Biochar is a product that can store large amounts of carbon for centuries, a concept scientists are looking into in order to reduce the carbon footprint of humanity. It is made from “burning” biomass in the absence of oxygen and can be added to soil to increase agricultural productivity. There is evidence that Pre-Colombian Amazons created biochar by covering smoldering plant matter in a pit beneath a layer of dirt which would prevent the flow of oxygen. Little did they know their efforts to grow plants more effectively would be researched far in the future in order to fight climate change, a cause that has direct effects on the land they called home.

There was a movie called The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, that came out in 1979. It describes the aftermath of a nuclear meltdown and how parts of the reactor melted through the earth and all the way to China. What’s crazy about this, and what I never knew until I listened to Enlightment Now by Steven Pinker, was that the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster happened less than two weeks later. How crazy is that?!

A potlatch was essentially a gift-giving feast common in the pacific northwest before a ban by the Canadian government made the practice illegal.

Hearing this word in Enlightment Now by Steven Pinker immediately transported me back to a book I read when I was younger. It was about one man who went to live among, and learned to appreciate, the culture of the indigenous people. I remember he traveled there by boat and lived close to the river but other than that I don’t remember any other details. The name of the book escapes me and I spent quite a while searching for the title. I know that it was required reading in elementary/middle school. If anyone has any idea about which book this could be please let me know!

There are multiple mentions of von Neumann probes in The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku. This hypothetical probe could be the way that humans branch out into the stars. These self-replicating spacecrafts would go to a distant planet and use any raw materials present to generate copies of itself which could then be sent out to even more distant planets. It’s easy to see how one probe that is capable of making one thousand copies of itself could each send a copy into space to make one thousand more copies, again and again over large time scales which would allow humanity to have an outpost or, at the very least, radio contact across the galaxy and eventually the universe.

There is a French saying, L'esprit de l'escalier (the wit of the staircase) that means to think of the perfect reply too late. Made me think of the Simpson’s episode where the perfect comeback hits Marge as she drives away from the gas station. I believe it was from the episode where she buys a Chanel suit and joins a country club called "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield."

The Second law of thermodynamics states that the overall entropy of the system increases over time. Entropy is, more or less, energy dispersal. It is the reason a glass of ice water will eventually reach the same temperature of the room around it.

In his book Enlightment Now, Steven Pinker uses this law to claim that even if scientists are able to prevent cell death and therefore increase the average lifespan of humans entropy will be there to affect whatever prevention exists. Coupled with the fact that random, unforeseen events could cause death and it becomes clear that perpetual immortality is not possible.