It’s January: if you don’t have a cold yourself, you know someone who does. The common cold is caused by a virus infection in the nose, although colds can also involve the sinuses, ears and bronchial tubes. Symptoms include sneezing, a runny and/or stuffed-up nose, a sore or scratchy throat, cough, hoarseness, and sometimes headaches, …
Category: Blog
What J.R.R. Tolkien means to me
I went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings last week. That’s hardly news; it’s been the number-one movie for three weeks now, so lots of people have been going to see it. But I did want to set down my impressions of the film–and some thoughts on what J.R.R. …
The science of stink
We all have our favorite smells, which remind us of our favorite things. The smell of baking bread may make you think of Grandma’s house. The scent of lilacs may remind you of warm summer evenings. Then there our are less-favorite smells, like the smell of an outhouse on a hot day, or the smell …
The 2001 Discover Awards
Each year, Discover Magazine honors a number of scientists with Innovation Awards, which spotlight inventions and discoveries with the potential to change our lives. A look at the 2001 winners provides a snapshot of how science and technology are advancing, and just maybe gives us a look at what the future holds. (OK, OK, the awards were …
New Year’s resolutions for 2002
I’ve written weekly columns on a variety of topics almost constantly for more than 20 years now, which means I’ve probably written at least 20 New Year’s columns devoted to the topic of resolutions–and guess what? This is one of them. This being a column on the arts, of course, the resolutions have to relate …
The physics of fiddling
Isaac Stern, master of the complex physics of waveform generation, vibrating wood, and acoustical analysis, died last month. Stern, of course, didn’t think of himself in those terms: he thought of himself as a violinist. But violins are remarkably complex devices. On the surface, they look pretty simple: the bow vibrates the strings, which vibrate …
Ebola
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is in the news again, due to an outbreak in Gabon. Ebola is always news because, unlike most rare tropical diseases, it’s part of pop culture, thanks to Richard Preston’s 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone and Dustin Hoffman’s 1995 movie Outbreak. As a result, many people follow news of Ebola outbreaks with bated breath, wondering …
Sneezing and coughing
If you’ve been to a concert or play recently, you know ’tis the season for coughing and sneezing–usually during the quietest moments. Both coughing and sneezing are reflex actions (sneezing more so than coughing–you can cough deliberately, but it’s almost impossible to fake a sneeze.) And as the proud father of a five-and-a-half-month-old baby girl, …
Star Trek tech
“Like something out of Star Trek” has become a catch-phrase for all things high-tech. But as Erik Baard points out in articles recently posted to Wired Online, we live in such a high-tech age that the Star Trek future is beginning to look more like last Thursday. As Baard notes, fans have wondered for decades …
P-books and e-books
The Saskatchewan Book Awards, honoring the best books by Saskatchewan writers, is coming up on November 30. The short-listed nominees are all worthy, but they’re also all a little old-fashioned, in that they’re all printed on paper. “Paper?” I hear you say. “What else would they be printed on?” To which I reply, who says …
The Dead Sea SCrolls
Two thousand years ago mass-produced books did not exist. Knowledge was handed down from generation to generation either orally, or in fragile, handwritten documents. Because of that only fragments of the knowledge of that time survives today: inscriptions on stone, a few papyrus and parchment fragments. Creating an image of the distant past is like …
Leonardo’s Bridge
Last week a pedestrian bridge opened in Norway. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be of much interest anywhere else, but this bridge drew media attention from all over the world, because of its designer: Leonardo da Vinci. The artist behind the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper was a true Renaissance man (in fact, the original Renaissance …
My latest live walk and vlog
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