[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/10/Odourprints.mp3[/podcast] You smell. No, I’m not being insulting. I smell, too. So does everyone else. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) human noses are not particularly sensitive, and so we only notice one another’s smells under certain circumstances, which we are all familiar with and I am therefore spared from having to enumerate. But to those of …
Category: Science Columns
The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/10/Ig-Nobels-2009.mp3[/podcast] The 2009 Ig Nobel Awards for “research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think,” given by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, were presented last Thursday at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. And I think I must begin with the Public Health Prize, which went to Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. …
Honeybees in decline
Honeybees, particularly in the United States, are in decline. In 2007-2008, 36 percent of apiaries surveyed by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that some of their colonies had simply…disappeared, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. In the most recent survey, covering September 2008 to April …
The benefits of chatspeak
When it comes to the brave new world of interpersonal communications via electronic networks, I believe I do quite well for a man who is…how can I put this delicately…no longer teenaged. Or twenty-something. Or thirty-something. Or, as of this summer, even forty-something. Despite my advancing years, however, I am still a with-it and happening …
Play me that monkey music
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/Monkey-Music.mp3[/podcast] I’ve written more than once about science related to music, but every time it’s been about human music. It’s never occurred to me to write a column about monkey music. Until now, that is. Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Charles Snowdon and National Symphony Orchestra cellist David Teie have decided to delve into …
The thrill of the chase
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/The-Thrill-of-the-Chase.mp3[/podcast] I had a hard time getting started on this column. See, as I was calling up the items I’d starred in Google Reader as possible topics, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search for new reviews of my latest novel. And then I thought, well, as long as I’m online, maybe …
Arachnophobia
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/Arachnophobia.mp3[/podcast] “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the waterspout. Down came the rain, and washed the spider out…” At which point a large percentage of us screamed and ran the other way, because surveys show that one fifth of men and a third of women are frightened of arachnids. It makes sense, right? Spiders can be …
Guilt trip
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/08/Guilt.mp3[/podcast] Guilt has gotten a bad reputation in recent years. People talk about being “plagued by guilt” as if guilt were some kind of mental illness. But in fact, guilt is a very useful emotion. People who are entirely guilt-free have no constraints on their behavior. They can cheerfully commit all kinds of mayhem, from …
Montreal WorldCon: the science column
Every now and then I attend a science fiction convention, and when I do, I like to talk about it in this column, as part of my ongoing evangelical campaign to raise the profile of science fiction and win the genre new readers. Well, I just finished a doozy of a convention, the grandaddy of …
Liquid fuel from solar power
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/Liquid-Fuels-from-Solar-Power.mp3[/podcast] In recent years, scientists and engineers have turned to biofuels—fuels generated from living things, and hence renewable—as a means of weaning us off of fossil fuels in favor of something cleaner, less likely to run out, and less wrapped up in international geopolitics. Fermenting the sugars found in corn or other grains into ethanol …
The saga of WD-40
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/WD-40.mp3[/podcast] For as long as I can remember, we’ve had WD-40 around our house, and I’m quite sure I’m not alone in that experience: most houses contain a can somewhere. But I’d never really thought about it, or even why it was called what it’s called, until this week, when I read the New York …
The washboard effect
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/The-Washboard-Effect.mp3[/podcast] Saskatchewan, as has oft been noted, has a lot of roads: more than 190,000 kilometres in all, in fact, giving it one of the most extensive road systems in Canada. Not all of those roads are paved, however. In fact, most aren’t. And as anyone who has had occasion to drive extensively on the …
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