Category: current events

We Are Going to Be Like the Jetsons!

Sena has been telling me for years that someday soon we’re all going to be like the Jetsons, flying around in bubble-top saucers.

It turns out she may be right.

There’s a news story out about the Jetson Flying Car, which I saw on the Good News Network.  It’s a compact flying car that runs on batteries that are good for about a 20-minute commute. Reports about the altitude the Jetson car can achieve vary, but some say you can get up to about 1500 feet and tour along at a little over 60 miles per hour.

And the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says you don’t need a pilot’s license.

Can you say “mass mid-air collisions?”

I doubt there’ll be a lot of buyers because the sticker price is close to $100,000, not counting insurance, extra batteries (you’ll need 8 if you want to swap out to recharge), and attorney fees.

The CEO of the company that makes the Jetson car says you can be a pilot in about 5 minutes.

Funny, that’s about the same time it seems to take the typical semi-truck driver in Canada to get a commercial driver’s license, judging from how busy the tow truck operators are up there.

What if the heavy rescue operators in British Columbia and Toronto had to do recovery work on the Jetson cars? True, the cars aren’t that heavy (about 250 pounds), but what if the number of crashes overwhelms Jamie Davis (think Highway Thru Hell on the Weather Channel)? There wouldn’t be enough tow truck guys to drag all the cars out of the ditches.

Did you know the Jetson Cars come as a DIY kit? That’s right, you have to finish assembly of that expensive toy yourself. You better make sure the batteries are hooked up right since you get just 20 minutes of running time before you need to recharge. Average commutes are longer than 20 minutes.

The Jetson car comes equipped with something called a ballistic parachute, which should be enough to send most potential buyers running out of the showroom. Hey, why would I need a parachute?

No worries, you’re unlikely to be flying much higher than 16 feet anyway, according to the co-founder of the company, eVTOL (electrical vertical take-off and landing).

Let’s see how many traffic signs and trees we can take out on the way to the drug store to pick up some Dramamine.

Only one person (the pilot) can fit in the Jetson Flying Car. And of course, there’s a weight limit; it’s 210 pounds, which is going to raise a hue and cry from the equity, diversity, and inclusion police. There’s no flying family eVTOL—yet. That’s a good thing because there will have be some survivors left to collect on the insurance.

On the bright side, there are no ashtrays to empty, no flat tires to change (nobody remembers how to do that anyway these days), and no radio stations to cycle through. You’re going to be paying too much attention to the birds getting caught in the rotor blades and the bugs splatting on your visor.

That’s assuming you’re a multimillionaire and can afford to fly like the Jetsons. Don’t buzz the pedestrians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6g0b_FSlA4

Hammerhead Worm Invasion!

The other day Sena and I were talking with a landscaping consultant about a job we’d like done on our backyard patio. He uncovered a worm in the dirt, and it seemed to wriggle energetically. Jumping worms had been in the news a lot last month. The consultant picked it up and the worm seemed to jump out of his hand.

Sena exclaimed, “It’s a jumping worm; kill it!” The consultant picked it up again and, much to our surprise, simply crushed it in his hand. However, he doubted that it was a jumping worm and hinted that much of the news lately about jumping worms (an invasive species from Asia) was overdone.

I don’t know how he got rid of the crushed worm in his fist.

But I suspect he wouldn’t crush a hammerhead worm in his hand (although I wouldn’t bet on it).

They are also being reported in the news recently, although they’ve been in the country for decades and probably longer. They’ve possibly been sighted in Iowa. The hammerhead worm is another invasive species from Southeast Asia. If you cut them up, the pieces will grow into new worms.

They also carry a toxin on their bodies. It won’t kill you or even harm you that much if you get it on your hands, but you should wash up thoroughly if you nonchalantly crush them in your fist.

The hammerhead worms eat earthworms, which could make things even harder for them because jumping worms displace common earthworms by outcompeting them for territory.

Right now, the best way to rid your garden of hammerhead worms is to kill them by sprinkling salt or spraying vinegar on them.

I can’t help wondering if there might be a way to teach hammerhead worms to eat jumping worms.

But then, how would you get rid of the hammerhead worms? They don’t have any natural predators. There are a number of ways humans can control the population in their immediate vicinity.

Just don’t crush them in your fist.

The Kids to Decide on the Next Hawkeye Wave Song!

