I am heavy because of DARK MATTER.

I just found this incredible report over at the United States Department of Energy Research News http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2002-02/ddoe-1pq061502.php that says that there are eleven questions that are bugging scientists today that have gone unanswered.

One of the questions is about dark matter--just what is it? I just have to quote one paragraph because although I have studied physics, I am not a physics major. And these few sentences open up vast areas of what I call "dark" knowledge -- knowledge I don't have right now, and perhaps never will. With that in mind, here goes:

"Astronomers have shown that the objects in the universe from galaxies a million times smaller than ours to the largest clusters of galaxies are held together by a form of matter that is not what we are made of and that gives off no light. This matter probably consists of one or more as-yet-undiscovered elementary particles, and aggregations of it produce the gravitational pull leading to the formation of galaxies and large-scale structures in the universe. At the same time these particles may be streaming through our Earth-bound laboratories."

Okay. Dark matter. Matter that is "not what we are made of, and gives off no light." And guess what--scientists don't have a clue exactly what this "dark matter" really is, or whether it even really exists. They are making this stuff up as they go along folks. It is creative imagination on steroids. Dark matter might be this, or it may be that. I just love the quote about "as-yet-undiscovered elementary particles."

Nobody knows for sure. But I think that dark matter is probably the reason that when I get on the scales I weigh too much. Yeah, that has got to be the answer. If it wasn't for the dark matter, I would not be fat. I would not be overweight. And so I am going on a light matter diet. Don't make light of what I am doing to be light now. The only thing is, I am not quite sure what a light matter diet is. But I'll bet it does not include light bulbs....

Okay, enough humor for one day. Being overweight is serious because heavy people get cancer many more times than people who are the ideal weight. They develop nearly all diseases at a faster rate, and they usually die a lot younger.

So even if scientists never do figure out their questions about dark matter, I still need to continue losing weight.

Don't weigh too much
David A. Youngs