It’s spring in Regina, and we all know what that means: snow is melting, water and funny-looking guys in shorts are running, and the potholes are in bloom. Everyone knows that Regina has a pothole problem, and for once, what “everyone knows” is right. But don’t blame the city. Especially, don’t blame Harlan Ritchie, Manager …
Tag: science
The Internet
Internet this and Internet that. Everybody talks about the Internet (approximately 127,498 journalists and their dogs have already done stories on it), but there are still lots of people who aren’t exactly sure what “The Internet” is. The Internet grew out of ARPAnet (ARPA stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency), a U.S. military project unveiled …
Resistors
Recently there’s been quite a lot of talk about new high-temperature superconductors and how they may revolutionize technology. (In fact, some of that talk was mine, since I wrote a column on superconductivity a while back.) Superconductors are materials that transmit electricity perfectly–in other words, materials in which, once electrons start to flow, they never …
Salt
Okay, it’s pop quiz time. What mineral is used in greater quantities and for more purposes than any other? Give up? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the only mineral we sprinkle on both our roads and our French fries. That’s right: salt. Those innocuous little white crystals in the shaker on your table are …
Eyeglasses
I got my first pair of glasses in kindergarten. Everybody in my class wanted to try them on. By the time I was 10 my vision was 20/200, which made my classmates even more eager to try on my glasses: seeing the world through my thick lenses was a mind-blowing experience, and, hey, it was …
Perfume
Our noses may be no great shakes compared to, say, that of the average poodle, but scent is still a powerful means of non-verbal communication for humans, even if we don’t rub our noses against everyone we meet, like our canine friends. The use of scents to make ourselves smell better goes back to ancient …
DNA fingerprinting
One place science and society frequently interact is within the courtroom. Seldom has that interaction been more dramatic than in the past few days, with the exoneration of Guy Paul Morin, who had served 18 months in jail for a murder he didn’t commit, and with the start of the murder trial of a certain …
Space stations revisited
Forget cosmic radiation, the solar flares, meteorites, re-entry: the real danger facing space exploration today is red ink. As governments drown in it, some space projects have had more narrow escapes than Luke Skywalker. Consider International Space Station Alpha. A space station is a permanent inhabited base in orbit. People have been talking about …
Wood
“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” asks the familiar tongue-twister, to which the reply would have to be, in parts of southern Saskatchewan, “Not much.” The prairies just aren’t known for their abundance of trees. Northern Saskatchewan, however, is an entirely different matter. My continuing travels around the …
Alcohol
Yeasts, rather dull life forms in most respects, have one endearing trait: provided with sugar, they produce carbon dioxide…and an interesting chemical called “alcohol.” Nobody knows who first discovered that yeast could turn ordinary grape juice or grain brew into something quite different, but by 1500 B.C., beer and wine-making were well-established in the Middle …
Skiing
I’ve written about the skating, tobogganing and curling, but there’s a major winter sport I’ve yet to explore (and no, it’s not competitive car-boosting). That’s probably because, while I’ve skated, tobogganed and curled, I have yet to strap two long, skinny pieces of fiberglass to my feet and go careening down a mountain or …
Christmas songs
So Christmas is over for another year, and as we head into 1995, only one question remains to haunt us: Just what are frankincense and myrrh, anyway? Here come “We Three Kings,” bearing gifts from afar. The first king brings gold; a fine present, indeed. But then the second king starts singing, “Frankincense to offer …
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