When Yeats Waltzes With Agnesi

A black-hatted figure with a shaded face and long black coat-tails strides out of a series of slanting, pulsating neon frames punctuating a Stygian space nowhere in time. A dove with soft white feathers trails serenely behind, now and then playfully poking at his coal-black lapels and cooing merrily into his unresponsive ears. Out of the black, he swings a long black stick which silver tips glitter in the air and, fascinated, it swoops down in front to see a black shutter open in his chest. Light pours out of the shutter, revealing beyond the diaphragm an Escheresque, spiraling array of ornate stairways and corridors expanding and shrinking at a periodic beat. Softly reverberating along the passageways is a steady stream of breathing sounds. Before long, the dove has somehow drifted into the world of the maze. Just then, a clock hand somewhere strikes, a lift chime rings, a sound of a shutter closing occurs, and the surroundings of the dove melt into a cage in an oppressively grey room .....

"That's why they say that the quiet ones are the most dangerous!" She ... "You think you're helpfully opening them up when, in reality, they've been anticipating your every move with all the energy they surreptitiously reserve and drawing you in."

"Is that why you, the white dove, are playing computer games instead of wandering around town on a Saturday afternoon?" Her bob-haired roommate, Bernice, dabs tangerine orange polish onto her nails.

"Hey, I'm no escapist and this is no ordinary game! It's an online tournament where people from all walks of life compete to map the three-dimensional neural wiring in the mouse retina by tracing pathways through layers of cells in microscopic images," She protests while rotating and scrolling through a purple-and-cyan mesh of fibers on a pitch-black browser window, the mesh extending stretch by stretch with each color-accompanied click on oblong regions on a grainy, grey-scale micrograph corresponding to the selected cross-section of the model [1]. "Right now, a sly fox has laid out a gigantic yet invisible game of chess with unknown boundaries outside while accusing me of making game of his game. Oh boy, see how he's brainwashed me into playing riddle games I can't stop? I need to switch game for a while so that I can game on on his turf with a fresh mentality he's not foreseen. If you think about it, the millions of people over the globe thronging Steam and other digital game stores are probably all desperate for a breather from some kind of lunatic in their lives, whether this lunatic is human, insentient, or monolithic—that is, one humongous mass of insentient humans. Happily, these hundreds, maybe thousands, of millions of hours lost to virtual universes every day can now be channeled into work that betters our physical universe through games designed to not only entertain but also solve computation problems that still stump artificial intelligence." 

"Ugh. I'd rather take a breather with the knowledge that I'm doing nothing other than taking a breather," Bernice paints green palm tree patterns onto the orange-coated nails. "Tell those game designers not to burden me with humanity's problems during my downtime, sweetheart."

"Uggghhhhh," She rolls her eyes. "Honey, nobody is compelling anyone to do anything! Call of Duty and Final Fantasy won't be genetically reengineered anytime soon. Besides, what's burden to someone may well be balm to another. We all have a deep-seated need to feel that we're of worth to the larger world, yet this emotional satisfaction is sadly not forthcoming in the daily grind, not even in therapeutic innovation research. Human computation games or Games With A Purpose, as they're sometimes called, give gamers a more visceral sense of identity as Very Important Players of the Earth community."

Bernice puts on tassel earrings in cascading cones of dark reds and browns and croons, "'Everybody wants to rule the world ... It's my own desire ... It's my own remorse ...' Be careful that emotional payoff doesn't earn them VIP status at game addiction clinics."

"Well, you never know! Someday, game engineers and neuroscientists might create this miraculous lovechild that hooks up new players without breaking a sweat and then gradually trains them to resist attentional biases and strengthen inhibitory control, all those skills robbed in addictions of all kinds. With one app, it'll rid the world of substance abuse, pathological gaming and gambling, cellular phone dependency and even shopping compulsion!"

"Alas, it'll be too late for my macaron addiction. Have fun saving the world while I fetch bacon from the other hemisphere!" Bernice picks up a floral laptop bag along with a sand-textured folder atop it and heads for the door.

"Departure time already? Nooooo....honey, stay with me a little longer! Just ten more minutes. Pretty, pretty please? This is one gamer who cannot do without physical company," she clings onto and nuzzles her head against Bernice's waist, nearly all of her torso leaning out of her light brown-pink swivel chair.

