Water, The Cosmic Nurterer

    One of the great mysteries of natural sciences is how water forms. We know it comes from hydrogen bonding with oxygen. Yet it has not been chemically created by humans in any lab on earth. We can invent quantum computers but not a single ounce of the most ubiquitous and vital substance on the planet. Nobody even knows why. It is thought that a great amount of energy is needed to fuse the two elements into an H2O molecule. Such energy may have only been capable when the sun was born, or the supernova that formed our stellar nursery beyond 5 billion years ago.
    Many scientists think water came to Earth from planetesimals that collided with it. They would have been made of ice from forming in the "freeze zone" beyond the sun's grasp. I don't believe this is the case because water vapor can be found on every planet, even the gas giants. It was everywhere in the Solar System as the Solar System was born. Steam even exists on the sun, in dark spots, which a Stanford study from 1997 showed. It is possibly a major component of stellar nurseries, being vital for their development- no different from its importance to eggs, seeds, and fetuses on planet Earth.

U.S. Life Expectancy: The Biggest Problem with an Aging Population

               As a population ages, pressure is placed on social welfare programs as older people outpace the labor force required to pay for them (Newbold, 95).  The cost of providing services for the aging population ends up being paid for by a smaller labor force.  This can threaten the stability of a country’s economy because more energy goes into supporting the elderly than it does for children and the next generation of workers.  As the elderly require a disproportionate share of medical services, it exacerbates the problem even more (ibid.).  With an inflated market, healthcare premiums may become too expensive for young people to afford insurance, impacting their own health.  Also, the younger generation may need to stay home longer to help care for older family members before they can begin a stable career.
              To improve the situation, the minimum age of eligibility for receiving Social Security, Medicare, and pension support should be raised.  In 1965, when the U.S. implemented these services for the elderly, life expectancy was only 70.2, leaving about five years of support after retirement.  In 2025, the U.S. life expectancy has reached 79.4 (Macrotrends)- a difference of 9.2 years.  It stands to reason that since life expectancy has increased by 9 years since these programs started, the minimum age of eligibility should be raised accordingly to about 74 years of age.  However, the government may want to set the bar lower to avoid a backlash- say at 70 years of age to start.  This will help cover the mounting costs of Social Security and Medicare that weren’t accounted for when the programs started, and life expectancy was a lot lower.
 
Sources:
Macrotrends.  U.S. Life Expectancy 1950-2025.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/life-expectancy
Newbold, K. Bruce.  2021. Population Geography: Tools and Issues. Rowman & Littlefield. Lanham, Maryland

Emerald Cannonball

  The dam burst from El Nino's downpour. Rapids swelled like a rush of oil to the piston. The green boat soared with buoyancy off the sunburnt flanks, blasted down the darma hall of unparalleled vastness, angled skyward to defy the sirens of vertigo. Through the canyon it maneuvered in record time, manned by a maniac who spoke to spirits that certified immunity from death. In danger he found peace, losing himself in endurance the way distance runners conquer mountains. His victory was the canon, grandest of them all, seventh wonder of the world that bejewelled the west, last in a series of unpolished trophies.

Armada of Coral

 Deepest fathoms of Caribbean sapphire
 Reveal a diver's paradise off the Spanish main
 Littered by jolly buccaneer shipwreck
 That dusted the murky bottom to shine.
 With mass of color that burned the eye
 To tye-dye gunwales covered by sea garden,
 Where glass fish meandered through cabins
 That light had forsaken to the abyss.
 The divers swam through that lost city
 Mesmerized by the broken landscape
 Supporting new life, miniature biomes
 Consecrated from wood and bone,
 A buried treasure of human remains
 For the sea to claim as its own.
 She was reborn there in the calm
 Undulating currents of the manta rays
 Summoning the graveyard into a nursery,
 Hoping that someday, once her time is done,
 That she could complete the circle of life
 By ending it there, by becoming a reef.

The Sound of Heaven

    Between the numbers I found mountains slammed by cannonball that the organ fired from angry pipes. A dangling sax tap danced on crystals bisected once the band split. I couldn't remember the equation, but I knew the answer anyway, so I worked backwards, doing everything in reverse algebra. A whistle came from the background, a lonely harmonica drowsy with sleep that dawn spliced open the rainbow with. As I sat there in school, bored to tears, the echo of a traipsing piano ambled up the paper, fermenting facts and figures into waxed memory. The vision was clear, and I became one with the sound. My classmates looked at me askew, an outsider with a broken pencil, who instead of hearing the lecture could only hear heaven.