Mad science is decadent and depraved

I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud while reading Monitor on Psychology. There happens to be a reason for this. Fortunately, there is an equally obvious solution: the APA should just publish more articles about planaria:

These results led McConnell to think more seriously about the chemical nature of memory. To test this notion, he needed to find a way to transfer the putative molecules from a trained to an untrained animal. But how? They tried to graft the head of a trained worm onto the tail of a naïve worm—but the head kept falling off.

Next, they tried grinding up trained worms and injecting them into naïve recipients, but that didn't work, either. The hypodermic needles were too big—getting one inside a flatworm was like trying to impale a prune with a javelin—and if, by chance, the needle was positioned well enough to inject the planarian-puree, it either oozed out or caused the worm to explode.

At Tea on Sunday, I got asked if I was a scientist or if I had been trained as one; the answer to both was no, unless you count messing around with slime mold and radio telescopes (not in the same high school project), but I could so go for some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know right now. Unfortunately, I have an early-morning non-mad doctor's appointment, so mostly I think I am going to go to bed.

That looks so many fathoms to the sea

This afternoon's mail brought my contributor's copy of Mythic Delirium #22, guest-edited by Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica Wick of Goblin Fruit. I think the illustration for "Heaven and Sea, Horatio" is one of the best I've received for a poem: white on black under the full moon, drowned Hamlet lies with his face in the running tide, a starfish on his shoulder, a crab crouched on his hand; behind him slants the darkened sea. (Credit goes to Don Eaves and Terrence Mollander. They rock.) But the most important thing in a poetry magazine is the words, and I particularly recommend those to be found in Shweta Narayan's "Cave-smell," Shawna Lenore Kastin's "The Anchorite's Song," Susan Slaviero's "Madame Blavatsky's Ghost Visits the White Dog Café," and Gemma Files' "Jar of Salts." Some of them are illustrated, some bring their own delirium. They'll cling inside your head regardless.