I rarely listen to radio, but many other people (my girlfriend, for instance) listen to it constantly–usually CBC. (Are you listening, Mr. Chretien?) Most people, if asked who invented radio, would tell you, “Marconi.” But very few people know much about Guglielmo Marconi beyond that bare fact. I’m here to rectify that. Marconi didn’t invent …
Tag: science
Tornadoes
The northern plains of Texas, where I lived as a boy before my parents moved (and fortunately took me with them) to Canada, are in “Tornado Alley,” the area of the United States where most of its 770 yearly tornadoes occur. So is Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where I went to college. There, in …
Aspirin
Roughly 24 centuries ago, the father of medicine, Hippocrates, urged women in the throes of childbirth to chew on willow bark. The bitter bark contained a substance that eased their pain. (There’s no record of what the women thought of his suggestion.) By the 19th century scientists knew that mysterious substance was salicylic acid. Synthesized …
Volcanoes
You probably didn’t notice, since nobody but me has bothered to point it out, but August 27 was the 103rd anniversary of the eruption of Krakatoa, an active (obviously) island volcano located in the Sunda Strait, south of Sumatra and west of Java. In 1883 it blew apart in the most violent explosion on Earth …
Computer viruses
There’s a virus going around. In fact there’s more than one. But don’t worry; these viruses don’t infect people–they infect computers. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a flurry of excitement surrounding one such virus, a flurry that may be repeated in a few more days. This virus, called Hare, activates itself on …
Sleep revisited
“To sleep, perchance to dream…” So, did you sleep in over the long weekend? Chances are, you did. And maybe, if you’re like me, you felt guilty about it. After all, the summer’s almost over. We should all be outside enjoying the beautiful weather, or painting the house, or exercising, or spending time with …
Car sound
One of my earliest childhood memories is of sitting in the front seat of my father’s Studebaker, listening to the Beatles. Since those early days in Lubbock, Texas, I’ve listened to a great deal more music in many more cars. In the Studebaker, and in the ’63 Plymouth that followed it, if you wanted to …
Nausea
There’s a lot of traveling going on this time of a year via car, plane, train or boat, and somewhere this very second, a 10-year-old is looking up from the book she’s been reading in the back seat of her parents’ station wagon and speaking the words that, for many people, define the whole summer …
Mountains
I may be a prairie boy now, but I didn’t start out that way. I was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and as a small child, whenever we went back to New Mexico, I always said we were going to “my mountains.” This time of year, lots of people go to the mountains, even …
Mountains
I may be a prairie boy now, but I didn’t start out that way. I was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and as a small child, whenever we went back to New Mexico, I always said we were going to “my mountains.” This time of year, lots of people go to the mountains, even …
Olympic technology 1996
At a speed-skating meet in Norway in the 1960s, Canadian Paul Enoch smashed a world record by three seconds. He did it wearing a pair of his wife’s skintight nylon stockings–in an age when most skaters still wore flapping woolen garments. A year later, the first skin-tight nylon racing suit was released on the market. …
Spas
Since ancient times, humans have been in hot water–literally. Soaking in hot, mineral-laden water has long been used to ease aches and pains and even touted as a cure for far more serious conditions. The Romans and Greeks built many spas in places where hot springs bubbled to the surface, and in Europe, many …
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