Easing herself from the ticklish clutch, Bernice chuckles, "Come on, sweetheart! The wall separating our room and Eleni and Ethel's room is not the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, or the proposed Trump Wall of America at the US-Mexico border. See you later alligator." The door closes after her. The label on the folder read, "e-Mathanaesthesia Academy - Calculus II". 

[couch surfs in various friends' rooms within same flat]

[sends invitation to a literary GAWP(?) to him]

[he joins with a surprisingly identifiable handle]

[resonance - black painting]

Behind-the-Scenes Science:

Butterflies 

References:

1. Kim, J.S., Greene, M.J., Zlateski, A., Lee, K., Richardson, M., Turaga, S.C., Purcaro, M., Balkam, M., Robinson, A., Behabadi, B.F. and Campos, M., 2014. Space–time wiring specificity supports direction selectivity in the retina. Nature, 509(7500), p.331. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13240

... .....xxx ..... ...

Sanchez, C.J., Chiu, C.W., Zhou, Y., González, J.M., Vinson, S.B. and Liang, H., 2015. Locomotion control of hybrid cockroach robots. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 12(105), p.20141363. DOI: 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.1363

2. Singer, E., 2009. The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle, MIT Technology Review, viewed 3 February 2017, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/411814/the-armys-remote-controlled-beetle/ 

3. Verderber, A., McKnight, M. and Bozkurt, A., 2014. Early metamorphic insertion technology for insect flight behavior monitoring. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), (89), pp.e50901-e50901. DOI: 

http://dx.doi.org/10.3791/50901

4. Davis, R.L., 2005. Remote control of fruit fly behavior. Cell, 121(1), pp.6-7. DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2005.03.010  

5. Talwar, S.K., Xu, S., Hawley, E.S., Weiss, S.A., Moxon, K.A. and Chapin, J.K., 2002. Behavioural neuroscience: Rat navigation guided by remote control. Nature, 417(6884), pp.37-38. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/417037a

6. Kobayashi, N., Yoshida, M., Matsumoto, N. and Uematsu, K., 2009. Artificial control of swimming in goldfish by brain stimulation: confirmation of the midbrain nuclei as the swimming center. Neuroscience letters, 452(1), pp.42-46. DOI: 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2009.01.035

7. Lee, S., Kim, C.H., Kim, D.G., Kim, H.G., Lee, P.S. and Myung, H., 2013. Remote guidance of untrained turtles by controlling voluntary instinct behavior. PloS one, 8(4), p.e61798. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061798 

8. Li, H.P., Dai, Z.D., Tan, H., Guo, C. and Sun, J.R., 2008. A remote system for gecko animal-robot. Computer Technology and Development, 18(8), pp.16-19. URL: http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-WJFZ200808006.htm

"You can have my donation if you stop preaching science to me." He looks ahead expressionlessly when their paths of commute converge outside the subway station the next morning.

"Great! That sounds like a Bayesian game. Should I accept one guaranteed payoff and move on or should I hang around to fish for an unlimited number of uncertain but not unpredictable rewards?" She walks briskly alongside him, tilting her sharp chin forward in determined hauteur.

"You can have another donation if you respect my right to be happy being unhappy." His black leather suitcase and her purple and white striped duffel bag swing like pendulums in the suited crowd. 

"Uh-huh. Word games are a walk in a park with or without Tolstoy. Empirical testing will illuminate whether anyone's conception of happiness is right in all senses of the word." His black leather shoes and her ruby red lurex boots click down the pavement in perfect synchrony.

"Above all, whether you have my donation or not, you are not to initiate lip contact with me without my permission under any circumstances." He turns sharply towards her. "Has it never occurred to you that I may have a wife, a fiancée or a sweetheart? Have you never considered what that potential reality calls for? This is how pathetic general humanities education has become in this country. Even someone deemed to possess the intellect to qualify for a doctorate degree does not know how to examine issues from different angles, how to spot non-obvious areas of ambiguity, and how to truly tolerate and navigate uncertainty."

"Wait, wait. What kind of attached guy would have spent a weekend reading a book beside a lake all by himself?" She looks at him with a miffed expression.

"That's another assumption to question. Many kinds of romantic relationships are imaginable. It's not an absolute truth that everyone can be—or even wants to be—physically together with the person he holds dear on his day off. Moreover, even if you happen to be right, there's the problem of insulting a man's modesty. Want of intimate bodily contact only with those one is comfortable with and only in occasions of one's choice is not the preserve of women. Men are not cheap animals you have the right to exploit for physical pleasure at your whim," he retorts.

