Salon Des Geeks

Congratulations, felicitations, best wishes and meilleurs voeux to salon members Kim and Martial, who were married on Sunday. You two prove that great minds really do think alike.

Those of you who read my weblog may already have read this entry, but Elizabeth suggested that it might be a nice topic for discussion here at the Salon. So if you care to geek out about science/geology, comment away! (I’ve added some additional comments below it.)

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The question of whether granite might exist on the Martian surface recently came up independently two days in a row, in completely unrelated conversations with people who can’t possibly be in collusion. This was inspiration enough for me to do some googling, and sure enough, it seems that granite has indeed been detected on Mars (several years ago, no less). Why would this be surprising? Because on Earth, at least, a lot of granite forms as a result of plate tectonics (leading to subduction, melting, and crystallization of magma under the surface, which yields granite), and Mars hasn’t shown any persuasive evidence of tectonic activity ever existing. While it seems plausible (to this humble annalist) that magma inside a volcanic chamber could fail to erupt and manage to cool and crystallize, leading to granite in subterranean chambers, it’s less clear how you’d subsequently get it up to the surface, especially without plate tectonics. But note that the granite identified in the above link occurs in a crater, not a volcanic caldera; the theory seems to be that the crater-forming impact exhumed down to where the granite was. Very interesting.

Now if only they could find the darn carbonates!

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In other Mars-related news, the Spirit Rover recently found what they believe to be a meteorite on the surface of Mars. They’re calling it “Allan Hills”, which appears to be at least partly coincidence rather than irony (though most meteorites are made from nickel + iron!). Allan Hills, on Earth, is a location in Antarctica where several meteroites have been found, and the trend at the moment for naming features on Mars is to honor Antarctic research stations. But as you may know, Allan Hills is also the source of the hugely controversial ALH84001 meteorite, which most people agree comes from Mars and some people believe contains evidence of past (Martian) microbial life. It’d be pretty cool if the Martian Allan Hills meteorite became the subject of a controversy over Earth microbial transport… but due to various physics constraints, a meteroite on Mars is more likely to have come from the asteroid belt (further out from the Sun) than from the Earth.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary, because health is worth more than learning.

What dumb jock dared to draw the above comparison between the importance of reading and that of exercise? None other than Thomas Jefferson, that anti-intellectual slacker. Seriously, though, with all the hard science behind the benefits of exercise (including a recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, showing that being physically active keeps your brain active longer, staving off dementia and Alzheimer’s), it’s always been a mystery to me why geeks and jocks are perceived to be mutually exclusive categories.

One phenomenon that I think might be the result of this misperception is that there is a dearth of hard science literature available about basic care and maintenance of this cool receptacle in which our brains travel around. A diligent search for the best way to eat, best practices for weight lifting, which exercises are best for your health and similar questions for taking optimal care of the body produces a multitude of conflicting opinions, most from people with no medical expertise whatever.

I was thinking about this recently at the gym, where I routinely see people in various stages of not-helping or actually harming themselves. I think this is tremendously sad and unfair, as these folks spend precious hours of their lives in the gym, only to be disappointed with the results. In honor of them, I am going to geek out on my top five Jock-Geek pet peeve gym practices. They aren’t just dangerous, kids, they’re downright unscientific.

1. Don’t Bounce When You Stretch – bouncing when you stretch causes microtrauma to your muscles. Muscles, which have more common sense than their owners, respond to this trauma by forming scar tissue, shortening the muscle and making it (d’oh!) less flexible. Many people have been bouncing their way to stiffness for so long that they actually refuse to believe this. I refer them to The Mayo Clinic.

2. Don’t Grunt When You Lift – While it may be true that what does not kill you makes you stronger, grunting when you lift is far more likely to kill you. Yet many of the men in gyms across the land sound as if they are in labor. The practice of closing the nasal passage and exhaling forcefully on the exertion phase of lifting is a practice touted by some ill-informed weight trainers as the “Valsalva Technique.” It is named after the Italian anatomist who invented it as a way of removing pus from the inner ear, and who would probably have some choice Italian words about its use in weight training. Why does noise matter? Because grunting means you aren’t breathing, and not breathing during exertion causes your blood pressure to spike. The consequences can range from the mild-but-embarrassing loss of consciousness to the very alarming indeed: A Loma Linda University Study linked the Valsalva Technique to arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, and stroke in otherwise healthy young adults. Breathe.

3. Don’t Lift Too Fast – This one is basic physics: If you lift and lower weight quickly, momentum is doing most of the work for you, rather than your muscle. Because you have less control over the weight’s movement, lifting fast also increases your risk of injury.

4. If You Can’t Sit Up Nice, Don’t Sit Up At All – The humble sit-up wins the Least Frequently Done Right Award. Many people do sit ups by laying flat on the floor with their knees bent, gripping the back of the neck, then hurling the torso by any means necessary towards the knees at high speed. I nearly cry when I meet people who say they do “hundreds” of these per day (for the record, you will never be able to do hundreds of any exercise that is effectively working the muscle! If you don’t max out at 12 to 15 reps, it ain’t working). Not only does this do absolutely nothing for your abdominals (the poor form and high speed gives all the work to the hip flexor muscles), but it’s also a great shortcut to lower-back injury. Exercise physiologists recommend crunches, which are slower and go only about 3/4 of the way up, or alternative abs exercises.

5. Work in 3-D – You’ve probably all seen That Guy In The Gym who has pectorals the size of watermelons, but who seems to have trouble walking fully upright. It’s really not that he’s a Neanderthal (although if he’s carrying a club, look out); it’s that he knew about pects but didn’t know about the deltoids, rhomboids, or latissimus dorsi. This gorgeous machine we live in has opposing muscle groups that keep us in beautiful balance. If you work one muscle group without working the opposing one, you’ll end up with muscle imbalances that affect your posture. Tight chest muscles with no back muscles will pull your shoulders in towards your chest, causing the Neanderthal Effect. Similarly, working the abs without working the lower back signs you up for lower back pain, and imbalances in the leg muscles can lead to knee problems.

So ends my rant for today, mes salonniers. I’m off to the gym…and I’m bringing my book with me.

Hello fellow members,
I was sorry to miss our May meeting and even more sorry to have missed Elizabeth’s birthday. So happy birthday Elizabeth–may this year bring your joy and satisfaction in all you do. I received the book today that you all signed and the pictures are great. I must say the menu looked spectacular and I was sorry to miss the abundant feast almost as much as the conversations. The memory book is a delight and I will treasure it and the kind thoughts that embody it.
I am doing better every day although I am still on a walker[yuk] and my bionic knees have failed to reveal their super powers as of this writing. I am frustrated but live in hope. I have at least 3 more weeks of intense therapy and I am starting to pack up books and other stuff. I have a few books and as you might guess I am overwhelmed by the bounty I have collected over the past 40 years.
This month will be a test of grit and determination since I should be mostly moved if not unpacked by the end of it. Your good wishes and kind thoughts go a long way to helping me achieve the goal. In future I hope to have a more intellectually challenging posts but this is it for now. Be well. d

Thanks to all who came and made the May salon such a heart-, mind- and stomach-warming experience. I miss you all! Recipes for the new dishes are now in the “Recipes” section of the site. Particularly popular were the asparagus tartes and the zucchini-leek risotto. But why make it yourself? Just come back!