the RAPTOR Fall 2013 About the Editor Risa Gearhart-Serna is a current sophomore at Mills College, working towards attaining a B.S. degree (for now) in Ecological Theory and Practice (Biology), although her major interests also include public health issues and Epidemiology, global nutrition and equality, and public policy. She is a student government officer, chairing a Judicial Committee currently in the process of reworking an entire Constitution and passing resolutions on transgender equality and conflict-free initiatives on campus. She also works with survey data for the college and is a writing tutor. She is excited for scarf and sweater weather and for the dispersion of this zine. She certainly had a blast putting it together. Thanks x ∞ Within This Issue: What’s Your True Color? A Revolutionary New Personality Test! 10 Life Tips from the Dalai Llama Person of the Issue: Nelson Mandela The Molecules of Womanhood: A Scientific Truth The Order of Life: Why It Can Become More Structured & Complex Humans on Mars in 10 Years + Art, Poetry, Jokes, Shakespeare, Foodscapes, Comets, Sustainability Ventures, Sweet Potatoes, and other flapdoodle! Word of the Issue CONGLOBATE (v): To assume a globular shape (e.g., a pill bug)
Transcript
the RAPTOR
Fall 2013
About the Editor
Risa Gearhart-Serna is a current sophomore at Mills College, working towards attaining a B.S. degree
(for now) in Ecological Theory and Practice (Biology), although her major interests also include public
health issues and Epidemiology, global nutrition and equality, and public policy. She is a student
government officer, chairing a Judicial Committee currently in the process of reworking an entire
Constitution and passing resolutions on transgender equality and conflict-free initiatives on campus.
She also works with survey data for the college and is a writing tutor. She is excited for scarf and
sweater weather and for the dispersion of this zine. She certainly had a blast putting it together.
Thanks x ∞
Within This Issue:
What’s Your True Color? A Revolutionary New Personality Test!
10 Life Tips from the Dalai Llama
Person of the Issue: Nelson Mandela
The Molecules of Womanhood: A Scientific Truth
The Order of Life: Why It Can Become More Structured & Complex
Sustainability Ventures, Sweet Potatoes, and other flapdoodle!
Word of the Issue
CONGLOBATE (v): To assume a globular shape (e.g., a pill bug)
TRUE COLORS PERSONALITY TEST
True Colors Personality Test sorts people into four categories; namely Orange, Gold, Blue, and Green, which loosely correspond to the original four categorizations created by Plato regarding human interactions and personalities (in 428 B.C.) TO TAKE THE TEST:
1. Rank each grouping of three words from 1-4 BY ROW (there are five rows).
2. Once you have finished all five rows, total the scores from each column in the “total” boxes.
3. The column for which you have the highest total is your PRIMARY COLOR. Second-highest is your SECONDARY COLOR, and so on. If two columns are tied, you are equal parts of both of those colors (not uncommon). Δ
TRUE COLORS COLOR DESCRIPTIONS
ORANGE - generates an impulse toward active doing: sport, struggle, competition and enterprising productivity. In temporal terms, Orange is the present. Famous Oranges: JFK, Amelia Earhart, Lucille Ball, Rhett Butler, FDR, Francis of Assissi, Lee Iacocca, Winston Churchill, Garfield GOLD - reflects a need to belong through carrying a share of the load in all areas of living. It represents stability, maintenance of the culture and the organization, efficiency, and dependability. It embraces the concepts of home and family with fierce loyalty and faithfulness. Famous Golds: Mother Teresa, George Washington, Santa Claus, LBJ, Joan Rivers, Henry Ford, Florence Nightingale BLUE - represents loyalty and a sense of belonging, and yet, when friends are involved, a vulnerability. Blue corresponds to depth in feeling and a relaxed sensitivity. It is characterized by empathy, aesthetic experiences, and reflective awareness. Famous Blues: Mozart, Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), Thomas Jefferson, Cinderella, Ghandi, Mohammed Ali, Jimmy Carter GREEN - characteristics seek to increase the certainty of their own values through being assertive and requiring differences from others in intellectual areas. They are rarely settled in their countenance, since they depend upon information rather than feelings to create a sense of well-being. Green expresses the grounding of theory and data in its practical applications and creative constructs. Famous Greens: Socrates, Sherlock Holmes, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Jung, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt, Katherine Hepburn, Rosalyn Carter
NO COLOR IS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER COLOR. WE
EACH HAVE OUR OWN UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS
*The information on this page and the chart on the previous page were sourced externally *
PERSON OF THE ISSUE
