This is the time of the year when the winners of the prestigious Nobel Prizes are announced with great fanfare and acclaim. That’s all well and good, but the real Nobel Prizes, frankly, take themselves far too seriously. They tend to support the prevailing belief that science is stuffy, boring, and, well, nobel–er, noble. Fortunately, …
Category: Science Columns
ChiCon: The 2000 World Science Fiction Convention
As I mentioned last week, 6,000 people recently gathered in Chicago for the 58th annual World Science Fiction Convention, myself among them. Mention “science fiction convention” to most people and they immediately think of a Star Trek convention. However, science fiction fans have been getting together long before Star Trek penetrated the public consciousness. At …
Robert J. Sawyer calculates God
The notion that the universe has a designer, that it didn’t occur entirely as the result of blind cosmic forces, is not one that gets a lot of attention from the media. Many people assume that all reputable scientists dismiss the notion out of hand. Many reputable scientists do–but not all. There are actually strong …
Animal communication
The fact that animals can communicate with each other is pretty obvious to anyone who has ever watched a pack of dogs or a group of farm cats interact, or listened to crows calling to each other in the treetops. But just how complex is animal communication? Can anything animals do to communicate with each …
Submarines
Submarines have been much in the news lately. Not only has world attention has been riveted on the tragic sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, but Canada is in the process of getting new submarines and, in the U.S., the Civil War submarine that was the first to sink another ship has just been …
Olympic technology 2000
“Faster, higher, stronger” are the oft-stated goals of Olympic athletes. Increasingly, science and technology are helping them to achieve those goals. This year, the technological focus is on swimming. Until recently, the goal of swimmers seemed to be to wear bathing suits that preserved the illusion of modesty with as little material as possible, the …
Barbecuing II
There are still a few good weeks of summer left, and that means there’s still plenty of time for the ultimate summer activity, barbecuing. Technically, what we call barbecuing around here is not true barbecuing, which involves the long, slow cooking of meat, often over hours, at relatively low temperatures in the presence of lots …
Alzheimer’s Disease
There are few diseases as frightening as Alzheimer’s. Most diseases, even if they ravage your body, leave your mind intact. Alzheimer’s leaves the body intact but robs victims of their memories and personality. No wonder it is sometimes called “dying by inches.” There is neither a cure nor an effective treatment –but there is hope. …
Mars in the Arctic
A unique construction project finally overcame delays and disaster last week to take shape in the Arctic. It looks more or less like an oil tank, but in fact it’s a model of the kind of habitat humans may one day live in when they visit Mars. The two-story fiberglass structure is the brainchild of …
Waves
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 …
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 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 …
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