- A thinktank of British scientists has come up with a
new way of quickening the national intellect - a brain-taxing spin on the
old formula of 100 things to do before you die.
-
- The group, which includes the evolutionary biologist,
Richard Dawkins, astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield
and the inventor James Dyson, urges us all to take samples of our own DNA,
measure the speed of light with chocolate, and solve the mathematical mystery
of the number 137.
-
- The list, compiled by New Scientist magazine, suggests
booking to see Galileo's middle finger (preserved in Florence) or ordering
liquid nitrogen to make the "world's smoothest ice-cream" at
home.
-
- More complicated options include joining the 300 Club
at the South Pole (they take a sauna to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, then run
naked to the pole in minus 100 F) or learning Choctaw, a language with
two past tenses - one for giving information which is definitely true,
the other for passing on material taken without checking from someone else.
-
- The appeal to scientists of such native American precision
runs through the whole collection, but the compilation's editors, Valerie
Jamieson and Liz Else, also want participants to have fun.
-
- "You've only got one life, so make the most of it,"
they say. "Swim in a bioluminescent lake, boil an egg with a mobile
phone, or have a new species named after you." With a little practice
- carefully explained - you may also be able to achieve multiple orgasm,
or, for £35,000, clone your pet cat.
-
- The scientists also offer five things to get organised
for your remains after death. These include leaving your body for use in
car crash research, which has saved an estimated 8,500 casualties since
1987, or having the carbon in your ashes turned into a diamond.
-
-
- The list is "the best science has to offer in the
way of new experiences," say Ms Jamieson and Ms Else, who have tried
to include a number of easy options. Lives may be transformed by watching
the night sky or simply going out at night and adjusting to the low levels
of light - two of the 100 - or assisting at the birth of an animal. "This
is one of life's most surprising and moving experiences and pretty accessible,"
says the booklet. "Farmers are often only too happy to have help,
and if you want something more exotic, ask a zookeeper if you can be involved
in the birth of a camel, zebra or giraffe."
-
- Like all scientific experiments, the list comes with
a clutch of warnings about taking care, especially when making the nitrogen
ice cream (wear goggles and gloves) or touching a tiger. The mathematician
Ian Stewart who suggests the latter after two "awesome" goes
at it himself, adds: "Do not attempt it without professional assistance."
-
- There is also, inevitably, some crossover with the more
banal lists of things to do before you die, even if the scientists' equivalent
of visiting Everest is much more interesting. The Earth's rotation causes
a 20-kilometre bulge at the equator, making Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador
the highest mountain above sea level. If you want to win the lottery meanwhile,
enter a proof for one of seven conjectures which so frustrate mathematicians
that there is a million US dollar prize for cracking any of them.
-
- The mystery of the number 137 requires prolonged "brain
gym", according to its proposer Paul Davies, theoretical physicist
and author of Einstein's Unfinished Revolution. There must - probably -
be a reason why the number describes the strength of electromagnetism through
calculations involving the charge of the electron, Planck's constant -
the fundamental constant of nature arising in quantum mechanical problems
- and the speed of light. But no one has yet discovered what it is.
-
- Before you die: 100 things you simply must do
-
- Personal choices
-
- Nobel prizewinner John Sulston, who led Britain's publicly
funded effort to unravel the human genome
-
- "Visit Shark Bay in Western Australia to see fossil
mounds of algae which were among the earliest living things on Earth. Seeing
them, I can marvel at how human thought transcends the here and now.They
act as a ruler of time stretching back into the past"
-
- James Dyson, the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner
and the two-drum washing machine
-
- "I'd like to see our society focusing less on how
things look and more on how they work. Children should be taught to consider
engineering and science as cool - not the preserve of boffins"
-
- Patrick Moore, the unofficial national astronomer
-
- His entry, the shortest in the book, suggests "scouring
the night sky for comets, with the chance of following Halley or Donati.
It would be great to see Moore's comet blazing across the sky"
-
- Pick of the list
-
- Extract your own DNA by spitting gargled salt water into
diluted washing-up liquid and slowly dribbling ice-cold gin down the side
of the glass. Spindly white clumps which form in the mixture are, basically,
you
-
- Link your home computer to the Arecibo radio telescope
in Puerto Rico (via setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu) and you could be the first
person to spot messages from aliens for which the telescope constantly
checks. If your computer gets the first, the Americans promise to give
you the credit
-
- Measure the speed of light by melting chocolate in microwave
oven hotspots and measuring the distance between globs. Various calculations
produce the answer and you can still eat the chocolate afterwards
-
- Be a gecko. Researchers in Manchester have almost succeeded
in developing Velcro-like pads to fix to the feet of volunteers who will
then be able to scuttle over the town hall or the Guardian's northern headquarters
like lizards, with no risk of falling
-
- Write your name in atoms at IBM's Almaden research laboratory
in San Jose, California - and, while you're saving up to go, simply see
an atom by befriending a physicist at one of Britain's many university
labs with the equipment to trap and cool atoms. Barium is best.
-
- Use your excreta to enter the amazing world of the dung
beetle. Much more basic but just as fascinating for some. If you are ever
caught short in the open, says New Scientist, turn the accident into an
opportunity by lingering nearby and watching what happens. "It won't
take long for the beetles to appear, scuttle boldly up to your deposit
and begin rolling balls of it away, head-butting it and pushing it with
their forelegs." Reassuringly, it gets used as food and a beetle breeding
nest
-
- Inhale helium and start singing. Old hat but a must for
anyone who's never done it. But don't take too much and never use a pressurised
source. If you do, in New Scientist's words, "you probably won't be
singing anything. Ever"
-
- When you've gone
-
- Help nail a murderer. You can register ahead with Tennessee's
body farm. Donated corpses are left out in the open to decompose before
trainee forensic scientists get to work on them. An estimated 100 murderers
have been convicted as a result
-
- Become a diamond. LifeGem of Chicago, Illinois, the book
reveals, will take a few grains of your cremated remains, subject them
to high pressure and temperature, and you will emerge from the process,
18 weeks later, as a sparkling one-carat diamond
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1361763,00.html?=rss
|