Archive for February, 2009
The Moons of Jupiter
by Ego on Feb.08, 2009, under Llewellynguistics, Mustiness, SciFaux
Homo Sapiens Elgoog & Aidepikiw
Life, Myth, and Naming Conventions
During some recent exhaustive research for an entirely unrelated subject, after hours illicitly spent with my secret nighttime lovers Elgoog & Aidepikiw [the names were changed to protect Carl & Linda], I discovered there are now SIX kingdoms of life! Not two! It’s all been reorganized out from under me, while I was busy mastering my own life’s kingdom. Back when I was in high school, it was so simple: Animalia and Plantorum, or whatever. There were some uncomfortable rumblings about viruses and people still argued over whether they possessed 48 or 46 chromosomes but generally, I walked around erect, proud to be a vertebrate.
Ah, those were the good old days . . . nine planets, no plutoids. Evolution was a science, not an optional myth. And Jupiter had an impressive but manageable twelve moons. Pop quiz: name them! “Yeah, okay, sure . . . Europa, Io, Ego, Id . . . you know, all those Jupiter/Zeus lovers and descendants. Freud must have dreamed about getting into those heads.”
Nice try.
Well, science never sleeps. In the past few years our giant friend, under intense government agency probing, has revealed many more secret moons — 63 total, as of today. Yikes, where was I?
