Photo via Creative Commons by Ramesh NG Have you ever wondered why you feel happy, sad or angry? I’m here to explain these phenomenons with a bit of science and fun. Before we begin, you’ll need a basic knowledge of something, namely diffusion. Let me explain this a bit. If you’ve ever had a tea party, you’ll know the conversation scenario goes something like this: Host: “Good day, Sir/Ma’am. Would you like some tea?” Guest: “Yes, please.” Host: “And how many lumps of sugar would you like?” Guest: “Seven, please.” Please do NOT go pouring seven lumps of sugar into your tea. This is merely an example. Anyway, the point is, the guest goes pouring their sugar into their cup of tea. The sugar cube, as you may realize, has a large amount of particles in a relatively confined space, or high concentration. The tea, however, does not have sugar in it, so there is a low concentration of sugar particles in the tea. Therefore, the sugar’s particles will spread out from their high concentration into the low concentration in diffusion or what we call dissolving. The molecules don’t shrink or change; they just spread out. So today we’ll use this to learn about the properties of certain specialized molecules rarely heard about: the Feelings Molecules. There are a few main types of those molecules: Happiness molecules: Happiness molecules can be gained in a variety of ways (fun time with friends, etc.), but the point is that happiness diffuses! If one is very happy, they want to spread the happiness to others. However, the molecules in this case do not need to spread out on contact, and can travel in many complicated ways. Unlike regular molecules, Happiness molecules can travel through people’s Thought passages, and actually try to do so. You may think that “Hey, then how come you don’t get less happy if your molecules diffuse to other people?”. Well, this is because after a certain point, a balance of happiness molecules is reached between the both of you, and then they start passing back and forth between you both, so you do not keep losing them. Anger molecules: Anger tries to diffuse very fast. If you’re angry, you may feel like hitting or punching something and diffusing the anger you feel. This is especially why you shouldn’t stand near someone while you’re angry. 🙂 Fright molecules: More fright molecules means more fear. Fear, however, does NOT diffuse throughout others, and just stays confined to your body. The only way to get rid of fright molecules is to overpower them with some one of the other types mentioned. Now, really, the “overpowering” is just diffusion of other molecules into the area of the fright molecules. Complicated, right? Tension molecules: These molecules are from anxiety, nervousness, etc. For example, an oral report will most probably increase your tension because the number of tension molecules increases. Tension molecules usually do diffuse. You can spread anxiety to others and make them nervous, but you may feel better if their happiness molecules pass to you! These are the main properties of the four Feelings molecules. You may wonder about molecules like sadness molecules as well, but they really don’t exist. Sadness is caused by a lack of happiness molecules from the regular healthy amount. A regular decline of the happiness molecules can lead to depression, so that’s why they should always be kept up. I hope you enjoyed reading! Here’s your “professor,” signing out!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Rain
Photo by Alex Adkins via Creative Commons It rained. Or rather, it poured. Large grey clouds darkened the sky, their heavy droplets collecting in puddles and soaking the ground, wind altering the direction of their descent as gravity pulled them towards the earth. From through the house window, I thought to myself, It sure is dreary out there. But upon further inspection, I found that this might not totally be the case. The wind seemed to be whistling a tune, accompanied by the soft percussion of rain hitting the ground and splashing in puddles. Dancing to that tune were the trees, swaying back and forth, rejoicing in the water that so eagerly rushed down to quench their thirst. The frogs too, could be heard from inside the house, their chorus befitting the scene. And the frogs too, were rejoicing in the long – needed downpour. When one looked up at the sky, one could see the clouds. On this particular occasion, they weren’t just a simple, massive screen of grey, hiding the sun and the bright blue of the atmosphere. For though they were dark and foreboding, they had a certain beauty about them as well. They were fluffy and rounded, and if one could have touched them, they might have felt soft like a chick’s down. I moved to a different window, looking out upon a different part of our yard. The geese frolicked and squawked in the field. A few stragglers had been left behind in the pond, and were rushing to catch up with the rest of the gaggle. Even the horses, soaked as they were, did not seem unhappy. They stood under a tree, tails stock still, for the rain had chased off any flies. Their eyes were bright, as if excited by this storm. The pond sent waves crashing against the shore, sticks and algae being stranded on its gravelly beaches. No fish jumped, but that may have been because of the lone white egret that swam about in the water, daring a silly fish to show itself. If there had been such a silly fish, it didn’t jump out of the water to taunt the bird of prey. And all the while the rain came down, splashing upon the ground. Finally, I decided to don a raincoat and feel what it was like out there for myself. After pulling on my boots, I ran out the door. Immediately, a pleasing smell filled my nose. It was the smell of rain. It was comforting and nice, but not sharp enough to feel like an assault. Along with the sound of the wind and the frogs, I could now fully hear the rain, pattering softly onto the earth and my raincoat. It was cool out there, but pleasantly so, not quite cold, but then leaning more to that side. Underneath my layers, I felt that even if we were to set the thermostat at exactly this temperature, it would not be the same. There was something very vague about the entire feel, but detectable as the soft caress of nature upon my surroundings. I lifted my head to the sky, blinking constantly as water hit my eyes. The water did not hurt at all, rather felt quite nice. I opened my mouth and stretched my tongue out, yearning for a taste of this caress of nature. And it tasted unlike most water. Once again, it had nature’s faint touch to it, like the secret ingredient in a recipe, but this was truly a secret ingredient. I could not place the taste as anything my tongue had experienced before. But it was good. I sighed as my mother called me in for dinner. I thought to myself, Well, I suppose that upon further inspection, the rain may not be so dreary at all. I put my hand on the doorknob, and drank in the last of this beautiful image.
