Image of clay bank

Photo by [2Ni] on Unsplash

Roots of clay for family tree?

At the time Gen­e­sis was writ­ten, clay was the pre­mier mate­r­i­al of arti­sans. Of it were made con­tain­ers, tablets for writ­ing, and effi­gies of ani­mals and men. So what was more nat­ur­al than for the Cre­ator to do his work in the same medi­um. Accord­ing to the author of Gen­e­sis, the Lord took up clay into his hands and mold­ed it into the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. And the first man.

Image of human oocyte

A human oocyte undergoing IVF • ZEISS Microscopy (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Artist's impression of SN 1987A

Artist's impression of supernova remnant SN 1987A • ESO/L. Calçada (CC BY 3.0)

Image of pink lady's slipper

Pink lady's slipper in New England woods • Tom Raymo

The lady’s slipper

Lady’s slip­per. Moc­casin flower. Squir­rel shoes. The sci­en­tif­ic name of the plant is Cypri­pedi­um, which is Greek for “slip­per of Venus.” The ear­ly French explor­ers of North Amer­i­ca called it le sabot de la Vierge, “the sabot of the Vir­gin”; a sabot is a wood­en shoe worn by peas­ants in France.

Image of a levitating superconductor

A high temperature superconductor levitating above a magnet • Julian Litzel (CC BY-SA 3.0)

A superfluity of supers

Con­sid­er the word “mar­ket.” First, it suf­fered a cer­tain aggran­dize­ment and became “super­mar­ket.” Then, as com­pact super­mar­kets appeared on the scene, a new word was need­ed. The sim­plest solu­tion would have been a return to “mar­ket.” What in we end­ed up with instead was “super­ette,” a curi­ous­ly self-can­cel­ing word made of a pre­fix and a suf­fix with noth­ing in the middle.

Image of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station

Reactor 4 at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant • Paweł Szubert (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Nuclear realities

The world’s first nuclear pow­er sta­tion, at Ship­ping­port, Pa., came on line in the late 1950s. After the hor­rors of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the Ship­ping­port plant seemed to vin­di­cate our hard-won knowl­edge of the atom­’s secrets. Here at last was a peace­time use for atom­ic ener­gy. Mag­a­zines were full of arti­cles with titles like “The Atom: Our Obe­di­ent Ser­vant.” For most of us, it was the dawn­ing of an age bright with promise.

Image of the surface of Mars

Are we alone? • NASA/JPL/Cornell

Image of Da Vinci's scythed chariot

Leonardo's design for a scythed chariot

The dark side of Leonardo

Thore­au, Emer­son, and Hawthorne all record in their jour­nals a moment when the shrill whis­tle of the Fitch­burg Rail­road intrud­ed upon the tran­quil­i­ty of the Con­cord woods. The track of that rail­road passed very close to Walden Pond, and Thore­au espe­cial­ly took note of the way the smoke-belch­ing loco­mo­tive dis­rupt­ed his coun­try reveries.

Image of Rhagoletis fly

The wings of a Rhagoletis fly mimics a spider's legs • © entomart (Used with permission)

Image of The School of Athens

Detail from “The School of Athens” by Raphael

The mutual isolation societies

It has been 30 years since British sci­en­tist and nov­el­ist C. P. Snow cre­at­ed a stir among edu­ca­tors with his idea of the “two cul­tures.” Accord­ing to Snow, “sci­en­tif­ic cul­ture” and “lit­er­ary cul­ture” have become sep­a­rat­ed by a gulf of mutu­al incom­pre­hen­sion, often marked by hos­til­i­ty and dis­like. Sci­en­tists have noth­ing to say to those who prac­tice or study the arts — and vice ver­sa. Each cul­ture has its own lan­guage and agen­da. Each is impov­er­ished by igno­rance of the other.