Science Has Been Eating Donuts (or, "Why Your Kids Will Grow Taller in Hudson Bay")

Despite this attractive graphic, gravity is NOT pretty.

Check out this pretty image, built from data collected by the GRACE satellite mapping the earth's magnetic fields in painfully low resolution... hey, don't go to sleep, now! This has direct bearing on you. Wait for it...

Scientists are still trying to figure out what this chart really means, as well as what gravity really is (hint: look up, "universons"). You may have noticed instances of higher and lower gravity graphed above, which could be indicative of magma convection beneath the mantle, or perhaps mantle depth, or number of toys per square inch in your family room. And speaking of magma, it will NOT make you taller, but it can induce some pretty fast lap times. The pretty colors above could also be mapping geomagnetic flux density, or perhaps how many high-energy donut shops there are in any given area, which is kinda the same thing in a not-kinda-the-same-thing kinda way. You getting all this?

Note that the Earth’s gravity changes day-to-day, microsecond-to-microsecond -- and some donut shops more than others -- but the above image shows how average variability in Earth’s gravity field in 2002 compared to the yearly average of 2001. Whoa. What this REALLY means is that your kid will perhaps grow taller and get a better basketball scholarship if he or she lives in Hudson Bay. Or the ocean floor. AND keeps away from donut shops, especially those in the Marianas Trench. Mmmm, Marianas Trench donut... a specialty of The Donut Den. (Ok, it is now.)

(high energy donut image courtesy brent in nashville. awesome.) 

Ok, the REAL run-on truth is, when you're talkin' earthy locale microgravities, you're looking at an increase in somatic growth of probably just a few microns, unless it's a whole bag of donuts, and then you might reap a whole freakin' millimeter if you stand right in the vortex, but then you might get sucked in and whacked in the face with flying clocks, hourglasses, the odd barn from 1938... so, you might wanna stay in the Oldsmo-buick, like that's gonna help, but how does this gravity thing affect you as a parent? That's right. These are the forces that contribute to those kid forces that are grinding your bones to dust. Feels better now that you know, right? Is there a remedy? Yes, there is. JUMP INTO THE VORTEX. It's really just a big donut if you only consider the first two dimensions. Whatever. Da-da needs a donut.

Seems like Da-da's seen this image before...