Men have always suspected it, but now there’s scientific evidence: chocolate makes females more interested in sex. OK, so maybe that’s oversimplifying. What the study announced just before Valentine’s Day (appropriately enough) really said was that a “messenger protein” called DARPP-32 makes female rodents more interested in sex. But even the study’s lead author, Dr. …
Tag: science
Artificial muscles
It’s not often that a three-year-old makes a significant scientific contribution, but one did recently–inadvertantly. Ron Pelrine, a senior research engineer with Stanford Research Institute International, wanted to keep his toddler out of the refrigerator, so he and his wife purchased a latch which attached to the side of the refrigerator with a special adhesive. …
Bad hair
Toques are lovely devices for keeping one’s head warm, but they have a very unfortunate effect on hair. Those who complain of “bad hair days” in warmer climes will never truly understand bad hair until they’ve worn a tuque all day and pulled it off just before going in for a job interview. There’s more …
Sundogs
When it’s -25 and the wind’s blowing, we tend to keep our faces turned firmly to the ground, with occasional glances up to make sure we’re not about to walk into traffic. But if, during the recent cold spell, you were brave (or foolish) enough to raise your head, you may have been treated …
Crying
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who cry at movies and those who don’t. I freely admit I’m one of the former. I even cry during TV sitcoms. Heck, sometimes I even cry during commercials (only the really good ones, though). Just why some people cry more easily than others isn’t …
The winter brain
On a cold, dark January day, your brain just slips into neutral. Thoughts crawl along like a snail on sedatives, you can barely remember your own name, and higher functions like mathematics are simply beyond your ability. Right? Not according to a recent study. Apparently, our minds are actually sharper in the winter than in …
Clocks
The passage of time has had a lot of attention lately–which makes this the ideal time to honor the clock. The earliest timekeeping device, used as far back as 3,500 B.C., was a vertical stick that casts a shadow. As the sun crossed the sky, the shadow moved; by measuring its movement, the ancients could …
The thermodynamics of turkey
“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,” goes the old song, but these days, goose is a rare sight on the Christmas table. Instead, the place of honor goes to the turkey. Turkeys are native to North American. In 1519 Spanish ships introduced them to Europe. By the 1700s turkey drives were being held …
Science gifts for Christmas: 1999
There’s been a lot of talk this year about how much easier the home computer has made Christmas shopping, and I agree–but not because I’m doing a lot of shopping on-line. I find computers have made Christmas shopping easier by opening up a whole new range of gift ideas. Any kid with a computer is …
Chernobyl
This week, Ukrainian authorities restarted the last working reactor at the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster 13 years ago. Officials say the reactor is completely safe and free of any potential Y2K bugs. Considering that everybody living in the northern hemisphere 13 years ago was the unwilling recipient of at …
Have yourself a genetically modified little Christmas
Searching for the perfect Christmas tree can be a hassle, and even a tree that looks great on the lot can turn out to have weird branches, flat spots or gaps once it opens up. But someday soon, every Christmas tree may be perfect, thanks to science. Around 40 million Christmas trees are harvested every …
Football physics
This Sunday in Vancouver, thousands of people will gather to watch an impressive demonstration of momentum, mass, drag and other basic physics provided by highly trained specialists from Hamilton and Calgary. This scientific exposition is called “the Grey Cup.” One interesting demonstration will be the forward pass. A football moving through the air has inertia–the universal tendency …
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