She is now clearly incredulous. 

"Wow, just ... wow! This is the first time in my life someone's insinuating that I'm a pervert. What kind of a prudish background do you come from? And physical pleasure?" she fans herself and casts her eyes elsewhere. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Assumption again. 'Prudish' is a value-laden adjective," he glares at her. "It takes for granted that there are deliberate skin-to-skin interactions no reasonable person would find fault with. It treats individuality, personal sensitivity and religious diversity as non-existent. Maybe it's true that nothing anywhere close to carnal satisfaction was ever on your agenda, but any warm feeling your expression of gratitude was supposed to generate ironically served to gratify only yourself at the expense of the recipient. Don't impose your inelastic lifestyle beliefs, autocratic standards and unconsulted vision of reciprocity on others."

Their eyes meet again. Nearby, cars horn at surrounding traffic. 

She thinks about the matter for a while. "Fine. I admit I was wrong. I apologize. Sincerely."

He stares at her silently with an inscrutable countenance.

"And now that you have my unreserved apology," she ventures. "Perhaps it's time you examine your own bias as well. You seem to be of the view that humanities alone can cultivate various cognitive skills. How do you expect me to stop harping about science to you when you're parading unfair judgments on the many professionals and thinkers who have put so much thought and effort in the field?"

Smiling brightly again, she walks on and continues, "Let's concentrate for now on handling uncertainty. STEM research, which many college seniors receive a taste of and which PhDs are all about, entails a thicket of unknowns. Scientists have no idea when and whether they will solve the puzzles on their hands. Ninety-nine out of a hundred experiments, it's lamented, do not work. Those that do at one time may flop at another. Each time one flops unexpectedly, we may well end up troubleshooting the entire setup relentlessly for a teeny clue on why. Yet in both success and failure, the real reasons are beyond us. How things work, learned researchers know, is ultimately a matter of interpretations, conjectures, more hypothesis testing and more interpretations. We are aware that so-called scientific truths are merely what best explain phenomena and work in applications at any moment. These theories are grounded in uncertainty and forever subject to possible revision."

"That otherwise well-read people think we think otherwise," she says with theatrical melancholy and a wink in her eyes, "reflects the sad state of general science education in the various countries from where pedagogical ideas and traditions have cross-pollinated to shape STEM curricula worldwide."

At the sandwich bar during lunch hour, her argument runs on as the waitress places corn tortillas and tuna salad pinwheels onto their stained wood dining table.

"Why, even if you doubt that the philosophy of science amounts to anything more than a blip on the radar of the average lab rat, you can't deny that warnings about the elusiveness of a perfectly representative sample, random variations in experimental conditions, and idealized presuppositions like the treatment of atoms as perfect spheres in molecular mechanics modeling have been drilled into every STEM practitioner since their neophyte days. In each piece of data analysis, we dutifully spell out margins of errors. In each journal manuscript, we lampoon our own work by openly sifting out issues like methodological imperfections and limited applicability of the experimental findings."

"And why, EVEN then, the game is not over! A torch and pitchfork crowd, you can imagine, potentially awaits us," she twists a four-tine steel fork menacingly between her fingers above the tortillas before swiftly stabbing into the heart of one piece. "whenever we submit the manuscript for editorial and peer review and present our work in seminars and conferences, all of which frequently expose us to hawk-eyed, snake-brained skeptics in the field with a keen need to out-survive us."

"In a nutshell, we stare into the deep abyss that is the vulnerability of human knowledge and capability all the time," she casts a dramatic faraway look at the dark water underneath the bridge on their evening walk.

He watches her impassively as she carries on expounding her argument the next morning while walking backwards before him along a row of office towers, "But as a whole, we triumph in the end, because the doggedly questioning system turns those human insecurities into fuel with the potential to bring mankind closer and closer to the truths of the universe, societal transformations and longer lives."

