In light of California's most recent faux pas, today's guest commentary comes from California native David Lowry. David's an extraordinary plant biologist working on the genetics of switchgrass as a postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin. (And yes I'm biased, he's soon to be my husband). Given the economic crisis has wreaked havoc to my beloved home state of California, why are our lawmakers spending any time on a horribly misguided quest to dethrone serpentine (pictured left) as the state rock? A bit of background: Serpentine is commonly found in the hilly areas of California. It usually has a lovely smooth green or whitish tinge and its chemical composition has other characteristics fascinating to geologists, which I won’t detail here…except to include that some forms contain a small amount of asbestos, which leads us to our current predicament. You all remember asbestos, right? That lung cancer-causing white powdery substance that closed down your school gym as a kid for a year when they discovered it in those flame-resistant tiles (which seemed like a good idea at the time) lining the ceiling. Yep, it’s nasty stuff. We know we don’t want it around and can move on, right? Wrong! In a misguided attempt ...