We think we can do something with them....

I knew this Irish physicist. He used to visit me at the store I owned. Even made me a picture he entitled the Hydra. It was mixed media, centered around a picture of carbon tubes.

What are carbon tubes, you say? That’s what I said. Carbon, one of the key elements of organic matter (CHON: Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen Nitrogen), can be ‘grown’ in laboratories. It can be grown in such a way that it manifests string like structures that have tubal qualities: ie – things could travel through them.

“Why are you growing Carbon Tubes, Rory?” That was my question to him.

“I’m not exactly sure, but, we think we can do something with them.” His come back.

“What do you think you can do with them?” My next question.

“Oh, I don’t know. Send things through them. Faster than they go through other things perhaps.”

This sounds like it’s shaping up to be another “Hey Folks, guess what BIG SCIENCE was up to when you weren’t looking?” moment. (BIG SCIENCE used just like BIG TOBACCO, or BIG MEDICINE) There I was, in the lab, growing carbon tubes and sending ‘things’ through them, when all of a sudden (Fill in blank with suitable catastrophic bizarre event).

And people ask me why I believe in conspiracies? Because they’re out there. Just go find any well funded college focused on science and technology, or, any little laboratory in R&D, right next to the janitor’s closet: you’ll see it happening before your very eyes. Then, the NSA (aka No Such Agency) will come for you, and that’s all she wrote.

Yes, Virginia, someone has made, or is making the spider that made Spiderman. And that spider is traveling through carbon tubes.

The point? There’s a lot out there happening in our world at any one moment that defies explanation, or understanding. And much of it has no purpose other than “Lets see what we can do”. We did the same shit when we were kids. Sometimes that resulted in great fun, sometimes a trip to the ER, sometimes both. That science takes such a child like joy in approaching the undiscovered creates for me a paradox: I find this inspiring, and worrisome. But, what ever else it may do, it’s certainly a good breeding ground for story ideas. You really do NOT need to make shit up. Reality does the job for you, all you need to do is have good sources. Since I have the freak magnet in my head, the sources come to me. Sometimes I take notes, sometimes I run screaming into the hills.

One last note: Surgeons are now using a compound similar to crazy glue to hold wounds together. 13 years ago, when I married my husband, he told me about this crazy wrestler named Sabu who would use crazy glue to hold his wounds together. 7 years ago, I worked with an RN fresh from cardiac surgery rotation, who told me how she was sent across the street to the local drugstore to buy crazy glue on SEVERAL occasions to help hold cardiac incisions together. That’s right: cuts to your heart. Not at Earl’s Drive Through Cigarette Shop and Surgery Shack: this place is a Major Cardiac Care center. And now, we have liquid wound gell, crazy glue for the body. R&D. Weird Science. Got to love it.