Over the years, various tours around the province, most recently last weekend with the University of Regina Chamber Singers to Swift Current and Yorkton, have given me an appreciation for the varied nature of the Saskatchewan landscape. It might be flat and treeless around Regina, but in the parklands rolling terrain is the norm; out …
I had to have my last remaining wisdom tooth pulled on Friday. It was not, I hardly need add, something I enjoyed. But the number of teeth that have to be pulled in the future (from everyone, I mean, not just me) may be lower than the number being pulled today, thanks to new advances …
In his 1959 novel Starship Troopers (the movie of the same name has almost nothing in common with the book–ignore it!), Robert Heinlein invented the idea of powered battle armor, which gave an infantryman more fighting power than a modern tank, protected him from battlefield hazards, allowed central command to locate him and monitor …
We handle money every day–though perhaps not as much of it as we would like–but we’re more interested in what the coins and bills will buy than how they are made (except, of course, for the new two-dollar coin, which we like to throw, hammer and jump up and down on, on the off chance …
We handle money every day–though perhaps not as much of it as we would like–but we’re more interested in what the coins and bills will buy than how they are made (except, of course, for the new two-dollar coin, which we like to throw, hammer and jump up and down on, on the off chance …
Every art gallery has its own personality, its own “feel,” which gallery goers construct inside their own heads through their reaction to the gallery’s physical spaces, the exhibits and how they are arranged, the text that accompanies those exhibits, and the gallery’s various programs. To me, the gallery with the most interesting personality in Regina …
Few things say “Be My Valentine” more effectively than diamonds–reason enough to devote this week’s science column to these sparkling rocks. Diamonds aren’t anything fancy, chemically: they’re just carbon, like coal. But their molecules close-packed in rigid geometric fashion, and that gives them special characteristics. To begin with, diamond is the hardest substance known: the …
We humans like to think we’re pretty tough, able, thanks to our technology, to live in the most severe habitats on Earth. But the fact is, there are other forms of life on Earth that have us beat hands down. They not only live all the places we live, they live in searingly hot water …
There’s a song in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Iolanthe that begins, “When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is taboo’d by anxiety….” and goes on to describe a horrendous night that begins with sleeplessness and ends with a horrible dream. W. S. Gilbert, it seems, was no stranger to insomnia. Nor are roughly …
It’s January: if you don’t have a cold yourself, you know someone who does. The common cold is caused by a virus infection in the nose, although colds can also involve the sinuses, ears and bronchial tubes. Symptoms include sneezing, a runny and/or stuffed-up nose, a sore or scratchy throat, cough, hoarseness, and sometimes headaches, …
I went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings last week. That’s hardly news; it’s been the number-one movie for three weeks now, so lots of people have been going to see it. But I did want to set down my impressions of the film–and some thoughts on what J.R.R. …
We all have our favorite smells, which remind us of our favorite things. The smell of baking bread may make you think of Grandma’s house. The scent of lilacs may remind you of warm summer evenings. Then there our are less-favorite smells, like the smell of an outhouse on a hot day, or the smell …