The new Hawkeye Wave song will be decided by the kids, and it won’t be just a single song. According to a story in Iowa Now:

For every home game the Iowa football team plays inside Kinnick Stadium, the UI Department of Athletics, in coordination with the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital Kid Captain program, will ask that week’s Kid Captain to help select a new song to accompany the Hawkeye Wave.

It’s a great idea! Back in April, fans were asked to nominate a song to be played between the first and second quarters of the Iowa Hawkeye football games while the team members and fans wave to the kids watching from UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

It’s up to the Kid Captains!

Learning About Monkeypox

The University of Iowa podcast Rounding@Iowa, hosted by Dr. Gerard Clancy, MD talked with Infectious Diseases specialist Dr. Jeffery Meier, MD about the essential facts about Monkeypox for health care professionals, recorded on June 2, 2022.

This podcast would also be interesting to anyone interested in learning more about Monkeypox.

Thoughts on the National Spelling Bee

We watched the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night. Sena watched it the night before and we both watched the final for the first time ever. There’s something about watching kids under pressure to spell words that I’ve never even heard of that made it painful for me to watch at times. I think I recognized only a couple of the words.

For the first time in 94 years of the spelling bee, there was a spelling runoff to determine the winner. Harini Logan won and was apparently calm and poised as she rattled off 21 of 26 words correctly. The second-place winter was Akram Vikru, an extremely strong performer.

Nobody fainted. The reason I mention that is that one guy named Akshay Buttiga did faint on stage in the 2004 contest and there’s a YouTube video of it that went viral. He was down but not for the count. In seconds he bounced back up, spelled his word correctly and went on to finish the competition, getting runner-up honors.

Last year’s winner was Zaila Avant-garde (how’s that for a great last name?). She’s the first African American to win the spelling bee. She was on hand last night to make comments on the current competition. She has spectacular goals, among them working for NASA to find another planet for us to live on sometime—which we’ll likely need. Go Zaila!

One thing I saw a lot of spellers do was write in their palms while they were up to the microphone getting ready to spell their words. I guess it helps them visualize the word, or maybe it’s a tactile thing.

Another interesting feature was the bell lady, who never gets mentioned. This was the woman who had the terrible job of ringing the bell when the contestants misspelled their words. Interviews with the kids revealed that the bell was what they dreaded the most. On the other hand, what I noticed about the bell lady were her words of encouragement after she rang the bell. She wasn’t an executioner. She said something different to each kid that basically expressed that he or she was still loved, admired, and sure to be a success in life.

They were under tremendous pressure. How did they do it? Part of their preparation were spelling coaches and something called SpellPundit, a $600 subscription resource that can give those who can afford it a big advantage in competition.

Maybe some of them have prodigious memories and memorize the dictionary, as Nigel Richards did when he won the French-language Scrabble World Championships in 2015. He didn’t speak a word of French. Somehow, I doubt that’s the main strategy.

But the contestants themselves have a lot of drive, enthusiasm, and a superhuman work ethic that often amounted to working on spelling for several hours a day. Grit is a huge trait, as Buttiga demonstrated.

Where are past winners now? It turns out they’re all in jail or on skid row. Just kidding. They are leaders across many professions and society is lucky to have them.

Congratulations to the winners!

Thoughts About Guns

I think there a lot better places to read about viewpoints on mass shootings than my blog. I recommend you check out Dr. George Dawson’s post “Gun Extremism Not Mental Illness,” posted on May 31, 2022, then read the editorial in Scientific American, “The Science is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives,” posted on May 26, 2022.

I’m going to chime in mainly to show a few graphics I found which I think send a clear and simple message. Before I get to that, I just want to mention a few anecdotes to show how little hands-on experience I have with guns.

My earliest memory of any contact with firearms is in early childhood. My dad and a friend came home from a hunting trip with some rabbits for dinner for the family, which included my younger brother and my mother. I don’t know who cleaned or cooked them. I’m pretty sure my mom would not have had anything to do with them. I got my first taste and didn’t like it and said so to my dad. He introduced me to the word “gamey.” I didn’t know meat could taste gamey. The other thing I got from that meal was a mouthful of buckshot. I silently vowed I would never eat anything like it again while I lived.

My next encounter with guns was a YMCA program for kids to learn how to shoot. I might have been in my early teens, maybe even younger. We were given BB guns and instructed to do some target shooting. The paper bullseye targets were set up several yards away. I took many shots and collected my target to show the instructor.

