Tag: science column

Choosing a mate

How many times have you heard it said that “opposites attract”? From movies to books to musicals, it’s an idea that has been drummed into our heads: Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, for instance, or Liza Doolitle and Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. But a new study has found that when men …

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Rise of the aircar

It’s almost summer, that time of year when millions of vacationers develop whole new vocabularies as they curse the slow-moving RVs behind which they’re stuck. What they need is a car that can fly, a.k.a. an aircar, a staple of science fiction stories since at least the 1930s, but something that hasn’t gotten off the …

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Scientific stain removal

I like to write about the latest discoveries in cosmology and particle physics. But not all scientific research is focused on these frontiers. Some of it is aimed as close as–well, that spot of mustard on your pants. Textile experts at Cornell University have published a pamphlet  with detailed, laboratory-tested instructions on how to remove …

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Air conditioning

If you were fortunate enough to be able to spend last week in a climate-controlled environment, give thanks to Willis Haviland Carrier, whose new-fangled invention, air conditioning, first went into service 100 years ago, on July 17, 1902. Modern air conditioning is an offshoot of an earlier invention, mechanical refrigeration, which is based on the …

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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 …

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Air

A report this week that air pollution, particularly ground-level ozone, is a more serious problem in Canada than previously thought got me to thinking about this stuff that we breathe. What is air? It’s a question we don’t ask very often, because we generally take air for granted. Air is the mixture of gases comprising …

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Avalanches

Every year, on average, avalanches kill 10 people in Canada. In the past few days, two more people were added to this year’s tragic toll as Michel Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and Susanna Donald, a University of Calgary student from Regina, became the latest victims of these deadly snowslides, also known …

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Asteroids

Most of the time, they’re harmless. Innocuous, really. They tumble along, minding their own business, not hurting anybody. But every once in a while–BOOM! “They” are asteroids, and when they go boom, it’s because they’ve run into something. When that something is Earth…well, you’ve got trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with E, …

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The ocean

I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean: the endless rolling of the waves, the water’s changing moods, the limitless horizon. Or maybe it’s just because, coming from the dry prairies, I’m amazed that anything can be that big and wet. How big and wet? The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface: 361 million …

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Fingerprints

“Your Honor, the accused’s fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime.” In how many novels, movies and TV shows have those words, or variations on them, spelled doom for a criminal? Of all the tools available to criminal investigators, fingerprinting is probably the one most familiar to the public at large. That’s not …

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Kitchen germs

In my small, elderly house, the bathroom opens onto the kitchen, which has always worried me: I keep picturing armies of bacteria marching out of the bathroom to contaminate my food. It turns out my concern is misguided: a recent study indicates it’s more likely bacteria from the kitchen will contaminate my bathroom.. Scientists from …

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Algae

They lurk in the water. They look harmless. But sometimes–not always, but sometimes–they can cause sickness: even death. “They” are blue-green algae, and it’s a bit startling to think that algae, something we think of, when we think of them at all, as an unsightly but harmless scum, can be toxic–because most algae, most of …

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