Thunderous

For the second time in as many weeks, we've had horror movie thunderstorms. Flashes of light followed by huge, explosive cracks, sheeting rain, long rolls of sound that go on and on... In my barely awake state around 7:00 am this morning, I found myself thinking, "Wow, that's really thunderous."

Well, duh. It's thunder.

;;;;;

In the cosmic coincidence category, I mentioned in my last post that I was lecturing about Otto Loewi's discovery of chemical neurotransmission on Friday. And that little science story was mentioned later that night on the season premier of Numb3rs. Eerie. I'll have to ask my students if any of them caught it.

Speaking of Numb3rs, I had previously made fun of the show for the lead character, Charlie Epps, being a professor at what seemed to me to be a ridiculously young age (26, when most academics are about half-way through grad schools). I have since learned, courtesy of the ever informative Science Show, that Epps is based on Caltech's Alexei Borden, who became a full professor at the age of... you guessed it... 26.

Math careers just aren't like biology, I guess.

Numb3rs is just one fraction (pun intended) of the reason why, in America, Friday is becoming the biggest night for TV geeks since X-Files left Fridays. Not only do we have Numb3rs, one of the few shows featureing academic science, but there's the amazing Avatar: The Last Airbender. Weeks to come will see the return of the revived Battlestar Galactica, and best of all, the second season of the new Doctor Who series. My geek cup runneth over.