I thought I hit it once and pointed to the hole. The instructor looked at it critically for a few seconds and then told me kindly that the hole was where the pin was stuck to fix the target to the wall. I never touched another gun.

Fast forward to when I was a third-year medical student getting through my clinical rotations at the University of Iowa. In 1991, a physics graduate student named Gang Lu shot and killed 6 people on campus including himself, wounded another rendering her paralyzed from the neck down, all apparently because he was not chosen to get an award for his dissertation. I remember feeling shocked when I read about it in the newspaper.

Now let’s move to some graphics I found at a website maintained by The University of Sydney, GunPolicydotorg, International firearm injury prevention and policy https://www.gunpolicy.org/. It makes it easy to put together comparison statistical graphics on things like gun violence. I compared the United States to New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Click the next few links in order to get the message. In my opinion, I think the last one is a consequence of the first few.

First

Second

Third

Last

I guess now it’s up to Congress. God help us all.

The Waving Man

There’s this guy who waves at every passing motorist as he walks to and from his job moving boxes around at the Coralville Hy-Vee. He’s been doing it for years and age is beginning to take over the deepening creases in his face. But it doesn’t dim his smile as he waves at every car he can.

He has to cross the street to and from the store parking lot. When the light changes to green he hustles across. His work apron flaps a little. That’s the only time he doesn’t wave. After he’s safely on the other side of the street, he starts waving and smiling.

We figure he walks to and from wherever he lives. We never could figure out where home is for him. It’s hard to see how he ever makes his destination as often as he stops to wave at all of us driving by.

When we lived in the neighborhood and as I was driving to work and driving home, I would wave back—as I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead of me.

Every once in a while, I’ll google various questions framed around the term “waving man.” I’ll find occasional news items about a waving man in some city. Nobody ever complains about the waving man and most find him to be the bright spot in the day. There’s never an explanation for this behavior, scientific or otherwise. It’s just accepted for what it is—a generous greeting, wishing you well.

When times are good, the waving man is out there. And when times are bad; when the pain and sorrow and loss are overwhelming—the waving man is there.

Jumping Worms are Making Iowans Jumpy

Well, the jumping worms are making Iowans jumpy lately, even though the critters have been reported around here since at least 2018 by the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship. All of a sudden, they’re alien invaders, slithering like snakes and jumping into your gardens.

Iowa State University wants us to take pictures of every jumping worm we see, so you have your cameras ready. They’re as popular as aliens from distant galaxies, but said to be far more destructive of the land, gorging themselves on leaf litter, and according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture,“…exposing the land to compaction, increased water runoff, erosion, and clears the way for invasive plants to take root on the newly cleared soil. This results in less diversity of native plants, and thus less diversity of animals.”

They thrash around and look pretty mad. There’s even a YouTube video of them whipping around in a frenzy.

I wonder if we could control them with Canadian Geese. They eat earthworms. I don’t know for sure if they eat jumping worms, but I don’t see why not.

There are a couple of problems with using geese, though. They hiss like snakes when you get too close to their young. Their long necks even remind me of snakes. And they like to spread their poop all over sidewalks and driveways.  

Maybe the jumping worms would be great for fishing. They’d whip around in the water so wildly they’d be sure to attract any hungry fish.

Here’s something ironic. Maybe we could use the jumping worms to catch snakehead fish, which is another invasive species. Catch the snakehead with snake worms and serve the snakeheads for dinner. Yum. I’ll have an egg salad sandwich, please.

Bigfoot on Blood Moon May 2022!

For the first time we watched a total lunar eclipse on the night of May 15, 2022. It was a cool night. I used two cameras in an effort to make the most of my first effort in getting pictures of the event. I’m a novice and I’m sure it shows, of course. We had a lot of fun.

I used a point and shoot Canon Powershot SX610 HS, a small camera we’ve had for years. And I used a Nikon D3400 on a tripod. I started taking pictures shortly after 8:30 PM.

I’m not used to the night noises outside and could not make out what sounded likely raspy growling. At first, I thought it was Bigfoot and actually thought I got a shot of it stalking across the moon where it teleported along with its luggage. Bigfoot is actually an interdimensional critter. And they don’t travel light.

Bigfoot on the moon before the eclipse

On the other hand, Sena thought the noises were made by White Tail deer and she was right. I found a YouTube that showed them making exactly the same noises we heard. Later I heard a Barred Owl hooting.

Blood Moon shot with a Nikon D3400 on a tripod
Blood Moon shot with a Canon PowerShot