Kate Rauner's Blog, page 33

Cosmology #sciku #poem # poetry #cosmology #haiku

Milky Way spiral

A Local Group galaxy

Such a tiny place

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Or, in longer form:

Once we thought the skies

Were calm and smooth above,

But that’s not true close to home,

So maybe uniform,

Sort of,

If extremely far

We roam?

Data now accumulates

Along an odd anomaly.

Something’s wrong,

We do not grasp

This provocative

Synchronicity.

With human eyes,

It’s hard to see

On a megaparsec scale.

With human minds,

It’s hard to know

The universal tale.

Expand our search,

Look farther still,

That’s the essential key,

Till finally we move in step

With dancing galaxies.

Kate Rauner

Thanks to astronomers led by Oliver Müller at the University of Strasbourg in France. “What I really like about this stuff is just that we are still at the pioneering phase,” said Müller. “That’s super exciting.” vice.com

Good Fences Do Make Good Neighbors #poem #poetry

Today’s poem hit me all at once, demanding to be posted. So, even though it’s not sciency, here it is:

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In my garden, his cat

Would make deposits

That I’d rather not discover.

Chasing mice, my dog

Would destroy

His firewood pile’s cover.

Instead we wave and smile

And do each other favors,

Because it’s true, that saying old,

Good fences make good neighbors.

Inspired by Robert Frost’s poem, which is about walls, even though his neighbor gives me the quote, “good fences make good neighbors.” Maybe Frost didn’t know what his neighbor was thinking after all.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
poetryfoundation.org

Cult Doing Any Better on Saturn’s Moon Titan? #scifi #sciencefiction #Saturn #NewRelease

This December, return with me to Titan. Subscribe now and I’ll let you know when the book is released.

[image error]On Saturn’s deadly moon, kin should be your greatest ally, not your greatest threat .

The only colony on Titan shatters into factions, and Fynn becomes a reluctant rebel leader. His sister seized control of the cult that brought them to the frozen moon, but her tyrannical rule drives them farther apart.

Only Fynn and his friends see the frozen moon’s dangers and wonders. Only they can keep the dome’s erratic life support running. Enduring the cult’s oppression may be the only way to survive. Can Fynn save them when they’re pushed too far?

I’m scrubbing out the last typos and grammos. At least, I hope they’re the last. A few always sneak in from an alternate reality. But I plan to release the new story the first weekend of December 2019, so subscribe to receive an email alert or watch this blog.

How did Fynn get into this mess? Catch up now. Titan Book 1 is, of course, available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. If you have KU, you already paid for this story, so why not read it now?

Your Next Favorite Author May Live Next Door #amreading #localguides #authors

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Join now to find your local authors

Here’s a fun site. Find books by authors near you. Dozens of large and mid-sized cities (which cover surrounding small towns) to choose from. If you eat local or shop local, you should read local.

Maybe you’ll get to meet your favorite authors. Or bump into them at the grocery store or coffee shop.

My closest city is Albuquerque. What’s yours?

Click now on http://hometownreads.com/join/reader

The Industrial Age Ended Between 1970 and 2000 #economy #economics #environment

[image error] Read the whole article. It’s worth your time.

 

Protected: Titan Insurgents, Chapter 1

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Walk an Autumn Trail #haiku #poem #poetry #nature #autumn

Nose runs, ears are numb,

Fingers curl to hide in sleeves

As mist claims the trees

[image error]I’m visiting my brother in southern New York. Autumn is a wonderful season and there are many trails over State land in the area. My poetry shifts to nature.

Australian Competition for the Whole World – Year of the Periodic Table – Vote for Your Favorite Science-Poem #poetrycommunity #chemistry #poem #poetry

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Poet of a classical Japanese style

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night and feel them. Why do poets not speak of science? paraphrased from Richard Feynman

These poets do! Science isn’t the realm of robots, but of vibrant human beings, and therefore, of poets.

Celebrate The International Year of the Periodic Table with a poem about all 118 chemical elements (entitled ‘The Chemist’s Couplets’). It got an honorable mention from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s (RACI’s) Stories from the Periodic Table Competition. Today it’s part of an audience poll to determine the people’s favorite elemental story.

Read ‘The Chemist’s Couplets’ by my friend-in-poetry, Michael Leach, and find more science poetry at https://surveymonkey.com/r/stories3 (The links are in the survey.)

