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.
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