Saturday Newsletter: March 17, 2018
Stone Soup colleague Jane Levi timing Israeli archeologist David Eitam as he grinds grain in a mortar cut into bedrock 12,500 years ago by people known as the Natufian.March 10th 2018, at at Hruk Musa in the Jordan River valley. Photo by William Rubel. A note from William Rubel My apologies for skipping last week’s Newsletter. My Stone Soup colleague Jane and I were in Israel completely immersed in preparing and carrying out the experimental archeology project we had come for–milling wild barley using mortars and cups cut into bedrock by a people who lived 12,500 years ago (long before agriculture), and then baking bread. There are 70 mortars cut into the rock at the site known to archeologists as Hruk Musa, located in what is now the Occupied Territories controlled by Israel in the Jordan River Valley. The Israeli archeologist we are working with, David Eitam, has used his knowledge and his imagination to answer the question, what are these rock cuts for? He thinks they were for processing wild barley from grain into bread. If he is right, then Hruk Musa is one of the largest and earliest grain processing facilities that has so far been found. As Jane and I were beginning to work with these stone tools, we both started thinking about how the same skills used by story tellers are often employed by archeologists. As there are few written records from this period, and few artifacts, figuring out what objects like these might have been used for, and then how they were actually used, requires some speculation, but the speculation has to be grounded in what makes sense based on all we have been able to learn about the people we are studying. It occurred to us, as we sat pounding and writing notes on that beautiful hill above what used to be a lake, wild flowers everywhere, birds of prey circling on the lookout for small creatures, that to do the best work we had to try as hard as we could to get into the minds of the Natufian people were were studying: as much as possible, to become Natufians. In other words, to be effective archeologists we had to think like novelists. Whether you end up being a writer, a doctor, an archeologist, a scientist, or a host of other professions, the skills you develop imagining characters and setting them alive on the page are skills that you will find useful. I would like you to write a short story in which place and time are important. The Natufian people that we were studying in Israel had tools made of rock, bone, and wood. They made string and knew how to weave fine baskets and also fine cloth, but they didn’t have pottery. They could walk places, and traveled distances so they could trade for goods. They left behind combs, and needles, and small sculptures, like those of little birds. But what they ate was mostly a mystery, and it is what they ate that we are studying. Last week, sitting on rocks surrounded by mortars feeling the gentle spring wind on our faces we tried to imagine ourselves as them–and that is what I would like you to do with a scenario of your own. Create a space for your characters, then place them in that space, and set them free with your imagination. I am in London this morning. I’ll be back in California tomorrow night. The wind is howling outside the window and it is snowing. Until next week, William “Hush,” I said, “hush, everything will be all right” From Stone Soup January/February 2009 Where my Family Is Written and illustrated by Jessye Holmgren-Sidell, 13 I sat alone in the dark, feeling the boat rock from side to side. The hollow sounds the boat made as the waves hit it told me how deep the water was beneath us. “Creaak, Creaak.” What was that noise? “It’s nothing,” I told myself. “It’s nothing.” But it is something: the sound of a woman, starving in the hills, begging by the road for a coffin for her dead child. The sound of a man pulling blackened potatoes from the ground. No, that was in Ireland. We weren’t in Ireland anymore. We were thousands of miles away, in the middle of the ocean. Ireland was where Ma, Da, and Nealy were. They were definitely not here. “Creaak, Creaak.” Ireland was where there was no food, where people were starving. I shifted slightly. Where my family is, I thought. I got up on my knees. “Good God, help me, I’m so hungry.” I grabbed my empty dinner plate and threw up into it. The boat swayed violently back and forth and I leaned back against the hull, feeling my stomach twist like a blade of grass in the wind. “Oh,” I moaned. I threw up again, this time on the floor. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I remembered when I ate grass once. It was on the way to the boat when I had been so hungry. I had taken a handful of grass and shoved it into my mouth, trying to push it down my throat. As I chewed, I was crying. If I had been home I would have eaten potatoes around the fire with my family. We would never have eaten grass. But that was gone now. The potatoes had died and Ma, Da, and Nealy were buried in the empty harvest field outside the house. My brothers were gone, too. They had left for America before me and I didn’t know exactly where they were. “I miss them,” I whispered. “I wish they were here.” I left Ma, Da, and Nealy behind when I closed the door to the house. I walked along the path, past fields of dead potatoes, past families taking refuge in the shadow of stones and dirt dugouts. I began to cry. I remembered how this had all started the night the potatoes had