"Cognitive psychology buffs may claim that the Homo sapiens brain frequently finds it inordinately tough to apply skills developed in one domain to another, so adeptness at identifying and reacting to scientific uncertainty does not necessarily translate to any sort of proficiency at handling ambiguity in areas of human thought and activities like social affairs, politics, business and economics, all of which everyone partakes in in some way. You may even cite yesterday's me as evidence," she rues over a black-and-white floral-patterned cup of cappuccino at lunch. "But that's just one line of thought out of a million of mine, and I'm just one scientist out of a zillion on this globe. And guess what? We actually have this elegant technology that can factor in anyone's belief about the likelihood of a phenomenon and, as it acquires real-world data, revise the prediction. At the same time, the software can use such continuously updated probabilities in automated decision-making. In this manner, we get a form of artificial intelligence that, unlike deep-learning AI, can function on limited data and show us how it arrives at its decisions [1]. It all boils down to the same centuries-old theorem that powers analyses of Bayesian games."

Rising from her seat, she rolls up a piece of unused tissue napkin and uses it like blackboard chalk to scribble an equation onto the sandwich bar's glass window: 

P(X|Y) = P(Y|X) x P(X) / P(Y)

"The vertical stroke means that what in front of the stroke is true given what goes behind, and of course P means probability of stuff inside the brackets. Remember that the probability of two independent events taking place is the mathematical product of the probability of each event? This theorem comes about because the probability that X and Y are both true when they depend on each other is the probability that one is true when the other is true multiplied by the probability that the other is true. We use an arch to represent a conjunction of two events."

She adds more lines to the window [2]:

P(X∩Y) = P(X|Y) x P(Y) 

P(X∩Y) = P(Y|X) x P(X) 

So P(X|Y) x P(Y) = P(Y|X) x P(X) 

Hence, P(X|Y) = P(Y|X) x P(X) / P(Y)

"In our case, we have ..." she writes another equation:

P(Phenomenon|Data) = P(Data|Phenomenon) x P(Phenomenon) / P(Data)

Slender lines and graceful curls characterize her handwriting. Without a scent, it brings to mind the scent of Stargazer lilies. He almost does not notice the increased buzz some distance away from their table.  

"P(Phenomenon) is what we call a 'prior probability' we assign according to our intuition, hypothesis or prior knowledge, which would mean, as more updating goes on, previously revised probability. P(Phenomenon|Data) is a 'posterior probability', the latest updated probability based on collected data. P(Data|Phenomenon) and P(Data) can be estimated by, say, measuring how often you get the data under tailored conditions or in selected cases where the phenomenon is true for sure and how often you get the data regardless of the phenomenon. Nevertheless, if you only want to compare the probabilities of different phenomena given the same data, you can ignore P(Data) and just see how different the size of the numerator P(Data|Phenomenon) x P(Phenomenon) is for the various phenomena. Still with me? Those are the bare basics."

"Imagine designing an online 'Do you know me?' quiz and inviting netizens to submit simple self-introductions from which respondents' judgments are made before they answer questions for themselves and for others. We can then dispatch Bayesian artificial intelligence—right, the name of this technology!—to measure how relatively perceptive humanities and STEM graduates are overall and when it comes to this or that trickier category of respondents that demands broader imagination to land a correct guess. In any case, quality humanities articles will be initially recommended to low STEM scorers and quality STEM articles will be initially recommended to low humanities scorers. The AI system will take note of clicks, track people's performance over time, experiment with different articles as necessary and learn for itself what kinds of articles work best at raising scores. Of course, when crunching the numbers, we'll have to control for covariables in test subjects' background like innate intelligence and family upbringing. Still, that's a fledgling step towards settling the question of humanities versus STEM for one type of ambiguity. You've got to at least give mathematicians and computer scientists credit for laying the foundation for this possibility!"

"Maybe as we run the test, we can brainstorm ways to mitigate sabotaging and other pitfalls and expand the approach to many other types of ambiguity. Any particular quiz you'd like to order?" she chats on merrily as she keys in her number into his phone and sends his to hers on the way back to his office. He looks straight ahead without a sound.

"Say, I've tremendously enjoyed exploring, dissecting and reconciling our divergent views! It's exhilarating to encounter an opinion opposite to mine, that I never imagined was possible," she returns his phone to him and stretches her arms towards the cloudy sky overhead. "Quite a pity you don't speak much. Let's have fierier, headier and messier debates in the long days ahead!"

"Oh, here's the venue of my seminar. See you next time!" She gives him a vivacious hand wave and rushes towards the place. 

