The recent announcement that the University of Alberta has landed a $120 million nanotechnology research facility was mostly reported as an example of how the federal Liberals are trying to woo Albertans. Surprisingly little was said about nanotechnology itself (one commentator, in fact, referred to it simply as “nanotechnology–whatever that is.”) Allow me to rectify …
Category: Blog
Multitasking
Multitasking–doing several tasks simultaneously–sounds like a time management expert’s dream. What could be more efficient than, say, driving to work while talking to your secretary about the day’s meetings, or writing a report and dictating a letter while also catching the latest stock quotes on TV? There’s just one problem–new studies show multitasking doesn’t work. …
Con-Version XVIII
I spent the past weekend deeply involved in discussions ranging from whether the Harry Potter books teach witchcraft to children to whether technology can save the world. In between, I participated in the improvisational writing of a short story, sang songs by J. R. R. Tolkein, and photographed Dirk Benedict, former star of Battlestar Galactica and The A-Team. …
Donovan Chester: the fiery art and craft of raku
Pottery is a unique form of creative expression, one whose practitioners must be as well-endowed with technical savvy as they are with artistic vision. That’s particularly true of raku, the ceramic form practiced by Regina’s Donovan Chester. Don’s studio was the destination of the third Twilight Tour put on by the Mackenzie Art Gallery this …
Wilf Perrault: playing with light
Wilf Perrault’s art is among the most immediately recognizable work by any Regina artist. His landscapes capture, not the countryside, but the back alleys of this city and others, alleys where trees, bushes, power poles, fences, garages, puddles and snow come together to create unexpected beauty. Until recently, Wilf created his art in a small …
Lie detectors
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a machine that could tell you when someone is lying? Some people believe that there is. It’s called a “polygraph”–popularly known as a “lie detector”–and it’s been in the news lately, both in Washington and in Regina. Other people, however, will tell you that the polygraph is a fraud, no …
Bionics
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man.” So began each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, of which I was a big fan not all that many decades ago. At the time, of course, the idea of “rebuilding” a man with artificial parts was …
Keeping comfortable
Humans are creatures of comfort; and the story of civilization is, to a certain extent, the quest to keep from being either too hot or too cold. Considering the recent swings in temperature we’ve experienced, it could be considered the story of Saskatchewan, too. The earliest form of climate control was the fire. Room temperature …
Bicycles II
It’s summertime in Saskatchewan, and that means the roads are full of joggers, walkers–and bicyclists. The first bicycle was the “celerifere,” or wooden horse, invented in France in the 1790s. It had a fixed front wheel, so it couldn’t be steered, and the rider propelled it by pushing his feet along the ground, like Fred …
Professional entertainment, amateur audiences
Last night I attended the Conservatory of Performing Arts Ballet Program’s outstanding production of La Fille mal Gardée at the University Theatre at the University of Regina. The production was just one more example of the incredible depth of talent we have here in Regina, demonstrated both by the young people who did the dancing …
Laser eye surgery
I grew up in a glasses-wearing family. My parents wore glasses, my two older brothers wore glasses and I, by the age of five, also wore glasses. In more recent years, my brother Dwight and I switched to contacts, but while contacts may be invisible to others, they’re still glasses, albeit tiny ones stuck to …
Herakleion
In Disney’s new summer animated blockbuster Atlantis, a team of intrepid explorers searches the sea-bottom for the legendary lost continent. Atlantis is only a legend, but in the non-animated world, real researchers have recently made discoveries almost as sensational, locating the fabled city of Herakleion, along with two of its suburbs, Canopus and Menouthis, underwater …
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