Rocket Girls: The Last Planet by Housuke Nojiri Read Free Book Online Page B

fits wear it, right? And I think you’d fit just right, Akane.”
    Akane frowned, unconvinced.
    Miyamoto stared at her. “You seem more the research type than a member of a flight crew. You like biology?”
    “Yes,” she replied. Then, more enthusiastically, “Ever since I was in elementary school!” Now Akane began to talk faster than Yukari had ever heard her talk. “We had to observe morning glories for a summer project in third grade, and I got to wondering why it was that some of them had vines that twisted to the right and others had vines twisting to the left. I couldn’t figure it out just by looking at the ones we had on our patio, so I ended up examining every morning glory on my block, then I went to the next block and the next until I had examined one hundred plants in all. When I averaged them out, right-twisting vines came out to fifty-three percent.”
    Miyamoto laughed out loud. “So no statistically significant difference, then.”
    “Well, I didn’t know about statistical analysis back then, so my conclusion was that right-twisting morning glories were more common. My teacher was really impressed, and I guess I let it go to my head. Oh, that’s right, I even did a sort of fake space experiment when I was in junior high.”
    “You don’t say?”
    “I couldn’t pull off a zero-gravity experiment, but I could make a high-G experiment right here on Earth. I modified an old record player into a centrifuge. Then I put a tulip bulb in some dirt at the edge and spun it around at 2 G to see what would happen.”
    “Very interesting!” Miyamoto exclaimed. “They’ve raised chickens using that same method in America, and the Germans similarly observed jellyfish in space, you know. It must’ve taken quite some time for you to get any results.”
    “Well, that’s the thing. I put the centrifuge out on the patio and let it spin all night and day. My mom wanted me to stop—she was afraid the record player was going to burst into flames or something—so I promised her I would keep my eye on it, and I ended up sitting there for three whole days. In the end, on the eighth day, the record player broke, so I never did get any results. But my science teacher was still impressed and told me that if I really wanted to become a scientist when I grew up, I would also need to study math and English and take tests so I could get into good schools. I think that’s around when I started to really like studying.”
    “You mean you can grow into liking studying?” Yukari asked. “I always thought it was something you were born either liking or hating.”
    “No, I really think you can learn to like it. It’s like getting this new tool to think with, and the more you study, the more you understand—like how you can use a single guideline to solve geometry problems, or how great it feels to figure out a proof, or the fun in using simple English vocabulary to say complicated things, or the fun in reading the newspaper after you learn about something in social studies, and because every class has tests, you get immediate results—it’s so satisfying! And then —” Akane shook her head. “What am I saying? I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes.” She blushed and covered her face with her hands.
    “Not at all, not at all.” Miyamoto smiled. “It was a fascinating story. Why, it’s people like you that give me hope for the future of the sciences in this country. Have you already picked a university?”
    “I want to go to Tokyo University and study molecular biology under Professor Niuchi.”
    “Ah yes, Dr. Niuchi. That’s a good school. And molecular biology is fascinating.”
    Akane’s face shone. “I mean, I know life is sacred, but you can’t just call it sacred and leave it at that. You have to get to the bottom of things to really understand them, and I figured that molecular biology would be the place to start.”
    “Quite right. I began with physics myself, but your approach is