Not just anyone gets a nationally recognized 95th birthday in which people dedicate their time to public service to honor your 67 years of work towards equality and anti-apartheid policies. Then again, former South African President Nelson Mandela isn’t just anyone. As one of the most the most recognized historical figures in promoting peace, he has survived immense prejudice and governmental monitoring, banishment, a 27-year imprisonment, and a society and policy system bent on oppressing his people. Someone who is able to do all of that and win a Nobel Peace Prize is surely deserving of a kick-ass 95th birthday. Though he is finally recovering slowly but steadily, the current South African President Jacob Zuma’s office said in a statement that they are uncertain when he will be able to leave the hospital where he was admitted on June 8th with a lung infection. So let us all take a moment to honor Nelson Mandela’s place on this Earth as an international peacekeeper and a symbol of hope, transformation, and equality. He is the epitome of Ubuntu. Δ
NOTABLE QUOTES
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.” “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
COUNTDOWN 10. “Be gentle with the earth.” 9. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.” 8. “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” 7. “Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.” 6. “Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.” 5. “Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.” 4. “Spend some time alone every day.” 3. “When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.” 2. “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” 1. “Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
*Put together by the Ririan Project*
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try
sleeping with a mosquito.”
“Tranquil Reflections” by Roderick MacIver
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he
sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die,
Dan Quayle “What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.” “It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” “Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us.” “The future will be better tomorrow.”
Yogi Berra “A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.” “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” “The future ain't what it used to be.” “It ain’t over til it’s over.” “I never said most of the things I said.”
What’s Brown and sticky? A stick.
Two fish were swimming when one of them ran into a concrete wall. It turns to the other fish and says "dam".
Two fish are in a tank. One says to the other; "How do you drive this thing?"
Two soldiers are in a tank. One says to the other; "BLURRGUBRULBLGLURLGULB"
Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the ‘p’ is silent.
SOME REALLY AWESOME JOKES
5 AWESOME SHAKESPEARIAN INSULTS FOR EVERYDAY LIFE
1. Thou cream-faced loon 2. Thou art as loathesome as a toad 3. I do desire we be better strangers 4. Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool, and a coward 5. There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune
FUN FACT! The typical lead (graphite) pencil can draw a line that
is thirty five miles long
Photo Credit to the Editor
THE ORDER OF LIFE
Ever wonder how, like the picture of a Buttercup Root cross-section, life can be
so complex yet so structured? How everything looks so neat and tidy when you
really look at it? This phenomenon seems to go against the 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics, which states that the entropy, or disorder, of the universe is
constantly increasing. So how can things become more organized when they are
supposed to become more chaotic? The explanation is actually very simple.
In the specific context of molecules and other small-scale parts, water molecules
are constrained around hydrophobic (water-fearing) parts. By decreasing the
surface area of those parts that is exposed to the water, however, more water
molecules are allowed to flow freely and unconstrained. When we look at the net
reaction of this occurrence, we see that the increased organization of the
hydrophobic parts – which join together to decrease their surface area – actually
leads to an increase in disorder for the water molecules, and since there will
always be many water molecule in an aqueous solution, this actually creates a net
increase in disorder for the entire event.
In a general context, this means that the increased structure/organization of one
system is paid for by the increased disorder of a larger system, which proves that
the entropy of the universe is continuously increasing! Cool, huh!?
Biology Fun Fact There are approximately 800,000-1
million species of insects which
scientists have identified, and they
estimate that at any given moment,
there are approximately a billion
billion insects sharing the planet
with us! That works out to about
170 million individual insects on this
planet per person (for a 6 billion
person planet, which has changed to
over 7 billion at this point! Yikes!
HUMANS ON MARS IN 10 YEARS
“If we can land a man on the moon, why can’t we…”
…bulid a human colony on Mars?
