Happy Second Blogoversary Digital Cuttlefish

I envy the Digital Cuttlefish.

You may note that I often post links to their site – not just because they are incredibly insightful as a contemporary and astoundingly topical blogger (which they are), but because they are unique as a skeptic poet, a versifying science blogger who can intelligently tackle a range of topics from biology, physics, psychology and beyond… and is one of the best atheist poets who can turn a phrase like Darwin turning in his grave whenever another creationist museum pops up.

Don’t ask me, ask the likes of Greta Christina, Pharyngula, ReefTank, Blog Around The Clock (who has made their work winners of the poetry entry for not one but two previous Open Laboratory books), Finding the Right Words, Slobber and Spittle, Dem Bones Dem Bones, Living the Scientific Life, Science after Sunclipse and many many more who have recognised the Digital Cuttlefish’s ‘hiding in ink’ can only play at hiding their erudite ways. You don’t fool us, fishy.

Their output is unprecedented, their talent is unquestionable. Mind, they’re my best friend, so I am rather biased… I keep asking Science Blogs to consider adding them as a blogger. That’s a very strong hint, readers, especially since you’re already reading them regularly if you’re checking out the comments on the aforementioned Pharyngula… why not go all the way and let them be a part of such a site? *sigh*

Oh, and buy their book – Digital Cuttlefish Vol. 1.

Happy Blogoversary, Digital Cuttlefish. I hope people will go subscribe to their RSS and bloomin’ write into Science Blogs asking that they be considered as a contributor! \

Here’s one of my favorite poems by them: Evolutionary Biology Valentine’s Day Poem

In sociobiology,
Why I love you and you love me—
Which anyone can plainly see—
Is mostly in our genes.
No, not the ones you buy in stores,
But what a scientist explores–
I like the way you look in yours,
And you know what that means.

What subtly-coded stimulus
Takes you and me, and makes us “us”
And makes us feel ‘twas ever thus?
The list of suspects narrows.
No longer are we all a-shiver
From some Cupid with a quiver
Out of which he might deliver
Fusillades of Eros.

Nor Dopamine, nor Serotonin
Tell us why our hearts are moanin’
Though they serve to help us hone in
On–not why, but how;
The parasympathetic blush,
Adrenaline to bring a rush,
Are how, not why, I’ve got a crush
On you, my darling, now.

But if old Charles Darwin’s right,
The reason that the merest sight
Of you will always give delight
Is…reproductive fitness.
Throughout our species’ family tree,
Producing proper progeny
Is what determined you and me
And Darwin was the witness.

Is thinking that you’re oh so sweet
And how you’ll make my life complete
Some trick to make our gametes meet?
It seems it may be so.
I feel the way I feel today
Because some bit of DNA
Sees your genetics on display
And wants to say “hello.”

But think of this, for what it’s worth:
Millennia before my birth
That DNA had roamed the earth,
In residents thereof;
The neat thing is, it’s really true,
The feeling that I have for you
Although, of course, it feels brand-new
Is truly ageless love.

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