One of the summer’s hottest movies has been The Perfect Storm, based on the best-selling book by Sebastian Junger about a massive storm off the Grand Banks in 1991 that resulted in the loss of the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail with all hands. The book is better than the movie, but the movie does let …
Category: Blog
Sunglasses
Sunglasses that are inherently cool. But unlike other things considered cool–body piercing, tattoos and platform shoes, for instance–wearing sunglasses not only makes good fashion sense, it makes good scientific sense. That’s because good sunglasses protect against long-term eye damage caused by the ultraviolet radiation contained in sunlight, the same ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburn …
The Harry Potter books: more than the sum of their hype
I’d be a pretty poor excuse for an arts columnist this week if I didn’t say something about Harry Potter. Harry Potter, for those who have been living in an isolation tank for the past few months, is the young wizard protagonist of a series of children’s books by J. K. Rowling, which are selling …
The 2000 Discover Awards
Each year, the folks at Discover Magazine honor a number of scientists with Innovation Awards, which spotlight inventions and discoveries with the potential to change our lives. This year, 19 scientists were honored. I’ve chosen a few from the list to highlight this week, to give you a taste of the remarkable discoveries that are occurring now–and …
First names
“What’s in a name?” asked Shakespeare. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” That may be; but would a boy named Rose ever get a job as a professional wrestler? That (or something like that) was the question Ohio University psychologist James Bruning set out to answer with …
Let’s free art from the shackles of gibberish!
Visual art and the text that explains it are uneasy bedfellows, I firmly believe. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but a visit to far too many art galleries today either leaves me in a state of suppressed fury or with a severe case of the giggles. It has nothing to do with the art …
Migraines
Few afflictions are more common than headaches. Statistics (themselves the cause of many headaches) show that in the U.S., up to 50 million people go to the doctor for headaches annually. Among headaches, however, migraines hold a special place. The pounding pain can last for hours or even days. Movement makes it worse. Nausea …
The Eden Project
Right now, in an abandoned clay pit in England, 15-story-high geodesic domes large enough to swallow the Tower of London are rapidly taking shape. When these giant domes are finished next year, their interiors will recreate two of the world’s great climatic regions, the tropics and the warm temperate zone, and they’ll be filled with …
The Lost City of Hamoukar
These days, when the world is covered by cities, we can be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing much special about them. You get a bunch of people together, you put them in houses, you add a few businesses, and presto! Instant city. But in fact cities are a relatively recent invention. Modern humans have …
The Hygiene Hypothesis
Here in North America we’re obsessed by cleanliness. We shower daily, sluice down our kitchens with anti-bacterial soap, try to keep our children from playing in the mud. Through good hygiene, we’ve eradicated or reduced the incidence of many diseases—but some scientists are now beginning to think we may have gone too far. Nearly 700 …
Professor Cyborg
Have you ever felt like your computer knew what you wanted to accomplish—and was determined to stop you from doing so? Right now, that’s just anthropomorphic thinking—but in the not too distant future, a computer may know what you’re thinking. It might even be doing some thinking—or, at least, data processing—for you, without you having …
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 …
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