ScienceCache
Vol. 214
2005 Year in Review
Dec. 22, 2005
Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the halls,
The gait was unsteady, including some falls;
The freezers were stocked with microbes, with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were jumping and soaring from beds,
For they simply had not been taking their meds.
And Jean with his robot, da Vinci by name,
Had just settled in for surgical fame.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed, askew to white matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Full of thoughts both scary and brash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen flakes,
Shone like the pure light that crystals do make.
When, what to my improved eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now! Roman, now! Maiken, now! Betsa, and Shanna,
"On! Yi-Fen, on! Shu-Yuan, on! Handy and Lana;
"To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
He had swung his sprite sleigh o’er mountains of coal,
Which on heart health played a curious role,
And over vast oceans, teeming with life,
Healthy as ever, though mercury rife.
The sleigh it did streak, with battery new,
Like a wasp on the make, with genomes to cue,
Technology made possible thanks to his loyalties,
To UR – and its glorious royalties.
As teenagers scatter before tobacco cops pry,
Or electron holes trek along our DNA spry,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys -- and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling, I heard overhead
The cooing, the cawing that I long did dread.
For from Asia did come the toys and St. Nick too,
Along with the trinkets he had brought the bird flu.
It was the latest disbursement, a gift from St. Nick,
His contribution to making the world not healthy but sick.
Among the items he gave were dollies and sports,
But alas the items were often covered in warts.
For the poor ol’ man had beaten the strep,
But the bug remained with him, step after step.
His body was home for such germs, it was said,
Because of his early exposure to lead.
With a whoop he arrived and unpacked his sleigh,
Another gift for the masses, straight from throat spray.
He coughed away with a hurch and a lurch,
Alas – if only he had attended his church.
Along with the strep, the whoop and the wart,
He had an infectious agent of yet another sort.
Deep in his lungs was the bug RSV,
That circled the globe, with Nick as emissary.
And then there was the issue of HIV,
Against all attempts, resistant it be.
But maybe not always, thanks to Oyagen,
And a vaccine in the offing, just not sure when.
The chill in the air kept his brain cells intact,
And worked like Neurontin to keep the flashes back.
And the supplements he chugged as the sleigh sped about,
Were all in a bid to give his neurons some clout.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! His dimples how merry,
His teeth were like fence posts, thanks to cranberry;
His throat he did clear, with tonsils asunder,
Thanks to the lupus test he’d had Down Under.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly:
A bowl on the ropes if only he’d try,
Some health food like rice bran, and not the fish fry.
To control his BP his carotids were zapped,
To keep up his eyesight, his retinas were mapped.
With cancer he wrestled, a hideous beast,
Weakest, perhaps, to probing with yeast.
His ”seizures” perchance were symptoms of sex,
But it was simply, truly, histocompatibility complex.
Upon cancer successes he had long set his sights,
Only to find out he had defunct astrocytes.
His waistline expanded in sync with the job.
The grapefruit juice his life – it nearly did rob,
As did the mushrooms he gathered up north,
But yet every year, he did sally forth.
He greeted the children, aglow with aplomb,
But not, thank goodness, from a bad dirty bomb.
He was feeling much better, thanks to the Button,
So light, so nimble, he was even a’struttin’!
But the pressures came sudden, along with the vomit,
Chaos ensued, and he shouted, “Stop it Stop it!”
It was then that he found he’d forgotten his ladder,
Not only that, he’d emptied his bladder!
Only once did his temper go on the lam,
When he smacked poor Betsa and shouted “Dam!”
“I’ve got enough problems with poor blood flow,
and now you tell me it makes memory slow!”
He pulled off his cap, tugged on his earring,
All in an effort to improve his hearing.
But the problem lay deep in his brain,
Where once pliant neurons had just begun to wane.
He snapped at poor Rudolph, “Get your nose on!”
“You’re just weak because of the boson!”
Just when his mind was about to break free,
Chrissy, thank goodness, brought some green tea.
He recalled the long fight with his own renegades,
And remembered the joy brought by new babes,
Putting aside for a moment the dangers of thinking,
His own tears he found himself back-blinking.
He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
The naughty, the nice, way down in Hicksville,
Were all so visible, thanks to the pixel.
When elves posed the question, what about the flu?
St. Nick pointed to previous triumph – that’s what we’ll do!
And I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight --
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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