PASSAGE I

Bar Codes: A Linear History

[1]

In 1948, graduate (1) students, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, took on a problem that had troubled retailers for years: how to keep track of store inventories. Inspired by the dots and dashes of Morse code, (2) however, Woodland and Silver created a system of lines that could encode data. Called a symbology, the pattern created by the spacing and widths of the lines encodes information by representing different characters.

[2]

The first bar code was composed of four white lines set at specific (3) distances from each other on a black background. The first line was always present. [4] Depending on the presence or absence of the remaining three lines, up to seven different arrangements were  (5) susceptible and, therefore, seven different encodings. Today, twenty-nine white lines (6) making more than half a billion encodings possible.

[3]

To create a barcode scanner, Woodland and Silver adapted technology from an optical movie sound system. Their prototype scanner used a 500-watt bulb, a photomultiplier tube (a device that detects light), and an oscilloscope (a device that translates electronic signals into readable information). Although successful,  the (7) concoction was both large and costly. (8) For example, progress stalled until the 1970s, when laser technology (both more compact and less expensive) became available.

[4]

In today’s scanners, a laser sends light back and forth across a bar code. While the black lines absorb the light, the white lines reflect (9) it back at a fixed mirror inside the scanner. In this way, the scanner reads the symbology and decodes the information.

[5]

[10] Today, (11) being that there are one- and two-dimensional bar codes using numeric and alphanumeric symbologies. Bar codes are used not only for a pack of gum or an airline ticket but also for research. In one study, for instance, tiny barcodes (12) were placed on bees tracking their activities. Shaping the way we gather, track, and share information, (13) we have almost certainly exceeded even Woodland and Silver’s expectations.

 

 

 

PASSAGE II

Glowing on an Adventure

As I pulled my camera out of my backpack, I felt a tap on my arm. “No photographs,” whispered the woman next to (16) me, pointing up to the cave ceiling. “The flash will make them stop (17) glowing,” she said, whispering. 

She was referring to the thousands of glow worms that clung to the limestone ceiling and, with their radiant bodies, flooded the cave in aquamarine light. (18) While I was traveling (19) on a canoe on a group tour through the renowned Glowworm Grotto of New Zealand’s Waitomo Caves. Were it not for the twinkling light of these Arachnocampa luminosa, a species unique to New Zealand and abundant in these caves, this meandering subterranean passageway would (20) feel as though it were downright ensconced in shadows.

I sheepishly tucked the camera away and focused again on the glowworms. Collectively, they resembled the cosmos, a sea of stars in a clear night sky. Beautiful—yet what made them glow? 

“Bioluminescence,” the woman said, peculiarly sensing my curiosity. [21] A badge (22) was pinned to her shirt indicated she was a  biochemist, here, I guessed, to research the organism.

She explained that to attract prey, glowworms (not really worms at all, but the larval stage of a fungus

gnat) emit light through their translucent (23) skin; via a cellular chemical reaction. The cells produce luciferin, a chemical pigment that reacts with oxygen to produce light that shines through the organism’s tail-end intestine.

From its mouth, she showed me, (24) all glowworms dangle shimmering silken threads glossed in beads of mucus. Cave-dwelling insects are (25) trapped in these threads, then reeled in like fish on a line, and finally lured by the light.  The light responds to its environmental factors. The sound of splashing water, (26) however, might signal the prey nearby causing (27) them to brighten [28]. 

Our trip neared its end. I spotted a dragonfly (29) in the cave. I knew its (30) fate, it would be ensnared, just as I had been by the brilliance of these luminescent glowworms.

PASSAGE III

A Rose by the Name Antique

With shears in hand, I clip a thin branch from the rosebush in my backyard garden. I place this clipping into the (31) basket next to me and crouch under (32) this again. I snip a few more branches and then rise to head to the greenhouse. There, I will deposit these clippings in rich soil; roots will take hold, (33) buds will sprout, and a new plant will find a home in my garden.

My roses are not your average hybrid-tea roses (those long-stemmed, special occasion roses with well-formed buds). Mine are antique (34) roses, old, or heirloom varieties that have existed in gardens worldwide for centuries.

Compared to (35) vibrant hybrid-tea colors, antique rose colors tend to be (36) silenced. Their stems are also shorter, and their buds are a bit droopier. Their fragrance, however, is unmatched. And unlike the hybrid-tea whose long stems make (37) into a rosebush that is rather scraggly looking antique rosebushes (38) can be grown in a variety of colors, handsomely landscaping gardens.

