Archives
Birds of a feather
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/11/Flocking.mp3[/podcast] It’s a familiar sight this time of year: enormous flocks of snow geese, covering a field, then all taking flight at once, whirling and swirling in unison. It’s almost like they’re all under the control of a single mind, but of course they aren’t. In fact, they’re under the control of a multitude of minds, all of them, literally, bird brains. So how do they move in synchronicity? Despite years of study, the phenomenon, well-known though it is, has remained a puzzle to researchers. Explanations have included telepathy (no, seriously, that was a suggestion floated in the 1930s). But it appears the actual explanation is more mundane, though ...Alcohol on the brain
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/10/Alcohol-on-the.mp3[/podcast] Human beings have been using and abusing alcohol for a very long time: roughly 10,000 years, give or take a long weekend. The effects of drinking too much of the stuff have been known for every one of those 10,000 years (although individuals somehow seem to forget them within a remarkably short time frame). For decades, scientists have been trying to understand the mechanism behind the reduced muscle coordination and sedative effects of alcohol. The assumption has been that alcohol acts on the brain’s neurons, but nobody could figure out exactly how. A new study indicates that may be because they’ve been looking in the wrong place. Not only that, the ...Belly-button biodiversity
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/07/Belly-Button-Biodiversity.mp3[/podcast] It’s summer, that time of year when belly buttons escape their natural habitat of swimming pools and beaches and wander free in the oddest places, from the library to the shopping mall (although unlike the grins of Cheshire cats, they rarely appear without their owners). But as you survey these navel maneuvers, don’t think of them merely as evidence that humans are viviparous. Instead, marvel at the fact that every belly button you see, as well as all those which, thankfully, you don’t, are unique habitats, rather like zoos in miniature. We know that thanks to the efforts of a group of biologists and science communicators from North Carolina State ...Blue’s clues
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/02/Blue-Cheese.mp3[/podcast] I love blue cheese. It hasn’t always been so. As a child, I was of course immersed in the done-to-death running gags of the cartoon world, where smelly cheese (always Limburger, for some reason) seemed to be thought of as a sure-fire laugh riot. Outside of the cartoon world, I simply wasn’t exposed to blue cheese. My favorite childhood cheese was Velveeta. Maybe mild cheddar. Blue cheese? Fuggetaboudit. But somewhere along the way I developed a taste for it, to the point where I eat it almost daily on my lunchtime sandwics. And I’m always willing to try a new blue cheese. Now, to be fair to those long-ago cartoon creators, ...Cloning a mammoth
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/01/Cloning-the-Mammoth.mp3[/podcast] One of the more striking exhibits at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum is the woolly mammoth that looms over you, emerging from a forest, when you round one of the corners in the Earth Sciences Gallery. Twelve thousand years ago, you might have encountered exactly that scene while strolling through Saskatchewan: these days, the closest you can come is a museum exhibit, because woolly mammoths are, of course, quite extinct. But gone forever? Perhaps not. As the hag tells Prince Caspian in the C.S. Lewis book of the same name, “You can always get them back.” Oh, sure, she was talking about the White Witch, but she could have been talking about ...O Tannenbaum
Time to re-roast an old chestnut, a column I wrote several years that has become fresh in my mind due to the successful completion last night of Operation Dress-the-Tree (to be followed in a few weeks, of course, by Operation Curse-the-Tree as the needle-shedding skeleton is hauled out to the alley). Is there scientific interest to be found in ol’ Tannenbaum? Indeed there is! Consider, for instance a Christmas tree’s incredible capacity to "drink" water. A tree may slurp up six or seven litres when you first put it up, and as much as a litre or two a day thereafter. This seems like strange behavior for something that's dead. But of course, the tree doesn't realize that it's dead. As far as ...Honeybees in decline
Honeybees, particularly in the United States, are in decline. In 2007-2008, 36 percent of apiaries surveyed by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that some of their colonies had simply...disappeared, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. In the most recent survey, covering September 2008 to April 2009, 26 percent of the apiaries reported that some of their colonies were lost to CCD, a lower number but still alarming: not just to beekeepers, for whom these kinds of losses are economically unsustainable, but for those of us who like to eat, because bees pollinate 80 percent of fruits and vegetables, and a much as a third of the food we consume relies on ...Disease-Hunting Scientist: Jonathan Runstadler investigates bird flu in Alaska
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/06/jonathan-runstadler-and-bird-flu.mp3[/podcast] Here’s another column drawn from one of the chapters of my new book Disease-Hunting Scientist (Enslow Publishers): Every spring, an estimated six million birds arrive in Alaska to breed. Some spent the winter in Southeast Asia, home to a strain of avian influenza called H5N1. Although swine flu is getting all the attention right now, bird flu hasn’t gone away: many scientists fear it could someday become more readily transmissible between humans, and produce a deadly global pandemic. Even in its current form, it has already sickened 433 people worldwide, killing 262 of those. At the back of everyone’s mind is the 1918 pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people, many of them healthy young adults—a pandemic caused by a ...Disease-Hunting Scientist: Dr. Laurie Richardson and black-band disease in coral
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/05/laurie-richardson-and-black-band-disease.mp3[/podcast] My newest book, Disease-Hunting Scientist (Enslow Publishers) has now been officially released, and so this week I’m giving you a column-sized version of another of the lengthy chapters devoted to individual scientists in the book. Dr. Laurie Richardson, Professor of Biology at Florida International University in Miami, is researching black-band disease in coral reefs—which means she spends a lot of each summer scuba-diving, often for hours a day. At 287,231 square kilometers, coral reefs are less than a tenth of a percent of the total ocean floor. But they support more than a million species of marine life. They are also dying, from pollution, overfishing—and black-band disease, among others. Dr. Richardson started her career researching “microbial mats,” communities of ..."I never forget a…"
Wasps have a good memory for a faceChimps never forget a bumSince I'm more closely related to chimps than to wasps, perhaps the difficulty I have in remembering people's names simply boils down to looking at the wrong spot.
