Proper Food & Nutrition

I need two volunteers for this story. What is your name? Jaime. And yours? Julia.

Now, Jaime and Julia, hold out your hands. I am going to shake a few grains of table salt in your hands. Now, with your other hand pick up one grain of salt between your thumb and fore-finger. Get the feel of how small it is. And all of you out there, imagine that you have a grain of salt between your thumb and your fore-finger.

That's how big you were when you came into the Biosphere. That is the size of a human fertilized egg.

That fertilized egg had all the information inside it needed to bring Jaime and Julia to where they are now, and to take them to where they will be in ten years. Isn't that fantastic? You could put all the computers of the world together and they couldn't even begin to do that.

If I happened to meet Julia on the street when Julia was a fertilized egg, I might say: "Oh, Hi Julia! How are you?"

But would that have been the right thing to say? When Julia was a fertilized egg was she a person or a blueprint, or perhaps a recipe — a coded description of how to make a person. You might want to reflect on that. It is an important issue today.

Here is the question. I have a prize for the best answer. How long do you think it took to put that information on how to make Julia or Jaime inside the fertilized egg? Only the answers I repeat will count.

One week. Two weeks. Three months. Nine months — oh, nine months is something else. Nine months is the average time it takes to grow from a fertilized egg to the birth of a baby. My question was how long it took to put the information in the egg in the first place. A second. A million years. Two seconds. Never!

Who said a million years? Would you come to the front? Yours was the closest guess. Your name is...Jaime. Before I give the prize to Jaime, let me tell you what scientists say: 4.6 billion years! That is the age of the Earth. First there had to be Earth, then life, then humans.

If it took 4.6 billion years to put you here, you must be very intelligent. Right? So, if I do as you do, I am sure it must be okay.

[Johnny brings in a half-dead plant in a pot on a tray.]

Here, you can wipe the salt off onto the tray. Julie, you hold one side. Jaime, you hold the other.

Last night I went to the corner store to get some milk for breakfast. I saw this lovely plant in the store, and I just fell in love with it. But, when I brought it home I saw that the poor thing had not been receiving its proper food and nutrition. So, taking my lead from what I see you doing, I went back to the store and bought some food for the plant.

[Johnny crunches sour cream and onion potato chips over the plant.]

Was that a nice thing to do to the plant? [No!] This plant needs something else. What is it? [Water!] Again, taking my lead from you, I went to the store for some water. [Johnny pours a can of cola over the plant.]

Was that a nice thing to do to the plant? [No!] What is going to happen to this plant? [It will die!] Unless someone here would volunteer to save it. [All hands go up.]

Is there a teacher in your school who is particularly good with plants? Senora Gomez? Senora Gomez, would your class be able to bring this plant back to life? Good, you will try. I will leave it by the door so that everyone can have a good look at it on the way out. Please assign a student to take the plant from there to your class.

Julia and Jaime, here is a balloon for each of you. Thank you for the good work you have done.

Did you get the message? If you eat ten packages of chips every day, fourteen chocolate bars, and drink twenty colas you are going to grow up looking like junk food. It took 4.6 billion years to put you here. You are intelligent. Look after yourself. Proper food and nutrition. Lots of exercise. Good habits.