"Continent Plunged Into Darkness"

The humor magazine The Onion, master of framing silly stories in conventional newswriting language, portrays the ordinary fall of night as a bizarre national catastrophe. The story, in this week's issue, really tickles my innards. After the chuckling dies down, though, it also reminds me of something important in science, which is the ability to step back and look at things afresh. Maybe there's something extraordinary hidden behind the ordinary. Great scientific advances can produce a satisfying sense of amazement and dislocation, which at a deep level is akin to laughter.