(39) The plant thrives best when it is exposed to six hours of direct sunlight daily. The plant can withstand extreme temperatures and survive nearly anywhere. (40) It’s also easier to grow antiques. Cultivating hybrid-teas (41) having involved a process of grafting two species of rose together, but the grafted area remains weak and susceptible to viruses.

Antiques, on the other hand, are less prone to disease because they are grown simply by placing cuttings from a parent plant into nutrient-rich soil. (42) They require far less pruning, fertilizing, and nurturing than their hybrid-tea counterparts, antiques can reportedly survive without any care from human hands, (43) a fact that surprises many. 

[1] I dig small holes in a pot of soil, place each clipping a half inch deep, and pack down the soil around them. [2] Back in my greenhouse, I strip the clippings of all leaves and branches. [3] Then I wait: the roots will take hold and, eventually, buds will sprout. [44]

PASSAGE IV

Jeremy Frey, Weaving Heritage Into Modern Art

[1]

The winning piece was a basket, (46) it was eighteen inches tall with a curved, vase-like silhouette. [A] It was made of ash wood finely woven into bold stripes of black and white that ran from its crown to its base. [B] In the ninety-year history of the Santa Fe Indian (47) Market—the largest Indian art festival in the nation—the 2011 event marked the first time a basket won best of show. The creator of the piece, thirty-three-year-old Passamaquoddy Indian Jeremy Frey from Princeton, Maine, (48) the basket sold at auction for $16,000. 

[2]

[C] Frey describes his baskets as “cutting-edge traditional.” [D] He primarily weaves a classic material, wood from the brown ash tree, (49) but, unlike most contemporary basket makers, he harvests, cuts, pounds, dries, and dyes the wood himself. (50) Then creating highly elaborate versions of the sturdy utility baskets that have been used by (51) generations of Passamaquoddy fishermen from Maine. He honors tradition, but he highlights artistic design. For example, his baskets feature (52) complex weaving on areas that are often hidden and therefore typically not embellished. Many traditional baskets have basic, woven lids.

Frey’s (53) porcupine quill lids are often decorated with art inlaid on birch (54) bark; as far as lids go, I wouldn’t say that’s basic. And while braids of grass (55) are customarily woven into ash baskets (56) to make them better, Frey incorporates braided cedar bark to create striking new textures.

[3]

Now that he’s a nationally recognized artist (57) of who has rejuvenated the art of basketry, Frey feels his role is to inspire. He’s on the board of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, a group that works to help preserve (58) it by reaching out to young members of Native communities in the state. His other goal is to continue to (59) stand out. The woven grass bracelets he saw on a recent trip to Hawaii have influenced how he shapes the bases of some of his newer baskets, as he finds yet another way to make traditional Passamaquoddy weaving something spectacularly his own.

PASSAGE V

The Flow of Time

Nine hundred years (61) ago, Emperor Zhezong of China, ordered the design and construction of a clock (62) built to keep time more accurately than other clock. 

This would be no simple (63) timepiece and because Chinese dynasties (64) continued to astrology, they relied on complicated clocks that not only kept time but also helped track stars, planets, the sun, and the moon. An (65) eminent scientist and bureaucrat named Su Song lead Zhezong’s ambitious project.

(66) Using his expertise in calendrical science, Su Song created a spectacular timepiece (67) housed within an ornate forty-foot-tall tower. At the tower’s top sat an armillary (68) sphere, or a nest of metal rings representing celestial reference points such as the horizon and the sun’s path—that rotated in sync with the earth, enabling precise astronomical observations. Inside the tower, a sphere depicting the sky revolved to display the stars that were overhead.

(69) Besides, below the star sphere, the tower’s open sides exposed a detailed model of a five-story pagoda.

Automated figurines would appear in the pagoda’s doorways and ring (70) bells to announce hours, sunsets, seasons, and other chronological events.

The clock’s inner workings (71) were equally remarkable. Hidden in the tower, a waterwheel eleven feet in diameter powered the entire clock. (72) Therefore, water would pour at a constant rate into one of the wheel’s thirty-six buckets. When the bucket was full, the water’s weight pulled it down, rotating the waterwheel. Then a stop mechanism halted the wheel and positioned the next bucket for filling.

Chinese clockmakers had long used waterwheels, (73) but Su Song’s stop mechanism, which regulated the inertia of the waterwheel, represented significant innovation.

Unfortunately, after Su Song’s clock ran for thirty years, invaders stole it. Later the clock vanished altogether. It would be a few hundred years (74) until with the refinement of mechanical clocks in Europe other clocks (75) approached the complexity of Su Song’s masterpiece.