He stares in the chilly street as her loose hair bun and pastel blue coat disappear behind a revolving door. His office building is two streets and three traffic junctions away. He stares as she enters a transparent elevator at the exterior of the building, spots him and gives him another cheery wave as the elevator starts going up. A tire shop owner said that he will be visiting the company right after lunch to sign a fire insurance contract. 

He dials the number. She looks down to see his incoming call, to her puzzlement.

"This may be all a game to you but—" Stricken wisps of lines break through his facade as he speaks into the phone and looks straight at her. "I am serious, heart and all."

Mouth slightly open in astonishment, she stares wide-eyed at his fast-vanishing figure below.

References:

1. Metz, C., 2017. AI is about to learn more like humans—with a little uncertainty, Wired, viewed 19 February 2018, https://www.wired.com/2017/02/ai-learn-like-humans-little-uncertainty/  

2. Bessiere, P., Mazer, E., Ahuactzin, J.M. and Mekhnacha, K., 2013. Bayesian programming. CRC press. URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=4XtcAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20&dq="the+conjunction+postulate+bayes+theorem"

A man born with a dream is born with a curse.

What kind of Last Judgment, he ruminates with hatred, would have kept so open the possibility of tethering itself to the vagaries of your fellow creatures, each inescapably flawed and vulnerable? What providence would sweet-talk you into upturning the vertical relationship between head and heart while praying that the honesty of emotions that ensues finds by fortuitous coincidence a happy place in the honesty of economics? What wretched destiny is it to have coursing through your veins a demonic compulsion to take one particular road, when you could have been just at peace in the many other wooded roads and seen them equally grassy and in want of wear? Raw and relentless whisperings and serenades within the chest may be, these oppressed times demand its enslavement to Profit in all the body's productive hours in exchange for any hope of remaining sensate. Denizens of this city barely have time for any little beings that emerge from their bellies, let alone for make-believe entities as devoid of legal status as uncircumscribed dreams. Do not tell him either that dreams oftentimes are ethereally beautiful precisely for the rarity of occasions they come true and hence challenges to relish, because what those helplessly dependent on you need is certainty. Yet she has named him, someone unwisely cold to profitable enterprises, her new dream.

"Spicy turkey meatballs made from animal cells cultivated in veggie-based media! Just what you need in this cold morning air! Come pair them with yogurt lovingly cultured through an AI-perfected recipe!" Her voice rings out from the crowded pavement in front before he even sees her.

"Buy either or both to support the Albinus School of Engineering and Applied Sciences' fundraising drive! One small box of meatballs for the office gang in exchange for one small load off the shoulders of a needy freshman! One tiny tube of yogurt for yourself in return for one tiny tube of medicine for an orphan disease on a future pharmacy shelf!"

Only seconds later does her back come into view. How refreshing that she is not steering some sort of wheels this time. She turns around and spots him. A wicked smile flickers on her moist, cerise lips.

"Male colleagues, especially, will appreciate free breakfast, even if not all of them admit it. It's said that the way to a man's heart is through his s—"

"His sight, perhaps?" A man with combed-back hair in a spiffy black leather jacket and blue jeans, who looks to be in his early twenties, saunters up to wrap a muffler around her neck. "See this reflection in my eyes? I think one hateful woman sneakily used me as a guinea pig for apple cell culture in vitreal medium when I attended her class."

"Ha! If you'd not already gotten your college diploma by now, I'd deduct twenty points for flirting with your TA. That's sure one heck of a mesophilic lactic culture."

"Gee, I suppose parallel-universe me would be shaking in my shoes! Look what I queued up for eight hours for this woman in return last night—a silver acetylcholine motif bracelet just released by Castellane & Laurent as part of their Winter 2017 collection. I want to be in her eyes too even in her dreams."

A distance away from the pair, his scowl grows deeper. She hardly seems to notice as he strides past them.

Lunch time. He steps hurriedly out of a sandwich joint, turning up his collar as a chilly wind swirls up and taking occasional nibbles of a paper-wrapped pork roll. She is already on the street corner, tsk-tsking at his cold cut.

"I didn't have to track you to figure out your lunch habits. That's a pretty consistent personality you've got. You look like you need more charity for yourself, just as our school's kids need charity from you. Try this breathtaking creation," she rummages through her rolling tote bag. "Mozzarella casserole [10] created with bioengineered yeast-derived milk proteins and TomTato hybrids that yield cherry tomatoes and potatoes on the same plant, and ... for dessert, let's have a 3D-printed raspberry confection modeled after a cubic close-packed ionic crystal lattice [11]!"

