Daily Archives: November 8, 2009

Put This in the Form of a Question

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FLOTUS: Elevating the social status of nerds everywhere

Making her 13th visit to a federal agency, Obama joined Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday in a tightly packed, 200-person basement DOE auditorium for a mock quiz of 10 middle schoolers who would compete next year in the National Science Bowl, an outreach effort run by DOE.

I heartily applaud this kind of effort.

But (you knew there would be a “but”) this made me wince:

Chu seemed to take pleasure when the budding scientists nailed a question, but winced when one team incorrectly guessed that nuclear power comprises only 5% of the US energy budget. The other team quickly got the answer right: 20%. “Correct,” said Chu with a wry smile.

How is that a science question? What concept should those students who missed it go back and study? The format of a quiz-bowl makes it tough to ask conceptual questions, so you’re limited right out of the gate, but really — statistics about nuclear power? Is our children learning that in science class?

Training to Be an Amish Mechanic

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Vet School 2.0: Stick Your Hand Up a Virtual Cow Butt

(the title is based on a Robin Williams Joke)

There’s nothing tidy about sticking your arm deep into a cow’s backside, getting up to your elbows in warm and gooey bovine innards.

But for new vet students, there’s no avoiding the procedure: To diagnose pregnancy or check for infection, you’ve got to reach into a cow’s rectum and feel for the uterus, ovaries and stomach. Unfortunately, proper palpation is a tough skill to teach, because once your arm is buried inside a cow butt, no one can see what you’re doing.

No one can see what you’re doing? Nothing like a little animal “husbandry” until they catch you at it.

(now I’m stealing from Tom Lehrer)

As long as I’m this low in the pasture, I’ll complete the trilogy. A few weeks ago, we were doing some mundane inventory-task, and one the guys said, “Hand me the scissors,” and was corrected by another of us — they were shears, not scissors. This prompted him to say, on the topic of shears, “I can tell you that the act of shearing takes all the romance out of sheep farming.”

Pause for effect.

I then said something like, “I’m not really sure I want to hear the details about the romance you found in sheep farming. That’s between you and the sheep.”