This week saw, not just a once-in-a-lifetime event, but a once-in-four-centuries event: the first February 29 to fall in a year ending in 00 since 1600. The three basic elements of the calendar are the day, month and year. The day is the time it takes the Earth to rotate once: 24 hours. The month …
Category: Blog
The McIntyre Gallery turns 15
What could be more natural than artwork hanging on the walls of a house? At the McIntyre Gallery, that’s exactly what you get: outstanding work by Canadian artists, hung on the walls of an old house in the Transition area, so that a visit to the gallery is a lot like visiting the home of …
Composer David McIntyre
Regina composer David McIntyre, whose first symphony was premiered by the Regina Symphony Orchestra February 12, set his sights high from the moment he began writing tunes. David, who is originally from Calgary, started piano lessons with his uncle when he was four. “I heard my uncle talk about the big names, like Mozart and …
Longevity
Centuries ago, Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Today, his quest lives on in laboratories around the world. The discoveries are coming thick and fast, too. Just last week Leonard Guarente and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced they have figured out how a gene found in yeast controls …
The chemistry of love
Men have always suspected it, but now there’s scientific evidence: chocolate makes females more interested in sex. OK, so maybe that’s oversimplifying. What the study announced just before Valentine’s Day (appropriately enough) really said was that a “messenger protein” called DARPP-32 makes female rodents more interested in sex. But even the study’s lead author, Dr. …
Artificial muscles
It’s not often that a three-year-old makes a significant scientific contribution, but one did recently–inadvertantly. Ron Pelrine, a senior research engineer with Stanford Research Institute International, wanted to keep his toddler out of the refrigerator, so he and his wife purchased a latch which attached to the side of the refrigerator with a special adhesive. …
Alison Lohans
When Regina author Alison Lohans was four, she spent hours pretending to read to her little sister. At five, she discovered that just because you stop dreaming when you wake up, the dreams don’t have to end: she’d lie awake continuing the dreams in her head. When she was seven, her father let her use …
The Assiniboia Gallery
The Assiniboia Gallery is 23 years old this year. So is its new owner Mary Weimer, who took over from the founders John and Monica Kurtz, in September. Running one of the city’s best-known, established art galleries was hardly what Mary had in mind when her mother called her one day in 1998, while she …
Bad hair
Toques are lovely devices for keeping one’s head warm, but they have a very unfortunate effect on hair. Those who complain of “bad hair days” in warmer climes will never truly understand bad hair until they’ve worn a tuque all day and pulled it off just before going in for a job interview. There’s more …
Sundogs
When it’s -25 and the wind’s blowing, we tend to keep our faces turned firmly to the ground, with occasional glances up to make sure we’re not about to walk into traffic. But if, during the recent cold spell, you were brave (or foolish) enough to raise your head, you may have been treated …
In praise of the amateur
“Amateur” is a word with a split personality. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. Many of the world’s top athletes are “amateurs,” and nobody suggests they’re not as good as the “professionals.” In fact, I’ve heard many people say they’d rather watch amateur figure skating than professional skating, because the amateurs put more into it …
Crying
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who cry at movies and those who don’t. I freely admit I’m one of the former. I even cry during TV sitcoms. Heck, sometimes I even cry during commercials (only the really good ones, though). Just why some people cry more easily than others isn’t …
My latest live walk and vlog
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