Science Fact: Energy from Space and Energy from Algae are both Big Ideas trying to answer a Big Problem. In this case the Big Problem is the world’s expanding thirst for energy. The U.S. makes up 4.4% of the world’s … Continue reading
Science Fact: Robot life. A creepy-sounding phrase, one that gives us extra reason to be wary of technology. We previously looked at how robots can assist us, specifically as servants or bartenders. This post looks at an interesting push-pull in how … Continue reading
Science Fact: In Part 1 of this post we reviewed the underlying factors affecting city crime, especially violent crime. This Part 2 analyzes published crime data to derive safety ratings for U.S. cities. The FBI publishes crime data for each … Continue reading
Science Fact: City crime is something you’d like to know about before visiting or moving to a new place. Today’s post describes the factors underlying city crime, especially violent crime. On Thursday we’ll continue by actually rating cities on their … Continue reading
Science Fact: Babies cry at night to keep their parents from having sex. Scheming babies? That’s crazy! Isn’t it? Babies do learn remarkably quickly. Japanese psychologists observed a baby as young as seven months engage in fake crying to get … Continue reading
Science Fact: Travel fatalities are a concern to many of us who want to reduce our risk of serious accident when we travel by car, aircraft or cruise ship. This post looks at the data and the science, then gives … Continue reading
Science Fact: Prediction promises us the big answers: Will the stock market hit 35,000? Who will win the World Series? Will the Russians invade Crimea? (Oh, wait, that already happened.) Prediction also offers us practical advice: You can’t tune into … Continue reading
Goodreads Giveaway was the lead widget in the right margin of this website for the past month. Goodreads is a readers’ website and they offer a great way for a book to find new readers: an author or publisher can offer one … Continue reading
Science Fact: Your kitchen design is making you fat! OK, maybe with diligent effort we could make ourselves fat anyway. But scientists find that kitchen design strongly affects our eating habits. This is true even if we conscientiously try to … Continue reading
Science Fact: The depiction of horses in paintings raises questions touching both science and art: the nature of the real world, and the way we portray it. Figurative painting – painting that is clearly derived from a real-world scene – is … Continue reading
Science Fact: GMO, genetically modified organisms, are a hot topic for many people. Kiwifruit grows strictly with conventional farming – totally non-GMO – yet the growers take advantage of modern genetic technology. How can this be? It’s an interesting story … Continue reading
(Non) Science Fact: Unusual jobs are a media standby for slow-news days. And journalists vie to outdo each other in finding odd jobs that will grab the reader’s attention. However, sometimes unusual jobs appear in the course of a regular news … Continue reading
Science Fact: Self, who I am, seems so obvious that we take it as a given. But what happens when we lose a part of self? Concussion, disease, accidents can happen to anyone. Is self just an accident, a word we … Continue reading
Science Fact: Flight 370 teaches sad lessons about the limitations of science in the real world. Before the Maylasia Airlines Boeing 777-200 dropped off the map in the wee hours of March 8, 2014, it seemed that nothing could be … Continue reading
Science Fact: In yesterday’s post we stored a delicious bit of leftovers, but we did not reheat pizza. Today, we’re going to bring out the pizza, reheat it and eat it! Pizza is healthy food, and a flexible food. Some people eat … Continue reading
Science Fact: Pizza always ranks near the top, both in popularity and appeal. In addition, in moderation it’s a good healthy food. The hot question for today and tomorrow is: can you bring leftover pizza back to life? And there’s good … Continue reading
Science Fact: “Dress for success!” they used to say. “Clothes make the man.” “Follow the dress code.” When you choose how to dress, whether it’s at the store buying clothes or making a selection after you shower, you’re communicating both … Continue reading
Science Fact: Suicide is forbidden by law, forbidden by religious precepts, and is often a forbidden subject for conversation. In the previous post we considered the understandable human desire to prolong and preserve life. This post looks at the opposite: the … Continue reading
Science Fact: Hospital infection poses a deadly risk to every patient. One in twenty-five U.S. patients acquires a hospital infection. Alarmingly, 100,000 patients per year die as a result. The longer you are under care, the greater the risk that instead of … Continue reading
Science Fact: The five senses bring the world into our awareness. But who decided there were five senses, anyway? Five Senses. In Western culture many things we think we “know” often come from ancient Greece. Sure enough, Aristotle, who has … Continue reading