CERN

I am so excited for this CERN project. On September 10th, "the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider" will be made. Just in case the world ends, make a trip to your local Mormon church to either get dunked and take the sacrament, or just take the sacrament. :)

List of Links

Some posts I have enjoyed recently:

Mother in Heaven

Dutch Relief Society President During the War

Commercialization of Religion

Ice on Mars
Possibly False Pregnancy Pact Rumor

Where Your Vote Affects How You Vote (Churches, Schools, etc.)

People Who Saved Library Collections from Floods-which reminds me, I recently read that in Roman times, it was tradition for people to read aloud, so libraries were quite noisy places. I wonder how they know that. It's funny that libraries shifted from then to the stereotype of "Shhh!" to the modern library with "No Shh!" pins on their employees.

Top Ten Joseph Smith Quotations in This Year's Manual

Top Ten Joseph Smith Quotations Not in This Year's Manual

What if the James Boys Met?

Stink Bombs Could Save Lives

The Power of the Itch

Chocolate, Funerals, and Stars

Three things I love: chocolate, funerals, and stars. With friends makes them better, of course.

I was busily working on one of my essays yesterday afternoon/evening when the door buzzed. I didn't budge since I wasn't expecting anyone, but my roommate told me that Mike was there to visit. Oh. I went out and he had brought chocolate ice cream for us to eat for pre-dinner. It was fabulous. I told him about my essay and then we looked out the window to see if we could see a satellite on the schedule Dad sent me, but it was too cloudy. We finally headed for the church, not having time to get dinner at the best Döner store ever (Ishtar, five minutes from my house and from the church). After four hours of President Hinckley funeral-related broad cast (wherein Mike begged leftover Christmas chocolate off the sisters and elbowed me every few minutes to hand me some more in place of dinner), I was spiritually lifted. Funerals of good people, if they are as they should be, really motivate me to do better. Because of what I heard yesterday, I want to always work hard, never quit writing, ever be learning and studying, love people more, and work towards having such a marriage as President and Sister Hinckley's. Pondering on these things, I walked out into the freezing cold air and turned to look back at the church. I saw a perfectly-fitting and beautiful sight: the sky had cleared, and the silhouette of the church was up against a starry, starry sky, complete with an upside-down Orion.

When it isn't cloudy here, the stars are beautiful. It amazes me how many I can see even though I'm in the city. (Salt Lake is just too big with too much light pollution to see that many stars.)

Worms

I read about how a lab tested 80,000 chemicals on worms that usually live 30 days and I thought, "Protest! Animal abuse!" No, really, I thought, "Wow, that's interesting," because

1. Some antidepressant drug made them live 30% longer.

2. The drug affects a chemistry in their brains which makes them feel like they're starving. (How scientists know these things, I will never know.) This sentence made me laugh: "That's important because scientists have known for a long time that worms that really are starved live longer."

How would you like that, living tons longer but starving all the time? How would you like being a worm, period? What those poor little guys go through so we can avoid our Judgment Day a little longer. (Shaking my head.)

What would make this study even cooler would be if they had done it in Worms, Germany.

The Perseids

The Perseids, my favorite meteor shower (because it's during a warmer time of the year--who wants to be outside during the night in December?), are really great this year. There is no bright moon to drown them out. The peak will be tonight (or tomorrow morning) around 2 AM. Get away from the light pollution of the city and enjoy!