Mislabeling Myself

This is a confession. I have been mislabeling myself for years. There are many things I have said that I am and that I am not. 

One of them is that I do not have a science brain. 

I finished reading a book this morning that made me say I MUST to stop saying that about myself. Yes, this is fiction and not a textbook. The title definitely tells the reader what they're about to read. It really does include some actual lessons in chemistry. It gave me horror flashbacks to school when I had to learn the periodic table (very little of that stuck with me because I was memorizing and not actually learning). It is also about the chemistry we are around every day - and I'm not just talking about air or water (my less science-y words). It's about the chemistry that draws us and binds us to people, places and things. 

You know, life.

It made me wonder why have I always thought science is so hard to understand? Figuring it cannot just be me who put that label on myself, I hit the Google machine. It turns out, I am not alone.

There are many reasons why science is a challenging subject. Due to its high cognitive and psychological demand, science requires students to understand other subjects, memorize complex and often abstract concepts, and develop high levels of motivation and resilience throughout their studies.

This article explains that it's up to the teachers to make this kind of learning active and make the lessons more about understanding and less about memorization (ahem, periodic table).

I started thinking about other books that I've read that taught me science.

While a book about bourbon may not sound like science, Pappyland was actually a whole lesson in how booze is made. You need just the right mix of grains, moisture, temperature and oh so much patience to get a good tasting bourbon. If you think you can just toss some ground up corn and water into a barrel and it will magically work, take a look at this chart. Sure, it may turn into something that'll get you tipsy. Would you choose to drink it or would you drink it because you made it and pride won't let you dispose of it? SCIENCE.

COVID made me turn learning science into a hobby. I had the privilege of hearing firsthand from experts about the spread and changing information about the virus. Code Breaker made me fully understand just how long scientists had been working to come up with a way to protect us from deadly viruses and diseases. While many believed the vaccines had been rushed, I learned not only had Jennifer Doudna been studying but scientists around the world had been sharing information on research that would lead to these vaccines that worked to turn our DNA into bad bug fighters. This book also explored the moral and ethical issues about altering DNA to, say, prevent children from being born with life changing conditions like Down Syndrome or to give children some kind of physical advantage with height. The research could also stop some diseases in their tracks. Things like cancer, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis. It was easy to see how in the wrong hands this could become problematic. 

This book is definitely dark. It's right there in the title.

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist. Yes, there are dead bodies. This is a story about social justice but also about the coroner-medical examiner debate. It was political, but that's how coroners existed in parts of the country. No science or medical background required. You could be a plumber and a coroner if you greased the right wheels. Now, I will admit that plumbers might actually be a decent substitute for a forensics expert. They deal with bodily fluids, trace them and find where things went wrong. In this case, the coroners paid by the body. Literally. It's how they became rich. Medical examiners had science degrees and had a full understanding of how the body works in life so they can determine how someone died. Medical examiners definitely do not get rich off their work. Without medical examiners, wrongfully convicted people would still sit in prison or even be executed for crimes they did not commit (including crimes that actually were not crimes because the science said so).

I have a fascination with World War II. It changed the whole world so I can't stop reading about all the stories I never heard. Man of the Hour taught me about the man who created poison gas and the atomic bomb. I learned that James Conant spent the rest of his life campaigning against these weapons. The amazing ability to discover powerful and destructive science experiments and to have the conscience to say we should not use them? How many people make a discovery, get the world's attention and then say pretend like I did not do this and definitely do not work to do it yourself? Scientists definitely consider these things.

You might think a book about Leonardo da Vinci is about art. Nope. It's science! You most likely know him from that Mona Lisa painting but you probably see his work every time you go to the doctor. When you see a body with the muscles, veins and bones it was da Vinci's curiosity about how the body works that led him to take a look beyond the superficial (literally) and use it in his work. From drawings like Virtuvian Man to paintings and sculptures, da Vinci's works all had real curves to illustrate soft parts (rounding of the bosom or buttocks) and hard parts (muscles and veins in arms, legs, torsos). He could have made them all soft had his curiosity not made him want to understand how things worked so that he could bring them to life. That's a scientist who just happened to be handy with paints and bronze.