Well, no one said we couldn’t! And now, an emerging new company called MarsOne, an
apolitical dutch-based company comprised of space and engineering professionals from
all over the world and funded by private investors, has made it their collective misión to
inhabit the red planet, starting in the year 2023. Sound crazy? Keep Reading.
THE REALITY PART The MarsOne team began accepting applicants for six groups of four astronauts – there will only be four primary settlers - in April of 2013 (this year!). Within the first two weeks of its launch, they received more than 78,000 registrations for its Astronaut Selection Program. THE VISION PART Future-settler astronauts will be required to complete eight years of training, followed by a rigorously difficult 7-8 month journey to Mars. Once there, they will live in specially made living-pods (pictured below), connected to each other by tubes. Outside explorations will require a special outside suit and gear.
Every two years, four new astronauts will arrive at the colony. This means that much of the astronaut colony’s time will be spent on construction and expansion of the colony, as well as on research. MarsOne plans to power the colony using solar panels and expand it using materials the astronauts find on Mars and deem fit for use. THE SCARY PART Not everyone is everjoyed at the thought of leaving our planet for one many times more hostile and dangerous to live on with the same few people day by day. Though the astronauts may someday be able to return home once the colony is well-established, these first astronauts must face the facts that, after just a few years on Mars, the variations in pressure and conditions they must endure will physically prohibit them from EVER COMING HOME. But, to some people, this is a dream come true.
SEPTEMBER WAS CHICKEN MONTH! And, as you can imagine, I was very excited about this. Don’t like these feathery creatures?
WELL YOU’RE JUST FOWL! ;D
PUBLIC AWARENESS
OCTOBER is SQUIRREL AWARENESS MONTH! As there are more Squirrels on my campus than actual
students, this will not be hard to observe. However, they are fluffy and have bushy tails, they run funny, and I just learned this awesome fact about them: Gray squirrels forget where
they bury their acorns during scatter hoarding, which scientists say is actually the main way oak and other hardwood forests
grow and spread. GO, SCIURINAE’S, GO!
NOVEMBER IS SWEET POTATO AWARENESS MONTH! And, according to Recipes.com, there are
And just as I Need every bit Of me to make My body fit,
So Earth needs Grass and stone and tree And things that grow here
Naturally.
That's why we Celebrate this day. That's why across The world we say: As long as life, As dear, as free, I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
~Jane Yolen
SUSTAINABILITY
CliO PET
A CliO pet is “A virtual green pet who responds with your low-carbon lifestyle choices”, and has won popular choice (at large) for the Shifting Cultures for a Changing Climate section in this year’s Climate CoLab contest. CliO was created by students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and stands for Climate Organism – “CliO is a virtual green pet who responds positively to the user taking actions to make his/her everyday life more climate- and environmentally-friendly. The user takes real life actions, which in turn correspond to five categories of activities for CliO: food, sleep, school, exercise, and fun.”
To learn more: http://player.vimeo.com/video/68395381
BOSCO VERTICALE Also known as Vertical Forest, this project is part of BioMilan development, in which trees are integrated into the exterior structure of a skyscraper apartment building and contribute to the building’s heating and cooling and CO2 emissions. The building will support 900 trees that are approximately 30 feet in height, “supporting the same amount of plant life that on land would require an area equal to 10,000 square meters”. And so begins the merging of architecture and horticulture…
When you’re feeling small and insignificant against the vastness of the Universe, just boil some water and think to yourself “I’m breaking Hydrogen bonds right now.
AWESOME.”
If that doesn’t work, meditate! My favorite meditation mantra: “Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.” (from Zen Master Sono)
COMET AHOY! Amateur astronomers have found
their most recent project in
photographing the path of the new
ISOM Comet to the sun, which is set
to make a close encounter on
November 28th (Thanksgiving Day)
of this year. This is ISON’s first visit
to the inner solar system, and it is
unclear whether or not the icy mass
will be destroyed by solar fire.
Although it can only be seen at
present by, at the very least, small
backyard telescopes, if it survives long
enough the northern hemisphere
should be able to recognize its tail in
the morning and evening skies, no
telescope required. So keep a look out!
ASTRONOMY
Comet ISON Photo taken with a 12-inch telescope in
