake was 50 million years ago.


I thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, the Moon was still barely warm enough to have tectonic activity. It's not. It's dead. But it did have earthquakes! 50 million years ago, that is.


The thing is, I want them to say "The moon had an Earthquake YESTERDAY!" Now that would be news. Not 27 pound lobster news. Not $4/gallon for gas  news or $5000 and a trip to Hawaii if you eat astronaut food for 4 months news or Google making Smartphone glasses news. But it would definitely EPIC SPACE NEWS.


Soon, I hope, there will be less of "we found a planet 100 million light years away! With water!" and more of "OMG Dinosaurs on Titan!"


For now, however, I guess I will just have to be satisfied with 50 million year old moon quakes.

Call Me When I Can Hang My Laundry By The Giant Space Ocean

I love New England. These are my reasons:

Reason #1: There is always weather. Always. Rain, fog, sleet, snow, hail, sunshine, wind, weird cloud formations, hurricanes--everything. And I love weather. In fact, this morning I walked out the door at 4:36am, and got slammed in the face by a sheet of water--wind and water at the same time! Fantastic.

Reason #2: The ocean. The ocean is everywhere. It doesn't just stay in the giant crater where it lives. It sneaks up through cracks in the sidewalk to tickle your bellybutton, it leaps over the pier and sneaks into your socks, and it has this way of latching on to the air and grabbing you from behind in a damp, salty hug. You can taste it in the fog, you can smell it in the air, and if you're feeling ambitious, you can stick your feet in it.

Reason #3: It's gorgeous. The sky is gorgeous. The ocean is gorgeous. The mountains are gorgeous. The snow is gorgeous. The hills are gorgeous. The countryside is gorgeous. Magnificent, wonderful, glorious, majestic, resplendent, astonishing, splendid, formidable, awesome, breathtaking, transcendent, pulchritudinous, imposing, etc. And you can drive over the ocean!

Reason #4: Pictures like these.

You may have noticed that all of my reasons have to do with water. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a fish. I am, however, made up of 70% water. It's likely that you are too.

The coolest thing about water is probably the giant space ocean. If I were a few million times larger than I am and could live on the edge of that space ocean, watching a billion stars set over a glittering cloud of water vapor so big it could supply 140 trillion Earth-sized planets with oceans and oceans of water, my life would probably be perfect. I might even sell everything I own and buy a space ocean houseboat so I can hang my laundry out to dry by the light of a few galaxies.

That said, if you happen to invent a "make something a million times larger" machine that is shaped like a houseboat, with an "anti-asphyxiation" button and a stick shift that goes 1-2-3-4-speed of light, call me first.

Levi the Cactus Can't Eat Bagels

There is a cactus, who I have good reason to believe has named himself Levi, that has been staring at me for four days. His pot has swirls of blue and orange and white and brown which remind me of a planet that has a lot of iron floating through the sky. Now, I don't understand anything about planetary physics, but I imagine that a planet with a skyfull of iron would probably be quite hot and dry--and Levi would probably like to live there.

Here on Earth we have a skyfull of water, with clouds always moving around and picking up more water and then dumping it on the ground, and we keep loads of it in giant buckets named Atlantic and Pacific, and smaller buckets like Huron and Baikal. I like water because it's romantic to look at street lights in the rain, and because puddle jumping is a delightfully endorphin-releasing activity.

Sometimes I dance in the rain, too. I like to swirl around and pretend I'm flying, as if the floor melts away from under my feet, and all I have left is the strength of my arms and the spinning of the universe to keep me from falling. My hair flies out around my face, and my skirt sparkles in the dim light of the stars, and I dip my fingers briefly into the pansophy of movement, the pansophy of time; I come to a halt and watch the atoms and the galaxies whirl past, but only for a moment because I can't stand to not join in.

Then I hand Levi an umbrella because he drowns easily, and we dance together down the street of Universe City... and then I'm ejected from my daydream because Dave shows up with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Yum. It's too bad Levi can't have some too.