I think my first experience with culture shock came as a small boy when, shortly after we moved here from Texas, a woman we were visiting for supper asked me what I wanted to drink and I said, “Tea.” To my horror, she brought me steaming-hot tea in a small china cup, a beverage …
Tag: science
Insects
You know, if I were an aphid or an ant, or even a cockroach, I’d be pretty annoyed. Over the summer, as usual, mosquitoes got all the press. They were even featured in Jurassic Park. When was the last time you saw an aphid in the movies? In an effort to redress this injustice, I offer …
The science of pitching
I’m lousy at baseball. Fly balls fly right over me, line drives make me duck, and I can’t run the bases worth a darn–but that’s all right, since I seldom hit the ball. So to write this column about the science of pitching, I turned to an expert: Robert K. Adair, Sterling Professor of Physics …
Boats
Boats fascinate me. I think it’s because some of my favorite books as a kid were the Swallows and Amazons novels by Arthur Ransome, which are full of boats. So, “Jibbooms and bobstays!”, I said to myself, “Why not write about them?” The one characteristic you really, really want in a boat is the ability …
Opinion polls
If you’ve been paying special attention to the news recently, it’s just possible you may have heard or seen one or two items relating to a peculiar recurring phenomenon called a “national election.” Like the Capistrano swallows, elections return at regular (more-or-less) intervals, and attract a great deal of attention when they do. Some of …
Cheese
Remember Joey and Scott, the cute little kids in that cheesy old commercial…I mean, that old cheese commercial? In the remake, they should cast me, because I’ve always loved cheese. For good reason: it’s one of the most nutritious foods ever created. Just 100 grams of Cheddar supplies 36 percent of the protein, 80 percent …
Sunburn
Summer, contrary to recent evidence in this part of the country, is usually considered the time for fun in the sun. But although some sun is nice, too much sun isn’t, because only 60 percent of sunlight is visible, and only 25 percent is heat. The remaining 15 percent falls in an invisible part of …
Wheat
The most amazing thing about this week’s topic isn’t the topic itself (though that’s pretty amazing); the amazing thing is that I haven’t written about it before. “It” is wheat, and how I’ve managed to go more than three years without mentioning it I can’t imagine, in view of the fact it’s as inescapable a …
Alternative fuels
Having written about fossil fuels, it behooves me to also write about alternatives, lest I neglect my environmental duty. Besides, I have all these left-over notes … We use fossil fuels primarily for power generation and transportation. Huge strides have been made in reducing emissions, but scrubbers and catalytic converters don’t change the fact that …
Fossil fuels
Our modern society is based on “fossil fuels,” which may sound to you like we’re burning dinosaur bones for heat. We aren’t, but we are burning the remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago, releasing the solar energy the plants captured through photosynthesis and the animals captured by eating the plants. …
Allergies
A few years ago my father was informed by the doctor, after some tests, that he suffered from allergies: several, in fact, one of which was cats. Being the cat person that I am, and in view of the fact that at the time my parents still had Tiger, an old friend (with an admittedly …
Hair
Hair has been much on my mind recently, probably because it keeps getting in my eyes. I grow it thick, and I usually put off haircuts until the last minute, so I’ve had plenty of occasion to wonder just what this stuff is that sprouts from our bodies and we spend so much time cutting, …
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