Let’s talk about the Moon. It’s been particularly spectacular recently and you might have been hearing about “supermoons” and all that in the media. If nothing else, maybe it will help you answer your grandkids’ questions, one of these days. The Far Side of the Moon. Credit NASA. First of all, I’ve always wondered why […]
Tag: science literacy
Article #25: Learning How to Learn
The Science Behind the Science Since this series of articles is dedicated to science literacy, this seems like it might be a good time to touch on the subject of learning. It seems relevant on several levels for readers, and it’s sort of in my wheelhouse, both as a Neuroscientist and as an educator. I […]
Article #24: Let’s Eat. And Be Thankful
Source: Norman Rockwell. Freedom From Want. This Image is in the public domain Halloween is just passed and Thanksgiving is on the horizon, so maybe this is a good time to talk about eating. It’s a WAY more complex subject than you might think. First off, let’s “set the table” and outline the basic facts […]
Article # 23: Flight
Let’s talk about airplanes. Airplanes are cool, just in general, but they are REALLY cool if you think about them in terms of technology. The first controlled, sustained flight of a powered airplane was only in 1903, 121 years ago. Wilbur Wright flew their wonky-looking airplane at a speed of about 8 miles an hour, […]
Article #22: A Half-pound of Kidneys Goes a Long Way
I think I mentioned when I started writing these columns that I am a Physiologist by training and I did research in Neurophysiology in a previous life. Despite that, I haven’t written a single column on physiology, yet. So, let’s fix that. It’ll be fun to play in my own sandbox. So much to pick […]
Article #21: Waves on the Beach. And everywhere else, all the time.
The subject of electromagnetic radiation has come up several times in previous articles, so we should probably spend a little time on it. We are bathed in invisible waves of all kinds, pretty much all the time. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Matrix”, in the part at the end where Neo gets up […]
Article #20: Why All the Fuss Over Climate Change?
The simple answer to that question is because it’s really important. But simple answers are rarely complete ones. A more complete answer might be that global warming is important to lots of different people for lots of different reasons. There is a boatload of information out there in the media all the time about global […]
Article #19: Fall Colors: What Lies Beneath the Show
I love the fall. It’s my favorite season. I love sweatshirts and campfires. I love having the windows open. I love breathing cold, crisp air again after practically drowning in humidity with every breath in the summer. I love the feeling of change. And the leaves are nice, too. Apparently, some of you think the […]
Article #18: Carbon Dating: A Window Into the Past
Someone asked me a question about carbon dating, and since most of us have probably come across the term at some point and since the idea of carbon dating has fascinated me from the first time I read about it when I was a kid, it seems like a dandy topic for an article. So, […]
Article #17: The Beauty of DNA and my Brush with Greatness
In our last article, we left off with the race to understand the molecular basis of heredity. Protein molecules were thought to be complex enough to encode genetic information, but no one could quite figure out how that information could be copied and passed on from cell to cell. DNA was a big enough molecule, […]