Wondering Aloud.

It's 1982 and Ellen Goodman from the Washington Post Writers Group was tasked with writing a review to put on the back of my book Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel. She wrote, "In this new season of migration, when the economy acts like a centrifuge, it is equally challenging to keep a family together..."

As I wasn't alive in 1982, I can't really say what the economy was like. Nor can I say much about the "new season of migration". But I can say something about a centrifuge. I've used one probably 2 dozen times during the 7 weeks of bio-lab I've had so far and will probably use it more in the coming weeks. A centrifuge literally spins around in circles causing everything inside your tube to get squished into the tip, creating a little pellet. I'm not sure how this can describe an economy. Unless, of course, she means that all the wealth got spun around in circles until it all ended up in the hands of a very few people (making up that pellet). Ah well. If you could provide some insight, that would be much appreciated.

On a similar, but probably not related note, there was a funny moment in my lecture course today. The professor that was speaking had a total brain fart when describing initial thoughts about coral reefs. Apparently early scientists of the species thought that the corals were..."umm....what's the name for, uhh, vegetarians?" "Herbivores" (said someone from the audience).  "Thank-you" (from the professor). It was a great lecture. He told us about 2 research projects he worked on measuring the affects of stresses on coral reefs (increased amount of nutrients, increased water temperatures, increased sediment runoff, etc). One was in Israel where they worked out of a military tent while the military vessels sailed past checking on their work. The other was off the coast of Key Largo, FL where they lived 80m under the ocean surface for 10 days with a broken toilet where they had to venture out of the habitat to a separate bubble and "release more nutrients into the ocean column" and then told us of the certain fish that liked to hang around and bit the legs of those using the bathroom. Good times. Oh, and they couldn't have an open flame because they were under pressure, so they had to eat freeze dried astronaut meals for those 10 days.