Here in North America we’re obsessed by cleanliness. We shower daily, sluice down our kitchens with anti-bacterial soap, try to keep our children from playing in the mud. Through good hygiene, we’ve eradicated or reduced the incidence of many diseases—but some scientists are now beginning to think we may have gone too far. Nearly 700 …
Tag: science
Professor Cyborg
Have you ever felt like your computer knew what you wanted to accomplish—and was determined to stop you from doing so? Right now, that’s just anthropomorphic thinking—but in the not too distant future, a computer may know what you’re thinking. It might even be doing some thinking—or, at least, data processing—for you, without you having …
Potholes revisited
I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, but Regina has a seasonal problem with potholes. But there may be hope for our pothole problem, and similar problems all over the world, thanks to the work of two University of Washington State University civil engineering professors. Dr. Thomas Papgiannakis and Dr. Eyad Masad …
The science of pizza, beer and fries
It’s all very well scientists spending their time on cures for cancer, faster computers and a general Theory of Everything, but every once in a while, I firmly believe, they need to get their heads out of the clouds and concentrate on things that are really important to the average Joe: things like pizza, beer …
Sound
Sound is all around us, to the point where those of us blessed with good hearing take it for granted. But there is a thriving field of science for whose researchers sound is more than just background noise. They see sound as a potential tool for everything from new forms of transportation to new …
Floods
Seven years ago, it was the Mississippi. Three years ago, it was the Red River. Two years ago, the Yangtze River in China. This year, Mozambique. Recent years have seen a, well, a flood of devastating floods all around the world. And they’re getting worse. In 1998, total losses from weather-related natural disasters, including floods …
Animal intelligence
People with pets find it hard to believe, but scientists continue to debate whether or not animals are conscious–that is, whether they’re aware of themselves as individuals. Some still claim that anything animals do is strictly the result of conditioning. Others are willing to grant animals a certain amount of intelligence, but argue that animals …
The Journal of Mundane Behavior
I work at home, which, contrary to popular belief, does not mean I watch television all day. (I prefer computer games.) However, when, on occasion, I do turn the TV on, I’m immediately confronted with bizarre behavior, outlandish personalities, and just plain weirdness, on every program from talk shows to news. As a whole, our …
Solar maximum
Our sun is perturbed. It’s throwing off huge flares and erupting with spots like a teenager. That’s because this year marks the “solar maximum”–and that could mean trouble on Earth. The discovery of sunspots coincided with the invention of the telescope. Galileo was quick to turn his on the sun, focusing the image on …
Art and science at the Saskatchewan Science Centre
Art and science are too often thought of as opposites, when in fact they are anything but. What is science, after all, but an attempt to make sense of the world, to detect the order lurking in apparent chaos (and sometimes, the chaos lurking in apparent order)? And what is art, but exactly the same …
Leap year
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 …
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 …
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