Who’d have thought that we would have had technical problems today because of a 5.9 earthquake in Virginia.  It took out the wireless networks, so that was the end of Poll Everywhere fun.  If the networks go down when everyone is saying they’re ok, you wonder what will happen when a serious disaster strikes.

As an ice breaker, I asked the class to decide in groups what the most (i) important and (ii) interesting science questions are.  The answers:

The most important:
(1) curing disease (3 groups)
(2) energy sustainability (4)
(3) global warming and the environment (2)

The most interesting:
(4) Will California break off from America? (1)
(5) Is religion true? (1)
(6) Nanotechnology (1)
(7) How will we meet our energy needs? (1)
(8) Is there life out there? (3)
(9) How to stop disease transmission? (1)
(10) Will the robots take over? (1)

Mmmm.  Currently, I plan something on less than half of these (#1, 6, 8, 9).  Must ponder the others.  I wonder why climate change is such a minority interest.  But this settles it.  I must do aliens, abduction and all, just as Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Kathleen Postle strongly (and unexpectedly) advocated over lunch last winter.  It is not her contention that we can prove it occurs, just that it is in the category of things we cannot disprove. And fun to talk about!

It’s all very well for her: since then, I’ve been trying to finding a reliable source on alien abduction.