Hey there hi there ho there, science fans! Here it is, Friday during a picturesque winter sunset, and that means it must be time for me to once more tip the vessel of science and pour out it multifarious bounty into our eager and willing minds, and thus, be enlightened and entertained.

This week, we have the oldest rock in the world, the best birth control ever, a knock it out of the park home run from Canadian medical science, and something that is “multi-omniphobic”, whatever that means.

All this, and my crisply ironed and cozy commentary as well.

You people are so lucky.

For starters, let’s take a look at the oldest rock in the world.

How old is old? 4.4 billion years, that’s how old. This tiny zircon was found inside another rock, and when it was tested, it was found to have formed 4.4 billion years ago.

You astute mavens out there will have already noted that the Earth itself is only 4.5 billion years old, meaning this teeny tiny rocklet was formed within 150 million years of the formation of the Earth.

Mind blown. Kapow. Never thought we would find anything from that period, because back then, this mudball of ours was just a big sphere of molten, raging goo.

But wait, there’s more. When the scientists took a further look at this Rock of Ages, they realized that it had crystallized in a way that only happens when a zircon forms in the presence of liquid water.

So apparently, there was liquid water on Earth when the Earth was only 150 to 300 million years old!

This changes a lot. For once thing, where there is water, there is at least a chance for life, and this could seriously change our idea of how long life on Earth has had to come about.

And that, in turn, improves the likely of finding life elsewhere in the universe via our favorite equation and friend of the column, Drake’s Equation!

Ta da! Isn’t science cool?

Next up, we have the best birth control in the world, and it’s for men.

It is a simple in-office kind of procedure that takes only fifteen minutes, and is incredibly cheap and simple. I won’t describe it to you because ouch, but it’s a few simple chemicals injected into a man’s vas deferens and bingo, sperm can get through (otherwise it would just cause a blocks, and yikes) but the nature of the chemicals means the sperm get all ripped up by a micro-electric charge (nothing you will feel in a million years, boys, uncross your legs) and hence are useless for fertilization.

And the procedure lasts at least ten years, and is easily reversible should you decide you want to start making some babies.

However awesome that is (answer : fairly), it still faces the same problem as all internal male birth control methods and that is the problem of trust.

A woman must trust that the horny young man she is considering having sex with is telling the truth when he says he has had the operation, and horny young men lie all the damned time. And so she would be better off just getting him to wear a condom “just in case”, and if he is going to have to wear a rubber anyhow, why get the operation at all?

However, this seems like an excellent option for voluntarily limiting family size within married or committed couples. It is cheaper and less invasive than tubal ligation and what’s more, it’s reversible, so if you change your mind about kids later, no problem.

And to be honest, guys, volunteering to be the one who goes under the knife to keep unwanted babies from happening is the least you can do, considering how much of the reproductive burden she carries.

Now up to bat : kickass Canadian medical science in the form of a possible vaccine for Alzheimer’s.

This story is particularly meaningful for me because a) it’s Canadians on the threshold of a major medical miracle and b) I fear Alzheimer’s terribly, even though there is no family history of it.

And it is more than a vaccine. It could also be a treatment. Basically, the injection would stimulate the body to produce more of a substance called MPL that eliminates the nasty amyloid beta molecules that are the real culprits in Alzheimer’s.

Those nasties are immune to the microgilial defenses that normally patrol our nervous systems, and so they accumulate in the brain in something called “senile plaques”.

But check this shit out :

In mice with Alzheimer’s symptoms, weekly injections of MPL over a twelve-week period eliminated up to 80% of senile plaques. In addition, tests measuring the mice’s ability to learn new tasks showed significant improvement in cognitive function over the same period.

And not only that, this marvelous MPL stuff can also be incorporated into a vaccine that would teach the body’s immune system to take out amyloid beta itself.

A cure and a treatment for a previously implacable and horrible disease?

GO TEAM CANADA!

Finally, let’s get into this superomniphobic business :

The idea is that these folks have come up with a fabric that repels all liquids, period. As the video shows, this stuff does not just keep the liquid out, it violently ejects it like an angry bouncer.

And that could have tons of uses, like the video shows.

But seriously. SUPER omniphobic? Omniphobic already means “afraid of everything” (I knew we were in trouble when water-resistant stuff was called ‘hydrophobic’), and there is no way to intensify an absolute like “everything”. It’s like saying someone is “extra dead” or “super pregnant”.

And besides, it’s an inanimate object. It’s not afraid of anything. So really, science, stop macking on already established language from psychiatry and getting your grubby physics hands all over it.

Still, looks like pretty cool stuff, n’est-ce pas?

That’s it for this week’s FSW, folks. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much I enjoyed thinking about large amounts of money while writing it.