Wildlife and Challenging Scientific Principles

What a great Memorial Day weekend! Sarah and I hit Kraynaks Garden Center in Sharon for all our plant needs on Saturday. It was the warmest, sunniest day we've had for a while. Sarah was very good- mainly because she knew a new Webkinz was in her future. Anyway, Sarah has just been preoccupied with swamps recently. I'm not sure if it was a book/s she's heard or the Shrek movies, or both. On the way to Sharon she asked if we could stop at a swamp. There are a lot of wetlands on the way to Sharon and we DID find a swamp and it even had a pull-off/parking area. It's a state game land. We really needed boots to make the trip around the swamp. As it were our sandals were no match for what was under our feet- GOOSE POOP EVERYWHERE! Fortunately the flock must've been there awhile ago- it wasn't too squishy. So it was a worthwhile trip for Sarah- a swamp visit, a chihuahua Webkinz, and plants. She really enjoys helping me with gardening.

Today and yesterday we worked to prepare our gardens. Today we found an abundance of wildlife. First, Sarah caught a toad. Then I found a brown salamander. It looked like an earthworm with legs. Then while thinning out some hostas I saw the first garter snake of the season. Now that I write those things together... that snake better not have snacked on the toad! And chipmunks galore. They are so bad around our house. They make huge holes in our gardens and are quite impertinent. They don't even run when we come out anymore! Although, I have to admit, I enjoy watching them chase each other through the dried leaves, Chip and Dale-like.

Now, on to new matters. I just finished an article in the June 2008 issue of Discover. It's called Peter's Principals. And it reminds me of another thing that annoys the heck out of me: close-mindedness It's about a man, Peter Duesburg, who was a pioneer in cancer research in the 60s-70s. In short he was part of the team that first mapped the genetic structure of retroviruses and co discoverer of the first viral cancer gene in 1970. Pretty smart guy. In the 80s he wrote a paper challenging the prevailing theory that HIV was the cause of AIDS. (A side note: I read a book called And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts in the 90s. It's an amazing story about how the disease was ignored, misinterpreted, and used as a tool for furthering careers and fame! So THIS article seems almost anticlimatic, but very interesting! I also recently read a biography of Albert Einstein- Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. I mention this because Einstein, a pretty smart guy, toppled what was believed to be some laws of physics. ) Because of Duesburg's insistence at being the devil's advocate for a different theory of causes of cancer he has lost major support for his work! HERE IS MY POINT: Didn't we learn anything from Albert Einstein that what we THINK is the truth/answer isn't always right. Now, I don't know enough about this gentlemen to know if he merits government support. BUT the fact that his contemporaries have labeled him a charlatan is quite depressing. I would think highly intelligent people would KNOW that a new way of looking at a situation just may be the ticket to solving a long-standing problem. John Kanzius from Erie invented a machine using sound (I think- or it may be radio) waves to dissolve cancerous tumors. And it is currently being tested in clinical trials at a Texas hospital! And he was no medical man. He was the general manager at a TV station in Erie!!! I understand standing up for your own studies, research and theories. But I truly think a little more open-mindedness in ALL aspects of life would do everyone some good. I'll jump off my soap box now.

The End.