The smile of the axolotl, or why science

The first time I saw the smile of the axolotl, something terrible happened. A dark feeling was born in me. A feeling that, I am afraid, will stay with me until the day of my death: uneasiness.

I felt an immense distress by thinking about all the things unknown to me that exist in the world. How could I have been so many years living in this world with a being like that, and not know about it?

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It happened on a sunny spring day, while I was studying for the summer exams. I had the biology notes in front of me, the ones that I had copied from I don't know who, who in turn had copied them from I don't know who (and so on up to the original author, a student who, back in the dawn of time, did a huge favour to all succeeding generations), and read the following: " Some animals retain their larval physical characteristics during part or all their adult life. This is a process known as neoteny. A good example of this phenomenon is the mexican axolotl. " Sorry? What is this animal? I did not know and I got curious, so I did what anyone would have done in my place: search Google. 0,15 seconds after pressing the Enter button, there it was, looking mockingly at me from the computer screen. From different angles, in different poses and colors, but always with his unique smile, and I felt captivated. 

Since then, I live overwhelmed by thinking about all the things that I still don't know. What if there are even stranger animals, from which, like from the axolotl until a few years ago, I have never heard of? Or plants, or natural phenomena? But wait, what am I saying, of course there are, I know nothing about anything! What I know is not even a millionth of all the things that are known in the world. And that not to talk about all the things that still no one knows...Oh God!

That is why I like science, because it is my ally in this mission impossible. I like scientists because they work like little ants in a giant universe to provide us, crumb by crumb, with information of all kinds: The stars, the origin of species, the physical laws that govern the world and the maths that rule it, the molecules of which we are made of and the genes that generate them, the climate, ocean currents and all the specimens that live swimming under the sea, crawling over the land or flying above the clouds. They have even attempted to explain us of which matter love is made of!

The pity is, of course, that life is too short to learn it all.

Categories: axolotl, curiosity, english, science, strange animals