Karl’s magazines

One of the biggest grudges I have held is for salons and their choice of magazines. Why is it that considering the average length of time that is required to be serviced in a salon, they only give you magazines that mostly only feature faces and garments and their accompanying accoutrement? I tried to see if any of the salons I have been to carry any sign that says that it is strictly prohibited to have materials that could make you think beyond designer clothes, hair potions and foot spas. I also seriously doubt it that the salons are doing anything to our hair, face or feet that seems to make our brain cells capable only of being interested in reading about fashion and the latest cosmetic breakthrough. If you think they do, you better check the chemicals they use on you.

"Salons" in history were places where people would come and exchange views over a few drinks much like English pubs (short for "public") where food and drinks were cheap but conversations, even with strangers, were rich. I guess the coffee shops now have replaced these pubs and salons. In the coffee shop I go to, they do have interesting magazines such as National Geographic and Discover and other magazines that feature things that appeal to a universe of other tastes beyond clothes and make-up. But there is a catch, the magazines are about five years old and quite tattered. I spend a few minutes lamenting their raggedy state before I focus on the content they offer. I should tell the owners that if they keep this up, they could set up an archive. This is where I imagined meeting a scientist, Karl, from a hundred years ago with his own set of magazines from his time. He is disheveled and oblivious that half his shirt is untucked and a button is missing from his shirt, but his face is incandescent with curiosity and eagerness to share what he just read on the questions that the greatest scientific minds had hoped to unravel back then.

"One hundred years ago, we wanted to find out if there is anything even smaller residing inside the atom. We thought that light was just a wave and we thought the universe has always been this size and will remain that size! " Karl said, rolling his magazine and tapping it on his left palm.

"Now, we know not only what is inside the atom but also what is inside the inside of the atom. We now know that light is a very strange thing in that it is also a particle so that we can do all sorts of things with it. We also now know that the universe is not just increasing its size but even accelerating on the job. We women sort of like that. It is like the universe is sympathizing with our own tendencies – we do not only expand when we grow older, we also seem to do so, faster," I told Karl.

"But isn’t that tendency in your chromosomes? One hundred years ago, we really thought what made us human was in our chromosomes," Karl retorted, trying to find that article from his century-old magazines.

"Like in the atom, now we know that there is more inside our chromosomes – genes made up of a molecule called DNA. So yes, you are right that now we know that some predispositions to diseases and physical tendencies have their genetic links, but the pathways are not as clear-cut and direct. The environment still plays a role. We should now be careful, though, about latching on to our genes to define your humanness. First of all, we have just discovered that humans have 25,000 genes, just a tiny bit over a worm’s or the pufferfish. Also, in your time, Darwin hesitated a lot before putting out a theory that all living creatures had a common ancestry. Now, we have confirmed that genetically. We are 98.8 percent genetically similar to chimps. We know this because we have also mapped the Human Genome – the biochemical blueprint of humans as we have that of chimps, dogs, cats, horses, fruitflies, mice, chickens... The list goes on as I speak. In fact, we now have clones of some of those animals," I told Karl.

Karl’s incandescent face even intensified. "You can now do that? But we were the only ones who knew how to make tools and use them. We liked tools. Is that still true?" Karl asked.

"We still like tools, but apparently, we were not the only ones. Many scientists who devoted their lives studying animal behavior shattered that myth for us. Look at this article on Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist who observed chimps in Gombe in Tanzania for 25 years. She recounted the telegram she received from Louis Leakey, arguably the most famous anthropologist and her mentor, when Jane sent word to him that she observed that chimps shove a blade of grass then stuck them into the holes in the ground where ants lived and after retrieving the blade, would eat the ants that clung to the blade. In sum, Leakey said: ‘Now, we must redefine ‘tools,’ or call chimps ‘human.’"

I showed Karl a copy of a magazine (Science Magazine, July 1, 2005) that has kept me glued to it for a couple of days now because it had a list of questions I have been trying to understand myself. "Science Magazine has identified the top 25 science questions that faces the next 25 years of science. Some of them include: What is the universe made of? What is in our biology that accounts for consciousness? Can the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong) of Nature be unified under one theory? How does Earth’s interior work? What will replace fossil fuels? Are we alone in the universe?"

Karl read the list intently and asked me, "Do you really think we are alone in the universe? For ages, humans have been talking to the stars. It would be so sad to find out that we were reaching for no one. "

"Like anyone who is keenly interested and reads stuff on it, I think the same way in that we probably are not alone. Philosophically, it is a good check on our smugness to think we are the only ones in this vastness. It is especially depressing knowing that we humans are all heroes and villains inside ourselves. But considering the distances required to reach those galactic neighbors, wherever they may be, in person or even through radio broadcast, it is useful to be realistic to know that practically, we are alone."

Karl sipped his coffee and asked: "But one hundred years later, you still don’t know what the universe is mostly made of and you still wonder what it is in your biological make-up that can’t get over the fact that you are here and alive, skipping all over the place. I think science trying to explain consciousness is like a hand trying to hold itself. I am strangely comforted in the sense that the science still finds it of utmost worth to pursue these questions."

"All they know about the universe is that aside from about six percent which accounts for the structures we see and can detect in the universe and about 20 percent of what they call "dark matter," the universe is still about 74 percent ‘dark energy.’ We do not know what it is or what it looks like, but it has to be there or we would not be able to explain the observed expansion of the universe."

Karl lifted his cup and said: "That’s quite a hefty amount of important stuff we did not know back then and you still don’t know about till now. It is like this espresso drink I am nursing and not knowing the ingredient that makes it dark and strong."

Hmm, smart Y. Rare. I looked at my list and said, "Oh, I forgot this one important question in the list: How much can human life be extended?" But as I asked the question, Karl began to fade slowly, his incandescent glow of a mind, dimming in my imagination, slowly being replaced by the sounds of the real caffeinated emergencies buzzing in the shop.

I let Karl go. I better go, too. The other people in the coffee shop are looking at me, wondering whether they will order what I had.

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