She starts to fish out a couple of boxes, but someone from behind taps on her shoulder. She spins around to see a broad-faced man seemingly in his 40s and wearing a light brown V-neck sweater over a cream shirt, who smiles gently at her.

"Can I have that lunch set instead? Don't work too hard to force science down people's throats. I know of a biotechnology trade fair that is being held just a few blocks away. The boxes will sell faster there. Along the way, we can talk about this living necklace from an ocean-inspired jewelry collection I want to show you which dinoflagellates-containing pendant glows in response to movement [12]. It has an enchanting neon blue hue just like the glittering sea of stars we saw in Maldives during the conference trip last year. Let's see if I can finally persuade you to join my lab," the debonair scientist pulls over the roller bag and whisks her away. Back at the street corner, he takes a hard bite of his sandwich in the cold wind. 

Later in the evening light, he looks over a bridge in pensive silence as small boats sail to and fro underneath. Slowly, forlorn musical notes emerge. Over his shoulders, a familiar apparition plays a violin while teetering without a care in the world on the opposite railings. In this immense world, only he and himself seem to exist. 

A smooth-skinned hand suddenly rattling a small transparent box of green cubes in front of his eyes shakes him out of his reverie. He turns around to see her lithe figure beside a bike.

"Chewable green tea cubes [22]."

"Haven't you been told that you should go somewhere where you will have greater odds of financial success?"

"I'm giving them to you for free this time anyway, to make up for the previous occasions. Besides," she takes in the view of the river, "If you've been deeply moved by the sights and sounds of a habitat, wouldn't you want to share its beauty with people who aren't as well-acquainted with it?"

"Take them," she hands out the transparent box again. "Two are equivalent to a good strong cuppa. They're light-weight and avert accidental spills."

He tentatively starts to take over the box while counting down. Four. Three. Two. One. Still, whom he sees catches him by surprise.

A youngster looking to be around 15 or 16 years of age zips by on another bike, waving one arm wildly in the air. Dangling from his raised hand is a pink-gold earring that features a spiral inscribed within a tiled rectangular frame [13]. The setting sun glints off the twirling delicate structure, giving it an especially dazzling glow.

"Mega spoiler alert for tonight's dinner! Uncle Max's gifting this ultimate expression of the universe's most beautiful ratio from one Pheodora collection to the girl with the most bio-culture harvesters on her thighs! Boohoooo!"

"Just watch where you're going, derkhead!" She leaves the box in his hand without a second look and yells after the boy.

Holding the box, he inhales deeply and glares at the sky overhead, "All the jewelry houses in town must be erecting a statue in honor of you." 

"Let's see ... the restaurant is half an hour's ride away. Should I run some errand on the way there? Hold on, the jazz meetup with Jonathan at eight-thirty almost slipped my mind," she mumbles to herself as she scrolls through her phone. 

He is about to leave when a blinking speck of light on the railing catches his eye. Upon closer inspection, he sees inside a gap a carnation pink cloth button interlaced with threads the color of ripe wheat. Since when has it been here? He turns back to see loose golden threads hanging from a sewn hole on her sleeve. 

"Don't walk into any snobbish dining establishment telling one and all how much of a March hare you are inside. Out there in the world, there are a lot of enemies of March hares [14]." He gently pulls over her hand and tucks the button firmly into her palm.

A strange beat passes before her eyes grow wide.

"Did you see that?" She exclaims. 

He tilts his head in puzzlement.

Pointing to a bright fleck in a patch of dirt on the button, she goes on, "Spherical and crusted with glass-like coating [15]! It's probably the next micrometeorite—you know, extraterrestrial dust particle that survives its journey to Earth [16]—I've been hunting high and low for for my collection. Why didn't I think of combing gaps on bridge structures? More than 4000 tons of cosmic dust that date from the solar system's birth rain down on Earth every year without burning up [17]. Each spherule carries a fragment of the wondrous story of the planetary system's history and composition [20]. These celestial gems are everywhere—in the air we breathe and the lettuce we eat [17]. It's just tremendously hard to look for them [17]. Now I only need to confirm its details. Tell me the restaurant holds Mad Hatter tea parties that oblige it to keep a good microscope on standby! When it comes to micrometeorites, a microscope is essentially a telescope [17]."

