9 September 18

Happy Grandparents Day! To honor my grandchildren, I'm wearing this "frogs" tie that grandson Nate David gave me two years ago. And it's clipped to my shirt with the tie bar that represents granddaughter Mallie.  But the tie is also very appropriate to celebrate the birthday of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), an early experimenter with electricity. Galvani is famous for reporting how frogs' legs would "jump" when touched with an electrically charged rod, even though they were not attached to a frog! The idea that mundane, ordinary electricity worked inside living organisms was revolutionary because it contradicted the beliefs about a "vital force" that separated living things from the rest of the world.