The boys--Morris, in particular--have expressed an interest in magic tricks, so, I ordered a book of "simple" tricks, in hopes of quickly learning a few and then teaching them. Well, the tricks are indeed simple enough in theory, but quite difficult to actually perform effectively, requiring considerable dexterity, poker-faced deceptiveness, and practice. My respect for magicians is enormously increased.

I know what YOU are doing at this precise instant.

I'm going through Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish. It's a surprisingly rich account of recent findings in paleobiology, and quite accessible to the non-scientist, without being too simplistic and obvious. Professionals will find it too familiar, I daresay, but others will profit.

Among the things I've learned thusfar is how predation seems to account for the evolution of bodies. It seems that when unicellular microbes began to engage in predation, they used chemical bonds to attach themselves to prey. This led to the use of this same attachment mechanism for connecting cells to form larger collectives, which were then less vulnerable to predation, since getting bigger is an effective way to avoid being eaten.

As a philanthrope, it gives me pause to reflect how brutality thus served our very genesis.