"But already, you've made my day! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!" Before he realizes what will happen, she closes in for an emotional peck on his cheek. Boats continue to travel underneath. The rippling water acquires iridescent hues. From the land, a flock of larks soar and pass overhead.

As she beams again at the button clasped in her palm and their coats flutter in the wind, thoughts arise in him: 

"When one dream meets and aligns with another, can they break free and lift each other?

Can I finally start to live?"

On the opposite railing, his apparition plays a spirited tune on the violin, this time accompanied by an apparition of her skiing and gyrating on the water surface.

Behind-the-Scenes Science:

At the time of writing, growth of animal cells for food products using plant-based culture media is still in the works [1]. It is hoped that such media will successfully substitute the fetal bovine serum, which extraction entails draining blood from cows' fetuses until they die, currently used to optimize animal cell culture in the creation of lab-grown meat [1]. Similarly still under development is cheese made with bioengineered yeast-derived milk proteins [8]. Unsurprisingly, on the other hand, yogurt production aided by machine learning algorithms has already become reality [2]. 

Both yoghurt- and cheese-making traditionally involve mesophilic or thermophilic lactic cultures [3] [4]. In a nutshell, lactic cultures are bacterial cultures that convert the milk sugar lactose into lactic acid, resulting in milk souring [3]. This and other possible chemical reactions shape the texture of the intended dairy product [5]. Thermophilic lactic acid bacteria can ferment lactose at 20 to 50°C, whereas mesophilic ones can do so at lower temperatures of 10 to 40°C [4]. 

Also in existence are potato-tomato plant hybrids, achieved by grafting the two plants at their stems. The goal of such grafting in general is to combine desired flowers/fruits from the upper plant with the lower plant's tough roots. Most of the time, the two plants must be of the same genus, as with tomato and potato plants. [9]

Acetylcholine is a neurochemical hugely responsible for bringing on rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep) [6], a phase in which dreams are normally most vivid [7]. But of course, the idea that gifting a model of acetylcholine will influence a person's dreaming pattern in any way is pure superstitious thinking!

Micrometeorites, the chief guest stars of this chapter, have varying mineral compositions, metal distributions, crystal structures and porosities. These properties are influenced by (i) the chemical makeup (e.g. oxygen concentration) of Earth's atmosphere at the time they interact with it [18] and (ii) the speeds at which they enter the atmosphere, which affect the extent of cosmic material melting and metal oxidation [19]. Most verified discoveries of micrometeorites have taken place in remote locations like Antarctic ice, ocean beds and deserts [20]. No urban micrometeorites had been confirmed until a project to find them, initiated by Norwegian jazz musician and amateur geologist Jon Larsen, started to bear fruit in 2015 [17]. Within two years after figuring out how to classify urban detritus and pick out particles with the highest odds of possessing cosmic origins, he built up a collection of around 500 micrometeorites from roof gutters with the assistance of university researchers, who verified their identities and co-wrote a refereed academic paper on the findings [17] [21]. While micrometeorites in areas distant from human civilization have the advantage of being less contaminated, those in urban spots like gutters with known cleaning patterns can be far more precisely dated [20]. 

References:

1. Thieme, N., 2017. The Gruesome Truth About Lab-Grown Meat, Slate, viewed 14 January 2014, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/07/why_is_fetal_cow_blood_used_to_grow_fake_meat.html

2. Brodwin, E., 2017, 'An eggless mayo startup is out to beat Hampton Creek — here's the verdict', Business Insider, 16 September, viewed 14 January 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/eggless-mayo-startup-out-to-beat-hampton-creek-taste-test-2017-9/

3. FAO. 1993. Small-Scale Dairy Farming Manual, Volume 1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, viewed 14 January 2018, http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/documents/Dairyman/Dairy/V1U10_1.htm

4. Johnson, M.E., 2013. Mesophilic and Thermophilic Cultures Used in Traditional Cheesemaking. Microbiology spectrum, 1(1). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.CM-0004-2012 

5. Water, J.V. and Naiyanetr, P., 'Yogurt and immunity: the health benefits of fermented milk products that contain lactic acid bacteria' in Farnworth, E.R.T. ed., 2008. Handbook of fermented functional foods. CRC press. URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=gpcXqE-j6gEC&pg=PA131&dq="fermentation+of+milk+with+lab"

