Archives
Wooden bones
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/04/Wooden-Bones.mp3[/podcast] It’s easy to not think very much about your bones. After all, they’re securely hidden away inside your body; not visible, except as hard lumps beneath your skin. Funny thing, though: once you break one, it’s hard to think about anything else. When first I wrote about bones, back in a 1993 instalment of this column, I told the story of my own broken-bone experience, for which I blame my big brother, Dwight (mainly because it was his fault). I was seven years old and he was 12. We were both inside a big cardboard box that had held a refrigerator. For some reason, we’d decided it was fun to roll down the back steps inside this box. And it was fun, right ...Spray-on liquid glass
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/02/Spray-on-Liquid-Glass.mp3[/podcast] “Spray-on liquid glass” sounds like a product you’d see advertised at two o’clock in the morning in an infomercial. It sounds even more like a 2 a.m. infomercial product when you see headlines about it that claim it is “about to revolutionize everything.” Maybe it’d sound more impressive if I used its more formal name, which is “SiO2 ultra-thin layering,” but that’s hard to type, so I’m going to stick with “spray-on liquid glass.” Besides, that’s exactly what it is: an extremely thin layer of glass that can be sprayed onto...well, just about anything. Though it was invented in Turkey, the patent for spray-on liquid glass is held by the German company Nanopool. It consists of almost pure silicon dioxide, a.k.a. silica, extracted ...Super clothes
Choosing what to wear in the morning is about to become even harder. Should one choose the bullet-proof blouse, the colour-changing cardigan, or the self-heating sari? Clothing is about to be revolutionized by a slough of new technologies. Imagine, for example, fabric that can change pattern or colour on demand. International Fashion Machines, a small company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has developed Electric Plaid, which can do just that. Currently on display as part of the National Design Triennial at New York’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Electric Plaid looks like a multicoloured, hand-woven textile--but a circuit board attached to the back can be programmed to send current through conductive fibers woven into the textile, heating ...Sandcastle science
One of the great joys of childhood is making sandcastles on the beach; and oddly enough, part of the fun is also watching a wave wash them away. It's a little startling to find out, then, that something instinctively understood by children--that damp sand sticks together--was only recently explained scientifically in 1997. Dr. Peter Schaffer, an assistant professor of physics at Notre Dame University, was trying to assemble a swing set for his two-year-old. The swing's plastic pieces had to be weighted down with sand, and Schaffer noted that dry sand sifted easily through the tiny opening provided, but damp sand clumped around it. He wondered why--and decided to find out. Schaffer and colleague Dr. Albert ...Smart fabric
A new technology developed by the Canadian Space Agency to help control the new robot arm on the International Space Station may soon be finding its way into your car, your couch, and even your clothes. It's called smart fabric, because it turns fabric into a sensitive computer interface. The underlying technology, called Kinotex, was developed by the CSA to enhance the dexterity of the robot arm and to provide it with a sense of touch, so that it could tell when it made contact with something and stop its motion before any damage occurred. The technology also had to be robust enough to use in outer space....Teflon
The first time I saw a Teflon-covered pan, when I was four or five, I thought it was magic. Now that I cook, I'm even more impressed by non-stick surfaces. Teflon was discovered by accident by Roy J. Plunkett, 27, a DuPont scientist who was trying to develop a new chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) for use as a refrigerant by reacting a gas called tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) with hydrochloric acid. He'd prepared 100 pounds of TFE in pressure cylinders, which, for safety reasons, he stored in dry ice. On the morning of April 6, 1938, Plunkett's assistant, Jack Rebok, opened the valve of a canister of TFE--and nothing came out. They weighed the cylinder. The gas was still inside, ...Potholes revisited
I hope this doesn't come as a shock to anyone, but Regina has a seasonal problem with potholes. But there may be hope for our pothole problem, and similar problems all over the world, thanks to the work of two University of Washington State University civil engineering professors. Dr. Thomas Papgiannakis and Dr. Eyad Masad are carefully studying how and why potholes form. Their goal is to help engineers custom-design asphalt to suit the particular ground and climate conditions where a road is built. In Regina, roads are built on a base 50 to 80 centimetres thick, depending on the traffic load. The bottom layer is clean sand, which aids drainage. Over that goes a layer ...Platinum
Residents of Cardiff, Wales, were bemused (and probably amused) not to long ago to see a respected geologist out on the streets of town early one Sunday morning, sweeping road dust into a dustpan. Fortunately, Dr. Hazel Prichard hadn't been forced to take up stree-sweeping because she had lost her job at Cardiff University; instead, she was testing a theory that the streets of Cardiff--and most other major Western cities--are slowly becoming paved with platinum. Dr. Prichard told a conference in Cardiff last week that the amount of platinum spewed out on city streets from the catalytic convertors used to control pollution is approaching the point where it might be economical to recycle it. Platinum, which ...Flooring
"Keep your feet on the ground" is good advice for anyone--unless, of course, you're inside, in which case you can only keep your feet on the ground if you happen to live in a sod shanty. Otherwise, you're going to have to keep your feet on some kind of flooring: and most likely, that flooring is going to be either carpet or "vinyl." Carpets, of course, have been around for a long, long, time, and for most of that time, they've been woven from wool or some other natural fiber. But these days, weaving is passé. Instead, more than 80 percent of North American carpets are tufted....Wax
We wax floors, cars and skis; make wax paper and wax candles; use wax in the creation of batik wall-hangings, lost-wax bronze sculptures and wax-crayon masterpieces; use mustache wax and at Hallowe'en have even been known to wear wax lips. Which, naturally, brings up the question, "What is this thing called wax?" "Wax," says the encyclopedia, is the name "applied originally to naturally occurring esters of fatty acids and monohydric alcohols." Esters, says the same encyclopedia, are compounds formed by the interaction of acids and alcohols with the elimination of water. Enlightened? Perhaps not. But don't worry about it too much, because these days, the word "wax" is also applied to any number of non-esters which ...
Edward Willett is a The Shards of Excalibur, Book 1: Song of the Sword
My new YA fantasy novel, coming in October 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….
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
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).
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.
