Dead Drop: April 3

WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?  Maybe we need to quit reading these myth busting websites – because they are full of stuff we didn’t know we should have been worrying about.  For example – snopes.com tells us that it is not true that government officials created COVID-19 in order to distract us from the fact that a doomsday asteroid is about to strike the earth.  Ah, comforting.  We don’t have to worry about all of us dying – because we are distracted about most of us dying. Turns out there may be an asteroid in our neighborhood – but NASA figures it will miss us by 4 million miles. When it comes to interplanetary objects – that is an appropriate social distancing. Where did the crazy doomsday asteroid distraction idea come from? It may trace back to a guy who goes by the name “Scott W.” who claimed to be a “retired CIA agent” and revealed his insights in the place all former CIA officers go – Facebook.

SPEAKING OF ROCKET SCIENTISTS:  Dr. Daniel Reardon, an Australian astrophysicist, was hospitalized recently after getting four magnets stuck up his nose.  Don’t you hate it when that happens?  Reardon normally focuses on pulsars and gravitational waves – but he was bored while enduring self-isolation – so he decided to invent a device that would remind people not to touch their faces.  The Guardian says he was trying to create a necklace that would sound an alarm when the wearer touched his or her face. The story contains a lengthy explanation from Dr. Reardon about what the heck he was thinking when he shoved the devices up his nose as part of the process. No, this is not an April Fools item.  We kid you, snot.