At various locations in the Earth’s oceans are superdeep trenches that plunge downward for miles.  For years scientists believed that the super-dark, super-cold trenches must be devoid of life, because no known life form could stand the immense pressures exerted by the miles of water overhead.  Now scientists are learning that they were wrong.  The trenches have lots of life — and it is pretty weird.

Recently, a team exploring the Kermadec trench off the coast of New Zealand found supergiant amphipods.  These crustaceans normally are about an inch long; the amphipods of the trench are more than 10 times larger.  They make “jumbo shrimp” look pretty, well, shrimpy.

These supergiant amphipods join other creatures that are known to live in the trenches.  They all show that life is hardy, tough, and will usually find a way to survive in even the most inhospitable habitats.

Discoveries like this should make us all curious about the possibilities of finding life on other planets and moons.  If amphipods can thrive in absolutely dark, intensely cold environments at pressures that would immediately crush a normal creature like an eggshell, why couldn’t creatures somehow find a way to survive in, say, the hot, heavy atmosphere of Venus or on one of Jupiter’s moons?

Return with me to a simpler time.  A time when politicians campaigned in top hats.  A time when votes could be had for the price of a few cigars or the completion of a few chores for Olive Oyl.  A time when a candidate battling over votes could slug his opponent on the jaw and punch him through the engine block of a tractor.

I wish a few of our modern presidential candidates, whether from the Spinach Party or the Blutocratic Party, would use their pipes to suck down and chew on a bit more spinach.

House has been one of my favorite shows since it began.  It’s still good, and it’s still one of the few shows that we automatically record on our DVR.  I’ll be sorry when it ends, but I also understand and appreciate the decision to bring the series to closure.  I hate watching favorite shows go inexorably downhill, sometimes to the point of embarrassment.  If the actors and writers and producers conclude that the creative string has been played out, as apparently is the case with House, I’m inclined to trust their judgment.

With the announcement of the series’ end, the question now becomes — how will it end?  There really haven’t been many great final episodes of TV shows, and often the final episode is awful.  I hope that the House crew resist the temptation to tie up all the loose ends, bring back House’s ex-wife Stacy, Cameron, and Cuddy for final bows, and have House cure Wilson of cancer.

Whatever else may happen, let House be House — in all his brilliant, miserable, appalling glory — to the inevitably bitter end.

Officials at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln admit that they’ve found bedbugs in student rooms and common areas in four dorms.  An article in the Lincoln Journal Star says the situation is “indicative of a growing wave of bedbugs in Lincoln.”  The college is using a bedbug-sniffing dog to try to locate the critters.

To make matters worse, some students believe the University tried to cover up the bedbug problem.  One intrepid student, after being bitten repeatedly on the neck by an apparently vampiric bedbug, captured one of the pests and took it to school officials — who promptly said it was dead.  The students says her resident director instructed her to put a sign on her door saying that her room was being remodeled to explain her absence from the room while it was being cleaned of the bedbugs.  The University denies that there was any attempted cover-up.

What?!?  Bedbugs in Big Ten dorms?  Hey, Nebraska — as the newbie in our conference, you need to understand that the esteemed institutions that make up the Big Ten have certain standards.  Cockroaches, bad food, excessive noise, childish behavior, and generalized filth in dorms is one thing, but bedbugs is where we draw the line!

Consider Neil Young, for example.  He’s been a fixture of the rock ‘n’ roll scene since the 1960s and has had successful musical releases in each of the intervening decades.  But, even by the high standards of his career, the 1970s were remarkable.  Consider the astonishing albums he produced during that magical decade:  After The Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), Tonight’s The Night (1975), Zuma (1975), American Stars ‘N Bars (1977), Comes A Time (1978), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979).  Many musicians would gladly claim what he produced during that single, prolific decade and call it an entire career.

And what a range!  He moved effortlessly from acoustic work that included all-time folk classics like Old Man (performed live below), Heart of Gold, and The Needle And The Damage Done, to country songs like The Old Country Waltz and Hey Babe, to crushing power rock, with Like A Hurricane and Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black).  He wrote great political anthems (Ohio), funny, boozy ballads (Saddle Up The Palomino), raggedy, ironic songs about losers (Tired Eyes) and long, dreamy ruminations about ancient civilizations (Cortez The Killer).

We can all be grateful for whatever it was that impelled Neil Young, again and again and again during the 1970s, to pick up his guitar or sit down at his piano and let his awesome creative juices flow.  As a diehard Neil Young fan, I can’t imagine what the music world would be like if he hadn’t done so, and I was left to face life alone, without songs like World on a String.  But I will always wonder — just what was it?