Be sure to vote for your favorite.

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Shape of electron shells as designated on the Periodic Table

Why is the periodic table worth a celebration? Because it’s laid out to show you how atoms are structured, how the shape of electrons’ probabilities lets you predict how chemistry will happen! When I realized this chemistry-stuff wasn’t just rules some grumpy, old teacher insisted I memorize – it was the shape and structure of reality – that’s the moment I groked chemistry. I hope you do, too.

Titan Book 1 Finalist in Regional Book Contest – Read It Now and be Ready for Book 2 #scifi #sciencefiction #readinglist #award

[image error]Yee ha! It’s a thrill for Titan, Book 1, to be a contest finalist.

Fynn is shanghaied to  Titan to join his father’s cult in colonizing Saturn’s moon. Can they create a paradise? Not likely!

New Mexico Book Co-op promotes the literary diversity of New Mexico Book Publishers & Authors. It is New Mexico’s largest cooperative organization, a partnership of over 950 publishers and authors interested in showcasing and selling books by authors in New Mexico and the American Southwest.

It’s hard to wait for the winners to be announced, but I’m happy to be a finalist. Read Book 1 today and be ready for Book 2, coming soon.

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Available from Amazon. Read it today! On Kindle Unlimited too

Don’t miss Book 2! Insurgents! Coming soon. Subscribe to Kate’s Readers’ Club and you won’t miss the release date.

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Subscribe today and don’t miss the release date! Free short stories and book offers too! Click Now

If Your Teeth Need Braces, It’s Worse Than You Know! #evolution #humans #skulls

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The iconic “March of Progress” from Time-Life’s 1965 book Early Man by Rudolph Zallinger. What are we about to step in?

Your skull is shrinking! Okay, not the particular skull you keep your own, personal brain in, but human skulls. This is happening over a remarkably short period of time – only 300 years – and your children are suffering.

Your brain has been shrinking for a longer period, maybe 10,000 to 20,000 years. Partly, this is because our modern body size is less than our ancestors during the last Ice Age. It seems funny, because we Americans are used to thinking of ourselves as taller (and fatter! despite the comment below about body weight) than our ancestors thanks to better public health and food availability. But we’re less robust than Cro-Magnons.

The way we live has generally become less physically demanding, which overall serves to drive down body weights… The fact that we increasingly store and process information externally—in books, computers and online—means that many of us can probably get by with smaller brains. scientificamerican.com

Generally, domestic animals tend to have weaker muscles and smaller brains than their wild relatives. Maybe they don’t require extra brainpower to evade predators or hunt for food. And humans are the most domesticated animal around.

So smaller brains must mean smaller skulls… but it’s much worse than that!

Science suggests that crooked teeth, overbites, narrow jaws, and crimped nasal airways are a modern phenomenon. Skeletal remains show that just 300 years ago, humans commonly displayed straight, perfectly aligned teeth, wide jaws, flat palates and the large nasal passages that signal habitual, healthy breathing. onezero.medium.com

Do you think orthodontists are a small price to pay for modern conveniences?

Our faces have begun to deform. Today, our skulls are marked by high, narrow palates, and short lower jaws.. When children drop their baby teeth, there’s typically inadequate room for the adult teeth, which leads to crowding and misaligned teeth.

Worst of all, this anatomy encourages mouth-breathing, which can, in turn, lead to under-the-radar sleep difficulties and a whole array of problems ranging from behavioral challenges, anxiety, and depression to cognitive issues. onezero.medium.com

If your baby or child snores, it could be a sign of troubles to come.

Jaw pain, headaches, asthma, chronic sleep deprivation, cranky children, wild behavior, failure in school! Gack!! Add all those problems to diabetes and heart disease as the price of modern living.

Why did the shrinking skull start 300 years ago? Here’s what ties it to our modern lifestyle.

Industrialization interrupted the ancestral patterns of weaning and feeding, with babies nursing on demand for years while also trying solid foods under adults’ watchful eyes… The widespread adoption of bottle feeding, pacifiers and soft processed food deprived toddlers of practice chewing and distorted the shapes of their mouths. onezero.medium.com

There are procedures to correct teeth and jaws, and ultimately breathing, and the earlier you start the better the results. “Nose-breathers are always healthier than mouth-breathers.”

Nature and nurture are conspiring against us. To paraphrase an excellent quote, genes are the piano keys and the environment plays the tune. What have we done?