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Further Science Adventures from North Carolina

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


In North Carolina, as you well know, we like our science with a side of crazy. The old Flying Burrito Brothers tune says, “The scientists say it’ll all wash away, but we don’t believe them anymore,” and we love our country music here, so we made quite a splash with the legislative nuh-unhs about sea level rise a while back. If you recall, we tried to make measuring it illegal.

Now state senator David Rouzer, the same knucklehead behind that legislative enterprise against scientific measurement, wants to simply do without (“devolve,” as he could not possibly have put it better, given the antiscience context) – the Department of Energy. Not because, say, NC doesn’t have a thriving and growing wind energy industry (10,000-plus expected megawatts by 2030); not because we aren’t on the bleeding edge of the fracking controversy; not because we don’t have a biofuels industry; not because the NSF-funded NC State University-led FREEDM Center isn’t leading the way into the Smart Grid future.

No – Rouzer wants to “devolve” the Department of Energy because … well, let him tell it: “When I went over to the Department of Energy one day, you walk down the hall and most of them who are drawing 6-figure salaries are sitting there reading books.” Books! Do I need to remind you that starts with “B” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool? You start reading books and it’s only a step from books to thinking, which leads to reason, which leads to logic, which leads to scientific theories about things like evolution or climate change. And this is North Carolina, where we don’t hold with such. I mean, how far from that is, say, hug dancing?


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Okay, sorry. Carried away a bit.

Fortunately, we have other science stories here, with good news outcomes and a connectivity theme, though, sad to say, they also center on some good old North Carolina dumbassery. To begin: turns out while Jonathan Moss was on his honeymoon, some knucklehead burglarized his apartment. Moss’s landlord emailed him the news, and Moss got busy. He used his iPad to turn on the Prey software he’d downloaded onto his MacBook. The MacBook then began taking pictures of the guy who had the laptop and telling Moss exactly where it was. Moss went to the police in Aruba; they called police in Raleigh, who went to knucklehead’s house and got the laptop.

And that’s interesting because Moss was in Aruba at the time. Much scarier was this crime spree, which started with three knuckleheads stealing an iPhone. An iPhone, of course, is highly trackable, so while the police were tracking it they were able to document the whereabouts of said knuckleheads, which appears to connect them with several other robberies – they took pizza! -- robbery attempts, and a shooting. Once the phone stopped moving around, police went to its location and found the knuckleheads. No word, regrettably, on the condition of the pizza.

So, anyhow. Our legislature remains committed to leading the world in science- and learning-related dumbassery, but our citizenry seems perfectly capable of using technology – especially connectivity – to improve the lives of all North Carolinians, save the knuckleheads. I draw no conclusions. But if you come to visit us in North Carolina, don’t let the legislators see you reading any books. And make sure you have your tracking devices turned on.

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

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