Only two days after hearing argument, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller dismissed a silly lawsuit brought by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that argued that five killer whales are subject to the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and were being held in “slavery” by Sea World.  The judge ruled, quite correctly, that the 13th Amendment applies only to humans, and stated:  “As ‘slavery’ and ‘involuntary servitude’ are uniquely human activities, as those terms have been historically and contemporaneously applied, there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans.”

PETA’s lawyer says the organization will now decide how to proceed, and presumably will consider whether to appeal the dismissal of the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — traditionally viewed as the most liberal of the various federal appellate courts.  If PETA decides not to appeal to that forum, it will tell us a lot about whether the whole purpose of the lawsuit was simply to elicit the publicity that PETA craves.

The case arose when the man failed to wish his wife a happy birthday.  They got into a fight, and she says he pushed her against a sofa and grabbed her neck.  The judge noted that the husband had no record and concluded the incident was “very , very minor.”  So, rather than setting a bond or requiring jail time, the judge ordered the husband to buy flowers and added, “then he’s going to go home, pick up his wife, get dressed, take her to Red Lobster. And then after they have Red Lobster, they’re going to go bowling.”  The couple also will be required to get counseling.

Grabbing someone’s neck doesn’t seem “very minor” to me — although, in fairness,  I haven’t heard the evidence or presided over countless domestic violence cases — and a husband who doesn’t remember his wife’s birthday has committed an unforgivable sin.

In any case, the sentence seems ill-advised on other grounds.  For example, why would you order a husband who has been accused of domestic violence to stoke up on fried foods at Red Lobster and then take his wife to a place where the guy will be provided with 16-pound projectiles and expected to hurl them with as much force as he can muster?

The case raises other questions, too.  Will the couple’s attorneys accompany them on the date?  (“Honey, I think I’ll order the Ultimate Feast.”   “Objection!  That’s the most expensive entree on the menu!”)  As between the generic dinner options available in suburban America, how did the judge decide that Red Lobster was more romantic than, say, Olive Garden or Outback Steakhouse?  And finally, how many people eating at Red Lobster on any given evening are there by reason of court-ordered punishment?

In Vermont, prisoners are responsible for producing the decals that are attached to the sides of the patrol cars.  The decals include some snow-capped mountains, a cow, and a pine tree, among other items — about what you would expect for Vermont.

One enterprising prisoner — perhaps named Andy? — decided it might be a good jest to tinker with the design.  So, he went into the computer file from which the decals were printed and changed one of the cow’s spots to give it a distinctly porcine appearance, no doubt humming Piggies from the Beatles’ White Album as he did so.  The State Police used the cars with the decals for months before somebody noticed the unwanted modification.

In view of this incident, the Vermont prison system might want to check to be sure that no prisoners are performing bookkeeping services for wardens or asking for a rock hammer and posters of Rita Hayworth and Raquel Welch.

After a series of games in which they shut down their opponents, the Buckeyes were porous indeed against Purdue. The Boilermakers’ fine coach, Matt Painter, figured out a high ball screen approach that consistently got Purdue players opportunities for easy layups and dunks or open three-pointers, and his players executed.  D.J. Byrd and Kelsey Barlow, in particular, seemed unstoppable — but the Buckeyes also seemed to be confused and a step behind on defense.

Offensively, the Buckeyes played a good game, ran well-designed set plays, and crashed the boards to get second-chance points.  With Jared Sullinger and Aaron Craft on the bench with foul trouble, the Buckeyes rode senior William Buford, and he carried them to victory with 29 points.  Equally important, the Buckeyes performed under pressure in a close game, sank free throws when they needed to, and executed with less than two minutes to go — which was a good thing, because Purdue continued to drain three-pointers until the very end.

The college basketball season is a long one.  As it progresses, teams can improve or regress, or be distracted by looking around at how others are doing.  Lots of Ohio State fans and TV commentators have talked recently about how the Buckeyes stack up against other highly ranked teams. Last night’s game just shows that such talk is pointless.  Ohio State doesn’t have Kentucky or Syracuse on its schedule. Instead, it’s only going to be playing Big Ten teams for a while — and as last night’s great Purdue performance showed, the Big Ten teams present plenty of challenges.

I’m sure Coach Thad Matta will be talking to the Buckeyes about learning from last night’s close call, redoubling their efforts on defense, and focusing exclusively on their next Big Ten game and giving a better performance.  And a better performance will be needed, too, because the Michigan State Spartans, who are battling the Buckeyes for the Big Ten lead, are coming to town on Saturday.

The incident involved two cars stopped at an intersection.  The drivers exchanged words — the police don’t know exactly what was said — then one of the drivers showed the other a gun.  When the threatened driver backed up, the driver with the gun leaned out of his car window and fired a shot.  Fortunately, he missed.

