JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post  Daily Dose from Dr. Odd

[Source: Popular Mechanics, October, 1930]

I’m looking for post #2000–this isn’t it.  It is however Quick Post #450 or so, which means that we’re closing in on 2,500 overall posts in this blog since 2008.  But there should be something with a little more flavor than baby tanning for #2000. 

This is a good/appropriate installment for the Daily Dose from Doctor Odd series.  As ideas go, it is not a very good one–but it is not among the Dantean 9th-level-worst.  If we classify bad ideas on a six-point Major-Minor scale, from MajorMajor to Major to MinorMajor and then to MajorMinor and then Minor and finally MinorMinor, this one would probably rank at the MinorMajor level. Or maybe even a full Major.  It is a bad idea.  (An example, by the way, of a full MajorMajor bad idea would be the electropunk centrifugal birthing patent machine, described earlier on this blog, here. Okay, here’s another:  on draining the Mediterranean Sea, here.)

There are less invasive ways of ensuring that the correct baby is delivered to the correct parent(s) than tanning the baby’s name onto their body–which doesn’t of course take into account the instances where the baby’s skin is too dark or whatever to be tanned.  But the idea of subject a brand-new baby to a tanning lamp as  its welcome to the world seems a bit–what?–horrible. Exposure to ultraviolet rays that will cause a six-month brand sounds like it might stir up the melanosome pot to cause damage to organs other than the skin, that it could have been a real assault on the DNA.  Also, that metal object on the table looks a lot like a clamp–I hope it wasn’t.