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Mixing It Up, Olympic Style

We are a few days away from Opening Ceremonies, stumbling and bumbling our way into a Games postponed a year and now without live spectators. But the athletes have waited and trained and practiced and now it’s Their Time.

Jasmine Blocker, USA, handing the baton to teammate, Obi Igbokwe, in the 4×400 m relay. Get ready for Mixed Gender Team events! Youtube Video by NBCSPorts.

There will be some changes for Tokyo 2020, not the least of which will be boxes of face masks and gallons of hand sanitizer. It’s not even really weird that the year these contests are being held is not the year they will be named (Wha? Not Tokyo 2021? Nope).

Consider that the Games of the VI Olympiad were in Berlin, in 1916. Didn’t know about those? They were cancelled because of World War I, but the IOC kept them in the official list. Whereas the IOC didn’t include the 1906 Games in Athens, which are now called the Intercalated Games, because the IOC didn’t run them. Whenever you wonder why the IOC is doing something out-of-touch with reality, just remember the VI Olympiad.

But these changes are exciting, so let’s discuss. Let’s talk about some of the new sports, the new Mixed Teams, and the new peoples we will see competing.

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Age Is Literally Only a Number

When I was younger, I could not imagine myself the age I am now. Not even if I could have morph-aged myself, a technology which was not available when I was younger.

Photo courtesy of PlaidZebra.com.

Today is my birthday, Bastille Day in France. I’ve never been to France on my birthday, but I have always enjoyed thinking of a vast celebration occurring on “my behalf.” In reality, if I went to France on my birthday while others were celebrating, they would probably shrug and continue celebrating Their Day (not My Day). It would be like being born on Christmas or New Year’s. No one would celebrate you because they are celebrating the other holiday. On second thought, remind me not to go to France on my birthday.

Birthdays Are Confusing

A well-wisher welcomed me into my sixth decade, and I thought, that sounds horrible. But no, it is my sixth decade, and I’m already digging it. The sixth decade is the beginning of the third triade, and it will be the best, no doubt.

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The Dino-calypse: Mexican, Ukrainian, or the Hindu God Destroyer?

The traumatized pachycephalosaurus! Photo from cdn.mos.

If you think I’m nuts about the Olympics, you should hear me talk about dinosaurs. All anyone needs to say is “antorbital fenestra,” and I swoon. Or “Chicxulub crater,” which is the impact site for the theoretical asteroid that hit 65 million years ago and wiped out most of life on earth, except for the tree shrews, from which all of us are descended. (We’ll have to save the tree shrews for another time.)

So you can imagine my excitement upon learning of the controversy between the Boltysh crater and the Chicxulub crater. Which came first? Apparently, there’s big money in being first because scientists from India are also claiming precedence.

Also, I learned the word “palynological,” which satisfies my Weird-Word-of-the-Month fetish.  It means “the study of live and fossil spores, pollen grains, and similar plant structures,” from the Greek palunein, which means “to scatter” as in dust or “pollen.”  Fern spores are very much in play here. And, for those of you with allergies, you now know that they are palynological.

Ok, so these dudes back in 2010 noticed this crater in the Ukraine called the Boltysh crater. The crater was “roughly” the same age as Chicxulub, and when we’re talking 65 million years, roughly can be mean +/- a million years, right? They were trying to be a bit more precise—in the 10,000 year range maybe—to see whether Boltysh came before or after Chicxulub.

There’s fame and fortune in the Dinosaur Demise!

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