The article states that the police “cautioned people to be aware of letting verbal altercations escalate.”  No kidding!  But isn’t the big challenge of a road rage incident that you are dealing with a driver who is enraged and not thinking clearly?  No rational person would respond to any comment by a stranger in a nearby car by firing a shot.  How can you possibly predict whether the person who cut you off, or who you honked your horn at because he hasn’t moved after the light turns green, has just lost his job, broken up with his girlfriend, or experienced some other action that has driven him over the edge of reason?

I don’t argue with other drivers, and I try to avoid eye contact with people I think are driving erratically.  However, you can’t drive safely without interacting to some extent with other cars — and their potentially unbalanced drivers.  You just have to keep your fingers crossed and hope that you don’t run across someone who has lost it, is armed, and is ready to act out his frustrations.

Amazingly, Kasich got ripped for deciding to give the speech away from Columbus.  Some groups said it was a waste of time and money.  One liberal “think tank,” ProgressOhio, criticized him for “breaking 200 years of tradition and running away to a small venue in hopes that no one will make the effort to travel there.”

ProgressOhio’s status as a “think tank” must be self-proclaimed, because there clearly wasn’t much thought given to their knee-jerk opposition to Kasich’s decision to take the State of the State speech on the road.  Since when does ProgressOhio care about “200 years of tradition”?  There’s nothing magical about having the State of the State speech in Columbus.  If you asked most Ohioans about the issue, they wouldn’t care where the speech is delivered — or even whether it is given at all.

Steubenville is one of many Ohio cities that has struggled in the past few decades.  Why not give Steubenville some time in the limelight?  Why not do something simple that brings visitors to town, causes them to spend some money at local restaurants and businesses, and focuses some attention on the Steubenville story?

I thought Kasich’s decision to give his speech in Steubenville was a small, but inspired, action on his part.  The reflexive opposition of ProgressOhio and similar groups, on the other hand, reflects nothing but the tiresome partisan politics as usual that most of us have grown to despise.

Never let it be said that Penny is anything but genteel!

The lawsuit is pending in federal court in San Diego and purportedly was brought by five killer whales as the plaintiffs.  The court held a hearing yesterday to determine whether the lawsuit could proceed.  The BBC article above quotes the lawyer for the killer whales as saying:  “For the first time in our nation’s history, a federal court heard arguments as to whether living, breathing, feeling beings have rights and can be enslaved simply because they happen to not have been born human.  By any definition these orcas have been enslaved here.”

I was sorry to read these news articles, because the principal point of such lawsuits seems to be to attract media attention.  No rational person, or lawyer, could really contend that our constitutional protections were written to protect, or should be read to extend to, killer whales or any other animal.  But such provocative lawsuits allow advocacy organizations, for the price of a filing fee, to gain a platform from which to espouse their views and then hope that any resulting news coverage will encourage like-minded people who read such articles to contribute to the cause.

The news media would do us all a favor by ignoring this kind of legal grandstanding.  I suppose I should, too.

This AP article discusses some of the reaction to the ad from various points on the political spectrum and quotes Eastwood as saying the ad was not intended to be political, but rather just about job growth and the spirit of America.

Interestingly, some people apparently construed the ad to be a pro-President Obama endorsement of the federal government bailout of Chrysler and GM.  I guess I’m just dense, but I didn’t get that message if it was intended.  In fact, if I were the President I don’t think I would want that ad, with its emphasis on tough times and America needing to come from behind, to be associated with me.  If President Obama wants to highlight what he considers to be positive accomplishments during his term, you’d think he would be able to come up with a better subject than poor, broke, decimated Detroit.

I expect that the most talked-about commercial from the Super Bowl is the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood.

In the commercial, the gravelly voiced Eastwood says that just as it is halftime in the Super Bowl, it’s halftime in America, too.  Times are tough, he says.  We’re down and out of work, we don’t understand each other, and we’re stumbling in a fog of discord and recrimination.  But you can’t knock out America with just one punch.  We need to come together to figure out how to come from behind because the second half is ready to begin.  Detroit is showing us it can be done, Clint says.

Huh?  America as a whole is supposed to follow Detroit’s lead?  For the record, Detroit is on its knees.  The city is losing money and deeply in debt, and the city government and the state of Michigan are trying to figure out whether the city can avoid being governed by an emergency manager who would have the ability to revise union contracts, restructure government, and sell off city assets like parks.  I’m hoping Detroit can pull through, but let’s not kid ourselves — Detroit is no model and no inspiration.

I recognize that the Chrysler commercial provided an excuse to hear the welling music and to see the by-now-standard shots of courageous firefighters, mothers and children, and families standing strong.  But it cheapens our country and its circumstances to compare America to a football game, and it’s jarring to receive a commercial message about coming together and sacrifice in close proximity to an over-the-top Super Bowl halftime show featuring Madonna.

Can’t commercials just stick to selling products, rather than trying to send us irksome, ankle-deep inspirational messages about our country?