Monday, January 14, 2008
Wanted: Botin Q-Tips
Last weekend we visited the Academy of Sciences in its last few hours before it closed its downtown location permanently - it’s moving to the amazoid new facility being built in our neighborhood. While we were there I was, once again, impressed by the intrepid scientists from many years past who sailed into unknown seas and lands, risking everything to obtain tiny samples of plant and animal life so that we might appreciate and study them later, like now. I thought of them charging through the wilderness, riding the bowsprit of creaking wooden vessels, living with rough sailors and struggling to keep their samples and equipment safe during storms and encounters with suspicious natives. I like to think of these gutsy guys not so much as scientists as “botineers.”
Yo ho ho. That is all.
