Homely Scientist

The beach is an awesome place. I’m lucky, I live on a small island off the British Columbia coast, so the beach is always close by. Of course besides fun and sun what’s great about the beach? Creatures! The sea star on the left (technically “star fish” are supposed to be called “sea stars”) is really purple and that little copper thing … is a penny (Canadian, but it’s the same size as its American counterpart). Yep, that’s one big star fish! When you’re at the beach, especially one with good tide pools, look at the difference between things close …read more

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Yes, Silly Putty. There is a really cool, new colour changing Silly Putty that turns blue-purple when cold and pink when warm. Perfect for experiments with temperature!
After playing with this cool goo in the car, my daughter was wondering what else could we do with it. I said, “well let’s see what happens when you put it on a glass of ice water.”
I took lots of pictures (set on Flickr) and you can see what is going on. Now for the science fun here. Look at the picture above. The Silly Putty is stretched …read more

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From today’s Globe & Mail … Nobel Laureate recruited for UBC
Prof. Wieman was not available for an interview yesterday. However, he told the Denver Post that he is currently more interested in promoting education reform than continuing research at his atomic physics lab. “I wasn’t really able to do the atomic physics research at a level that I was very happy with any more,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to be one of those doddering old scientists who are 30 years behind the times.”
Why is this exciting? As you know Nobel Prize winners (good story there too … the …read more

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Hi, I’m Tris and I’ll be your science geek today.  What do I know about science?  I know some .  I wanted to be a paleontologist and study dinosaurs at age 6.  From there I’ve always been doing experiments and learning about science.  In university I studied history, anthropology and geology. I received a masters degree in paleoclimatology (re-creating past climates) then ran a lab at Duke University.
Since then while my job hasn’t been science-related, but I’ve never stopped loving science or learning about it.  Just ask anyone who goes on a walk with me … I’m always pointing …read more

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Not homely as in bad looking, but homely as in at home.  So what is the blog all about?  Science of course!  But here’s the twist, while I am a scientist and I love science, I hate it when science is made so confusing that most people can’t understand why it’s cool or important.
This science blog is going to be different.  Here I’m going to explain news from the science world as it relates to your home and life.  Not only that, I’m going to talk about cool, fun, and safe science experiments you can do at home.
I’ll also throw …read more

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