Edward Willett is a Subscribe to my weekly science column for free!
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Magebane
“Spectacular” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evil wizards, multi-level conspiracies, hidden kingdoms…Lee Arthur Chane…has done a marvelous job…Magebane is a very entertaining book and well worth the time.” – A.M. Donovan, Night Owl Reviews
I happily recommend Magebane and I’ll certainly give Chane’s next novel a try based on this one.” —Bill Capossere, Fantasy Literature
“…an original and delightful tale of epic fantasy and magic, steampunk science, adventure, tragedy, and love…” – Errant Dreams Reviews
Eight centuries ago, the world changed. A devastating war swept the lands, and the MageLords, who had long ruled by virtue of their spell powers, were driven to a distant place, separated from those they had ruled by a magical Barrier. With magic banished from the rest of the world, the MageLords became mere legend and people turned to science to improve their lives. But if one man has his way, all that is about to change….
Written as Lee Arthur Chane (the middle names of my older brothers, Jimmy Lee and Dwight Arthur, and myself, Edward Chane Willett).
Marseguro
Winner of the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English
Water world Marseguro is home to the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from human DNA. When an unmodified human seeks revenge on a Selkie by activating a distress beacon taken from the remains of the original colony ship, a strikeforce is sent from Earth to eradicate the genetic abomination. Yet Marseguro will not prove as easy to conquer as the Earth force anticipates…
Terra Insegura
Finalist for the 2010 Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel in English
Marseguro, a water world far from Earth, is home to a colony of humans and the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from modified human DNA. For seventy years the colony has lived in peace. Then Earth discovers Marseguro, and a strike force is sent to eradicate this “abomination.” But Marseguro has created a genetically tailored plague to use against Earth’s Holy Warriors. With the enemy defeated, the people of Marseguro feel they are safe. But Chris Keating, the traitor who signaled Marseguro’s location to the Holy Warriors, has fled to Earth, unknowingly carrying the deadly plague within him. The people of Marseguro feel they must send a ship to Earth with a life-saving vaccine. Only time will tell what awaits them when they reach their destination.
Lost in Translation
Kathryn was a human empath whose world and life had been destroyed when the alien S’sinn slaughtered her parents before her very eyes. Jarrikk was a young S’sinn, an unproven warrior who’d seen his flight mates slaughtered by the humans who’d sought to colonize his world.
As humans and S’sinn found themselves on the brink of war, these two Translators had to work together to find a common ground and avert catastrophe. But whether their Translators’ oath and training could overcome the enemies leagued against them was very much in doubt…
Archives
Song of the Sword
My new YA fantasy novel from Lobster Press
Before the Lady called her, Ariane’s life was a mess. Two years ago, her mother disappeared. She bounced around different foster homes until her aunt finally took her in. The meanest clique at her new high school has decided to make Ariane their prime target. And to top it all off, she is having frightening premonitions, and they are becoming more intense. The moment water touches her skin, she sees visions of a lake, a lady, and a sword. When a staircase opens up in the middle of Wascana Lake and the water begins singing to her, she has no choice but to answer the call….
Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw
Ten walks to points of historic and architectural interest in the cities of Regina and Moose Jaw (eight walks for Regina, two for Moose Jaw).
Johnny Cash: The Man in Black
When country music legend Johnny Cash took the stage at Folsom State Prison in 1968, he solidified the public’s perception of him as a rebel who followed his own path. Born in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Cash endured poverty, the death of his older brother, and a difficult relationship with his father. He turned to gospel and country music to express the pain, and after many years of struggling, his songs of hardship and hope would finally reach the ears of those waiting for an artist who represented them, ordinary people fighting to survive.
Andy Warhol: Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes
“Paintings are too hard. Machines have less problems…” In the 1960s, Andy Warhol became the most famous creator of a new style of art called pop art, which transformed mass-produced items of popular culture into fine works of art. From Campbell’s Soup cans to photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol’s willingness to use anything and everything from the mass media in his work expanded the range of subject matter available to artists. His avant-garde films, artistic usage of American icons, and unconventional social life made him a controversial figure, both greatly admired and deeply reviled. A trendsetter rather than a trend-follower, a dispassionate observer of both the seamy and celebrity sides of life, Warhol was a true American rebel.
Disease-Hunting Scientist
The true stories of six real disease hunters. Epidemiologists travel the world trying to keep us safe from deadly diseases—from high-tech labs in Canada to remote villages in Africa. Learn how these “disease detectives” are coming up with new ways to fight disease, and find out if you have what it takes to become an epidemiologist, too!
The Bounty Mutiny
The Bounty was a British ship visiting Tahiti in 1789 when some of the crew overthrew the captain, William Bligh, and set him adrift in a tiny boat with sailors loyal to him. The mutiny resulted in a number of trials–both of the men who mutinied and of Bligh for losing command of his ship. These fascinating events have been the source for numerous Hollywood movies, most recently The Bounty. The Bounty Mutiny: From the Court Case to the Movie explores the famous case and the movies it inspired.
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