6. Watson, C.J., Baghdoyan, H.A. and Lydic, R., 2010. Neuropharmacology of sleep and wakefulness. Sleep medicine clinics, 5(4), pp.513-528. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsmc.2010.08.003

7. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2017, Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep - Dreaming, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, viewed 14 January 2018, https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Understanding-Sleep#5

8. Davis, N., David, R., Corbyn, Z., Buchan, K., and Gates, S., 2015, 'The future of food: from jellyfish salad to lab-grown meat', The Guardian, 13 September, viewed 16 January 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/13/future-of-food-what-we-eat

9. ''TomTato' tomato and potato plant unveiled in UK' 2013, BBC News, 26 September, viewed 23 January 2018, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24281192

10. Des n.d., Tomato, Potato and Mozzarella Bake, Life's Ambrosia, viewed 23 January 2018, https://www.lifesambrosia.com/tomato-potato-and-mozzarella-bake-recipe/ (Casserole with normal mozzarella, tomatoes and potatoes)

11. Burton, B., 2017, 'Geometric 3D-printed cake molds look tasty squared', CNET, 3 July, viewed 16 January 2018, https://www.cnet.com/news/geometric-3d-printed-cake-molds-look-tasty-squared/ (Inspiration behind the ionic lattice cake above)

12. Stinson, E., 2016. This Living Necklace Glows With Bioluminescent Algae, Wired, viewed 23 January 2018, https://www.wired.com/2016/04/living-necklace-glows-bioluminescent-algae/  

13. Boutique Academia n.d., Fibonacci Earrings, Boutique Academia, viewed 23 January 2018, https://www.boutiqueacademia.com/products/fibonacci-earrings (Earrings with design very similar to the one described in the passage)

14. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2008, Spiritual Classics: Hasidic Tales - Transcript, ABC, viewed 25 January 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/spiritofthings/spiritual-classics-hasidic-tales/3293216#transcript (Hasidic tale that informed character's comment)

15. Hackett, J., 2016. How to Find Tiny Meteorites at Home, Scientific American, viewed 26 January 2018, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-find-tiny-meteorites-at-home/

16. Genge, M.J., Engrand, C., Gounelle, M. and Taylor, S., 2008. The classification of micrometeorites. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 43(3), pp.497-515. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2008.tb00668.x

17. Broad, W.J., 2017, 'Flecks of Extraterrestrial Dust, All Over the Roof', The New York Times, 10 March, viewed 26 January 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/science/space-dust-on-earth.html

18. Tomkins, A.G., Bowlt, L., Genge, M., Wilson, S.A., Brand, H.E. and Wykes, J.L., 2016. Ancient micrometeorites suggestive of an oxygen-rich Archaean upper atmosphere. Nature, 533(7602), p.235. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature17678

19. Kohout, T., Kallonen, A., Suuronen, J.P., Rochette, P., Hutzler, A., Gattacceca, J., Badjukov, D.D., Skala, R., Böhmová, V. and Čuda, J., 2014. Density, porosity, mineralogy, and internal structure of cosmic dust and alteration of its properties during high‐velocity atmospheric entry. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 49(7), pp.1157-1170. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/maps.12325

20. 'Finding micrometeorites in city gutters' 2016, The Economist, December 17, viewed 29 January 2018, https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21711633-amateur-enthusiast-advances-planetary-science-finding-micrometeorites-city 

21. Genge, M.J., Larsen, J., Van Ginneken, M. and Suttle, M.D., 2017. An urban collection of modern-day large micrometeorites: Evidence for variations in the extraterrestrial dust flux through the Quaternary. Geology, 45(2), pp.119-122. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G38352.1 

22. Domanico, A., 2015, 'Don't have time to drink your coffee? Chew it with Go Cubes', CNET, 20 August, viewed 30 January 2018, https://www.cnet.com/news/dont-have-time-to-drink-your-coffee-chew-it-with-go-cubes/ (Inspiration for chewable green tea cubes mentioned in the story)

23. In 2017, there was a contemporary art exhibition with the tagline 'The most terrifying thing in the world is to have a dream'. See Nam, Y.H., 2017, '[TF Photo Gallery] 'Shy Writer Gu' Gu Hye-sun opens solo exhibition', The Fact, 4 January, viewed 10 April 2018, http://news.tf.co.kr/read/photomovie/1671538.htm