MsTiara’s Thoughts

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90014997 (click on the button to hear the podcast, VERY well put together)

On the drive in this morning, I was listening to NPR’s Story of the Day (iTunes Podcasts are the best thing since sliced bread, use them) and the story was on Minty fresh E. Coli. Basically, in bioengineering lap class you make/grow a lot of E. Coli which basically smells like sh… Feces. So, these bright minded bioengineering kids decide to make it minty fresh. They go and call for the sequenced DNA that happens to make a plant smell winterfresh. They then have the DNA shipped in the mail, insert it into the cell structure and Voila! A new form of E. Coli that now smells wintery fresh (and after some more tweaking, when it is done growing smells like a banana milkshake).

No fan fare, no complexities, no thunder and lightning from the sky with some green light. From Nothing (ok, maybe I am simplifying it all a bit). From one life form there is now a whole new life form that was not found in nature.

To them, they weren’t playing God, there were no ethic questions, they didn’t even think of the E. Coli as a life form, to them all it was, was something they build, like a building.

But they created something new, different a whole new life form…

Not sure how I feel in the big picture scheme of things…

“Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still”

Rumi

I walked out the door this morning at 6:15am, a bit tired, and not really paying attention to much. But the moment I stepped outside…

The warm breeze caressed my face in a good morning hello. The leaves on the tree next to the walkway rustled a hello and sparkled in the morning dawn light. I stopped for a second and just breathed in the day and everything became crisper and more alive. It was light and it was life.

The sky was silver with darker clouds racing across the sky, reminding me of the magical beauty of handcrafted Irish lace being run through my hands. As I stood there, the birds sang in the trees and a squirrell stopped and said hello.

It was a very beautiful start to the day.

Happy Beltaine

Continuing down the mind boggling evolutionary track, a Gallup poll showed only 18% of Americans believed in evolution. However, 68% believed in the existence of the devil.

Now I am not saying we know all the answers to evolution or that they even got it right. But this makes me feel how when Galileo said the world was round and no one believed him either.