GENIUS VULPES, CYBER SPECIES

As part of its “Girls Go Tech” campaign, the Girl Scouts of the USA placed this ad in the papers:

“By the 6th grade, many girls lose interest in math and science, which they may need for future jobs. So next time your daughter asks you to sing a lullaby, sing it in science…”

A popular nursery rhyme – resung in science – appears in the ad:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
You’re a ball of gas that’s very far.
32 light years in the sky
10 parsecs which is really high.
Helium, carbon and hy-dro-gen
Fuse to make our starry friend.
When it enters supernova stage
It explodes with bursts of rays.
And if the star’s mass is big and bold
It will become a black hole!

The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which consists of a very simple melody, is a science ballad – although it’s not so much about astronomy as it is about chemistry. LSD.

How’s that for a Day Tripper? Leery?

“Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Leary!

Epilogue: Timothy Francis Leary, an American writer, psychologist, and advocate of psychedelic drug use, was one of the first people whose remains have been sent into space.

Ah, the unending bliss of heaven…

“Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!”