Archives
Pop! goes nutrition
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/03/Popcorn-Nutrition.mp3[/podcast] There’s nothing quite like the smell of popcorn. It makes you think of movie theatres, the circus, the midway. It makes you long for a handful. Or two. Or better yet, a whole bucket. And best of all, just this week some research results were released that indicate popcorn is also a very healthy food! I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, some background. Nobody knows who first popped popcorn, which is thought to have originated in Mexico. Ears found in the Bat Cave of West Central New Mexico were dated to some 5,600 years ago, and 1,000-year-old grains of popcorn found in tombs along the east coast of Peru were ...Of mice and man-flu
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/10/Of-Mice-and-Man-Flu.mp3[/podcast] As any wife will tell you, men are lousy at being sick. They swear they’re on death’s door when it is quite apparent to their long-suffering significant other that in fact they are suffering from nothing more than a cold, nowhere near as bad as the one she had the week before when she not only went to work every day, she cleaned the house, did the grocery shopping, and took the kids to school, dance and piano lessons and hockey practice—which, come to think of it, she’s doing again this week. So, really, so what if he’s sick, since who can tell the difference? Well, the difference ...Stretching: the truth
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/03/Stretching-the-Truth.mp3[/podcast] Exercise is good for you. It’s a shame, since I personally find the whole sweating/breathing hard/ hurting thing a (literal) pain, but I don’t believe I can mount a successful argument as to why sitting on your rear end eating junk food all day is actually better for you, even though evolution seems to have inclined us to do it. (It’s interesting to note that “survival of the fittest” is only one letter away from “survival of the fattest,” and one reason we’re so fond of high-calorie foods is that when food is in short supply, it really is the fattest who are the fittest to survive. But I digress.) I’m not ...Confessions of a cyberchondriac
A few years ago I wrote several children's books for the Diseases and People series put out by Enslow Publishers. It's amazing when you're writing about disease how easy it is to convince yourself you've got the symptoms of whatever you're writing about. The first book was Meningitis. Stiff neck? You bet. Of course, I was sitting and typing for hours on end, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence. I also wrote Arthritis (my fingers are still stiff), Ebola Virus (Ebola starts with flu-like symptoms; gee, thanks, that's specific!), Alzheimer's Disease (which I can barely even remember writing) and Hemophilia, ...It’s past your bedtime!
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/01/Its-Past-Your-Bedtime.mp3[/podcast] Ah, New Year’s. A time for resolutions, typically focused on living more healthily. Apparently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, not trusting us to do it ourselves, has decided to make our resolutions for us: it’s started 2011 with a series of stories lecturing Canadians on how unhealthy their lifestyle is, and started something called the “Live Right Now” initiative. Yes, apparently determined to live up to its nickname as “The Mother Corp.,” CBC is telling us to eat our vegetables, quit watching TV and go outside and play, always wear clean underwear in case we’re hit by a truck (OK, I may have made that one up) and, most motherly of all, to “Go to bed, it’s past your bedtime!” Apparently a CBC poll ...I get a box full of disease detectives!
Oh, all right, not the actual detectives themselves, but my latest book from Enslow, Disease-Hunting Scientist: Careers Hunting Deadly Disease. That's the cover at left. Here's the blurb from the back: Working from high-tech labs in Canada or remote villages in Africa, epedemiologists travel the world trying to keep us safe from deadly diseases. Learn how these "disease detectives" are coming up with new wayts to fight disease, and find out if you have what it takes to become an epidemiologist, too! I'd seen that before. What I hadn't seen, until the books arrived today, was this very nice cover quote from Jonathan M. Samet, MD, Professor ...Stop that stretching!
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/Stretching.mp3[/podcast] There’s a perception that science is always reversing itself. If you don’t like what science has to say about, say, the health benefits or risks of a particular food (eggs, for example, or coffee), you only have to wait awhile until a contradictory study comes out. That’s because science progresses in fits and starts. Researchers put forward a possible explanation, a hypothesis, for the results of an experiment. Other researchers attempt to duplicate their results and refine the hypothesis. Sometimes the hypothesis is completely discarded, and a new hypothesis gains sway. But in the media, this slow process is seldom reported. It’s much easier to pick up on the report of a single study—particularly if it has startling results—and present the hypotheses ...Are cognitive shortcuts making us fat?
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/06/Cognitive-Shortcuts-to-Obesity.mp3[/podcast] When we think about how we make decisions, we tend to imagine that we consider the facts of a situation carefully and logically, in a straightforward, step-by-step manner. But that process is, indeed, imaginary. The truth is that our brains prefer to do as little actual thinking as possible. They like shortcuts—and sometimes those shortcuts can get us into trouble. Take, for instance, what psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania call "Unit Bias," which, they say, “causes people to ignore vital, obvious information in their decision-making process, points to a fundamental flaw in the modern, evolved mind, and may also play a role in the American population's 30 years of weight gain.” The researchers conducted several studies with college-age participants. In one, the ...Disease-Hunting Scientist: Marta Guerra and Ebola
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/06/marta-guerra-and-ebola.mp3[/podcast] Here's one last column condensed from a chapter in my new children's book Disease-Hunting Scientist: Careers Hunting Deadly Diseases (Enslow Publishers): In the movie Outbreak, researchers from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have to figure out how to stop a kind of super-Ebola virus from ravaging the U.S. In 1995, the same year Outbreak came out, Marta Guerra, who already had her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and was finishing her master's degree in public health. "I remember seeing that movie and thinking, 'Wow, that's what I want to do!'" Five years later, Guerra, now with a Ph.D. in epidemiology and a brand-new officer of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) ...An instantaneous, universal, programmable vaccine?
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/a-universal-instant-vaccine.mp3[/podcast] Efforts to immunize people against disease go back to at least 600 B.C., when the Chinese attempted to immunize people against smallpox by putting smallpox material in their nostrils (the permitting of which, I would think, would require a great deal of faith in your doctor). Modern immunization began in 1796 when a British physician, Edward Jenner, noting that people who had had the much-less-deadly cowpox did not catch smallpox, inserted material from cowpox sores into the arm of a healthy eight-year-old boy. The boy caught cowpox, but when he was exposed to smallpox eight weeks later, he did not contract the often-fatal disease. Vaccines have since become a mainstay of public health. Their impact has been enormous. Consider measles: in 2007, ...
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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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