Why We Like Music

The cover story from the last issue of "The Economist" for 2008 discusses theories as to why and how music has become so important to the human species. Three ideas are discussed:

1. Music evolved as a way to attract a mate.
2. Music evolved as a way for groups of humans to establish social bonds.
3. The ability to make music was an "accident" and didn't come from evolutionary pressure. Once it was "discovered", though, it became important for a variety of functions including attracting a mate and establishing social bonds.

Natural selection is a creative tinkerer in its ability to fashion new uses for existing traits. For that reason, I think that the creation of music by humans probably can't be explained as simply as these three. The truth about why music is so important to our species probably involves some accidents, some sexual selection, some social selection, and perhaps even other selective mechanisms that we haven't yet considered.

This article and the ideas presented in it are fascinating, though. And they provide a great example of how elegantly the theory of evolution explains even those aspects of our existence that we typically take for granted.

Resolutions

Have you made any resolutions for 2009? I have to admit that I was going to cop out and not make any this year. Why should I? They usually only last a couple of weeks and then I'm off whatever wagon it was and feeling guilty. So as I went through the whole eat less/exercise more/drink less/pray more list of ideas, I kind of started to wonder what the point was.

But instead of giving up entirely, I'm going to try a different approach. Instead of making a list of resolutions, I'm only going to pick one thing. One change that I want to make. And I'm going to focus on that one thing for 100 days. That's it. One specific change for a specific amount of time. At the end of 100 days, I'll pick something else to focus on for the next 100 days. That's it.

As for what it is that I'm going to "resolve" for the first 100 days of 2009...I'm not really inclined to share that. But I can tell you that there are 2 days down and 98 to go!

Snow Ice Cream

Yesterday's snowfall in northeast Kansas was perfect. A couple inches of dry powder. Just enough to cover everything, but not enough to make getting around difficult. (And with apologies to my students...not enough to close school during finals week.) I mentioned to several people during the day that I couldn't wait to get home and make some snow ice cream with my 3-year-old son. Many of them didn't have any idea what I was talking about. So I thought I'd share with you my own recipe for making it.

Start with whipping cream. You can use milk or half-and-half in a pinch, but cream will give you the most authentic ice cream taste. Add vanilla extract and sugar to taste. Slowly add the cream mixture to a large bowl of CLEAN snow (be sure the snow doesn't contain grass, dirt, leaves, or anything yellow). Fold the cream and snow together until the entire mixture takes on a creamy consistency.

You can either serve it immediately or freeze it so that it hardens. Serve it as you would ice cream, either straight-up or with your favorite toppings. (For me it's chocolate. For my son it's chocolate and sprinkles.) Enjoy!

Johnny Got His Gun

"He was a dead man with a mind that could still think. He knew all the answers that the dead knew and couldn't think about. He could speak for the dead because he was one of them. He was the first of all the soldiers who had died since the beginning of time who still had a brain left to think with."

Dalton Trumbo's 1939 anti-war novel titled "Johnny Got His Gun" tells the story of a soldier who gets hit by a mortar shell during battle. The soldier wakes up in a hospital bed and realizes that he has lost both arms, both legs, his entire face and jaw, and both ears.

In anatomy class today we discussed the three general functions of the nervous system: sensation, integration, and response. In this story, the protagonist has retained the integration (thinking, feeling, learning, perceiving) function, but is limited in the other two. Because of this, he is trapped in his own body and has to learn new ways to sense and respond to what's going on around him.

This novel was made into a movie (never seen it, sorry). It was also the inspiration for Metallica's song One.

Bronze Medal School

U.S. News and World Reports has published their annual ranking of America's "best" schools. In those rankings, they have recognized Eudora High School as a bronze medal school.

While I continue to be very skeptical of these ratings, I don't think a little recognition is ever a bad thing. So congratulations to the faculty, staff, students, and community on making our little school one of the best in the state.