What is space exploration without science? Not much. I know it requires math, too. I have not had the curiosity to explore math yet. I definitely need courage and a really good teacher to keep me focused. Space might work! While I have no interested in strapping into a rocket, exploding into the atmosphere then hanging out up there where gravity makes the simple things (showering, toilet activities, drinking hot coffee and cold cocktails) challenging, I absolutely am fascinated in what it is like up there. Scott Kelly's book Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery was captivating! While he details what life was like, the book is really about how all that time living without gravity changed him. It altered his DNA and his height. If the book sounds too long, you can get some of the details here. It was a science experiment to prepare for the trip to Mars which requires 30 months for a one-way trip. If that's on your bucket list, science probably is not ready to get you there and back in one piece.

As most of us have had stretches of life where falling to sleep becomes a stressful event, this book taught me a few things. First, Why We Sleep gets into the many reasons our body needs sleep. Primarily, we need recovery. Not sleeping is a bit like using your phone while it's plugged into the charger. Your phone will eventually charge but not as quickly as if you just plugged it in and didn't touch it (not even to ask it for the time). Once you learn all the reasons you absolutely must get sleep, you learn about why the quality of sleep matters. I'll warn you, this book could make you sleepy. It's a little lot of technical information that will make your eyes glossy and your brain may telling you to put your head on something soft. That's not really how I think it was intended to teach you how to get to that good, beneficial rest we need. I still use some of the lessons in this when I feel tired. 

This book made me feel like completing it merited a Nobel Prize. Seriously. The Gene is a very detailed book that starts with the discovery of the gene in 1856 (by a monk!) and travels from scientist to scientist to modern times. The eugenics lesson reminded me why dictators and racists are the opposite of cool (use your own non-science words for yourself). This book is nearly 600 pages. I read this before my eye doctor so rudely told me that my eyes no longer adapted to changing print sizes well and that I needed to invest in readers. If I picked this up now, I would probably look for the large print edition that could be used in a Home Alone-style boobie trap to smack a would-be burglar and knock him/her/them out. I was so proud of myself when I finished this book! It did not have me on the edge of my seat. It made me read a few paragraphs, stop and question what I just read. But I finished it. I knew it would be a challenge and that it would slow me down in my quest to get through the books waiting on my nightstand to be read. I was not scared of it!

I now realize that any book by a chef involves science. Another label I have taken off myself: I am not a baker. I am. I just have to make sure all my ingredients or fresh or my cookies will crumble into pieces (that actually happened and I did not bake from scratch for years). Blood, Bones & Butter is a memoir but food is the real star. The food served in different regions of the world was created because it grows there. As trade and travel became possible, so did our exposure to these things. A chef's favorite meal from childhood is something that takes them somewhere and we are lucky when they bring us along on that journey. The type of pan or knife they use isn't just whatever is trendy. It's based on the science of why it is mechanically best for whatever menu item they're preparing. The science tells us why we may not ordinarily think things like bacon and chocolate are a good combination, but one taste and the experience of it hitting all the right taste buds on our tongues tells us it's good!

And there's this book. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the kind of amazing, horrifying, sad and uplifting drama you get in fiction. Henrietta Lacks as a poor tobacco farmer and descendant of slaves who had the additional misfortune of getting cancer. Her cells were taken without her consent and continue to be used to develop things you've definitely heard of: polio vaccine, cancer and virus research, the atomic bomb, in vitro fertilization. Her family never made a penny off the cells and the subsequent research while the researchers made millions. There is still a lawsuit pending by the Lacks family to get a biotech company to pay the family and to get them to stop using her cells. There's a series of lessons in this book and science only scratches the surface.

As I sat down with Lessons in Chemistry, cup of coffee in hand as part of my morning routine, I realized how many pages were left and that it would be the end on this magical journey, I was a little sad. Then, as I neared the final chapters, I saw this paragraph that made me pause.

That's chemistry AND science! We can have ideas about ourselves, learn something new and change. Change is hard but it's necessary. I AM a science person! I'm not afraid to consider that what I know may have been right then but is wrong now. While I have never been afraid to ask questions, either as a skeptic or for the sake of understanding, now I realize that is my science brain. 

That part of me has always existed. I just denied it. This look back at some of the ways I have invited it in to settle my curiosity or to make me wonder what else it is that I need to learn is my reminder that I can do hard things. 

I just have to do them.