The photo above is my oldest son's dental x-ray, taken when he was 5 1/2 years old. He didn't have so much as one loose tooth at the time, but look at all his adult teeth lined up under the baby teeth, waiting for their turn! Many of them are just tiny buds starting to grow, others are nearly ready to push through. How amazing to see his future before it happens! Now, that is my kind of crystal ball.
I don't really get it when people seem turned off by anything that seems remotely related to science. I can't grok with feeling squeamed out by anything buggy. Ok, I don't like to touch most bugs, either, but they're fascinating, they're beautiful, they have nearly infinite variation, and they teach you amazing things! When somebody responds to something that smacks of geekery with an "oooh, that's over my head" kind of comeback, again, I'm baffled. Doesn't it make you want to find out? Doesn't it tweak your curiosity, send your inner sleuth on a mission? And for people who seem to find "science" synonymous with "cold" and "boring," don't y'all see the sparkle? Science is magic, man. Science is rainbows and mysteries, transformations and epic battles, beauty and dark secrets. Science is secret visitors to your back porch who leave pawprints for you to identify. Science is stuff that foams when you mix it together. Science is getting to the bottom of puzzling purple stains, or noticing leaves changing, or talking about how a whole new human being is made, or what zinc is and why it can help us stay healthy. Science is experiments but it is also just being awake and aware, asking questions about what we see and figuring out how to find the answers. Science is being alive. How much more magical can you get than that?
