Breathless information

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Last Thursday, on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Science Desk correspondent Robert Krulwich gave a fascinating report tied to Julius Caesar and the Ides of March.

The report, on the 2,050th anniversary of Caesar's assassination, noted that after the senators, including his friend Brutus, fatally stabbed him, Caesar exhaled his last breath and died.

But, as chemistry students know, that breath is still with us. Dan Nocera, chemistry professor at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, told Krulwich, that Caesar's final breath contained .05 x 6 x 10 to the 23rd (that is, 30 followed by 22 zeros) molecules, mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Krulwich said scholars have determined that some of those molecules were absorbed by plants, animals and water. But an enormous number of them are still floating all around the world so that our every breath literally includes at least one molecule from Caesar's last breath. The same, is true, he said, of molecules breathed by Shakespeare, Cleopatra or Lincoln.

When I repeated this story to my wife, Jackie, she immediately said: "That means our every breath includes some molecules breathed out by Jesus." Wow. I especially like to think that means molecules from: Jesus' first breath on Christmas; his last breath on the cross; his first breath on Easter; and from when he appeared to the disciples on Easter, "breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive other's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound'" (Jn 20:22-23).

What a breath-taking thought. It gives even more meaning to his promise, "Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Mt 28:20).