Re: OT: Rings around Uranus, rings around Uranus!

Yeah...

Did anyone bother looking up "brachiopod", which I really thought was
the current name for the big vegetarian dino (assuming *that* part is
still true; it *was* in Jurassic Park 2 IIRC)?

It's like the tiniest aquatic sea-shell organism in the pre-historic
sea. Could I have been any more wrong? Hah! That's why I left that bit
in... the real name is "Apatosaurus" (IIRC), which to me sounds like
"Hepatosaurus", which is also funny for those of us with somewhat
medical heritages.. I can just imagine a big old liver-shaped (and
-colored) dino... science is funny sometimes.

The *sad* part is that Mel's right; everything I learned about
chemistry and medicine (well, the cutting-edge stuff) has changed. And
I'd forgotten most of the rest within 5 years of leaving school (in
large part due to being forced to teach incredibly watered-down
pabulum).

With my BS degree alone (undergrad), I doubt I could really have taught
chemistry... they just don't get to the serious stuff (the why's) until
graduate school, which is a shame. College merely turns out technicians
somewhat able to follow directions and recipes without appreciating why
things are done the way they are, or how they happen.

At least that's how it was at my old school, and even *that* was ten
times more rigorous academically than the branch campus at which I
ended up a professor (an infamous "open admissions" policy college).
Heck, when I was applying to grad schools in chemistry while already
taking advanced courses my senior year (with graduate students), I was
told to NOT apply to UC, because even our *graduate* school is known as
a watered-down program... and they knew I had the desire to go for
more. An "A" there equalled a "C" elsewhere, and employers hired
accordingly.

When I moved back home after leaving Merck, and applied at a local
research lab (Hoffman-LaRoche), they told me they were surprised at my
experience and knowledge, having graduated from UC as an
undergraduate... said they got to the point they don't even look at
applicants from UC anymore because they don't know diddly about
chemistry. Sheesh.

As hard as I'd worked personally as an undergrad at UC, I just about
killed myself my first year of grad school at Michigan, from trying to
keep up with my classmates, they all had such stronger undergraduate
educations. That's part of the reason why I transfered to Texas after
my first year, where the academics were a bit easier -- closer to those
of UC. Fortunately, Merck hired from Texas, not Michigan, because of
research contracts they had with UT (but not UM). So I ended up making
the right choices (or rather, I got real fortunate). ;~)

You'd *think* Merck would want the smarter chemists... When they had a
special chemistry seminar at Merck, the speaker they brought in was my
young prof from Michigan, not Texas. It was just political; Texas did
research for Merck, which then hired its graduates. Michigan did the
same for Warner-Lambert and other pharmaceutical firms in their circle
of influence.

UD law school ended up being similar, but by that time (30years old and
FMS-crippled), I was willing to take what I could get... then regretted
it within weeks of that debacle starting. When my classmates showed up
for class in sandals and Burmuda shorts, having done no preparation for
classes, I knew I'd made a bad choice.

Anyway, I've talked myself to sleep...

Nanny wrote:
> yuk, yuk, yuk! Oops, sorry Randy. You ARE smiling, aren't you? ;-) Nanny
> "Mel" <mel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:Du1rf.9131$3Z.1427@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Hey fran...... could we assume that Randy and your hubby I guess are from
> > the *dark ages*? LOL
> > Melissa ;-)
> > "fran" <fmc116@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:1135368922.993504.188640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> << And what we once called a "Brontosaurus"
> >> is now "correctly" named a "Brachiopod" or "Hepatosaurus" or something
> >> like that... as if someone found a name label in one of the extinct
> >> dinosaur's knit cardigans. >>
> >>
> >> Aha!! Randy, have you been in secret contact with my husband? This is
> >> one of his pet peeves. How all the stuff he learned in school, (of
> >> course it was in the dark ages) has been revised and renamed! And now
> >> you come up with a plausible reason, of course dinosaur's had to wear
> >> sweaters it would have been cold after the big bang wouldn't it?
> >> That's another theory we knew nothing about, when we were kids. There
> >> is way to much science that has changed since we were young.--fran
> >>
> >
> >

.

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