Homely Scientist

Found on Aetiology today a little review of the book 100 Science Words Every College Graduate Should Know.  It didn’t sound from her review that Tara was all that hot on the book …

I wonder this because some of the choices seem a bit dubious, and I’m not sure how they made the cut. For example, #52: kwashiorkor, a form of protein malnutrition. Obviously this is something that interests me as an epidemiologist, but I’m not quite sure how it’s one of the top words every college graduate should know. Similarly with #66: pahoehoe: "a type of lava having a …read more

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A ten-gallon hat tip to Chris for posting about this. I love looking at the stars. But no matter how hard I try there are only few constellations that I can recognize right off the bat. I even earned my Astronomy merit badge in Scouts. That doesn’t stop me from gazing and wondering. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to teach my kids about the stars and planets. Well thanks to Chris … I can do it any time I want, and then go outside at night and really see what’s going on! …read more

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Ah poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron).  The scourge of many a camping trip and yard clean up.  Yeah, well it’s gonna get worse.  Lots worse.  Folks at Duke University ( I probably know them) put good old Rhus under increased CO2 conditions and found that not only did the little buggers grow better (this would be expected, but 150x better … okay that’s a problem) but they produced more and more potent levels of the chemical that people are allergic to.  Meaning … bigger, stronger poison ivy that will make you itch even more.
Here’s a nice bit from Discovery.ca (also found …read more

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It’s been a long, long time coming but what is not uncommon in Europe, India, and China is coming State-side, the methane digester.  What a methane digester does is to take the naturally occurring methane from a manure pile or pond and convert it into clean methane to be piped or burned on site for electricity generation.
Farmers in the States have found that they earn money, reduce odor, reduce pollution, make fertilizer, and animal bedding putting in these digesters.  Sounds like a good deal to me.
Tags: methane digesters, methane fuel

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Our dependence on petroleum is a huge problem.  Let’s get beyond the whole greenhouse gases and global warming thing and just look at the bare fact: it’s running out.  And remember it isn’t just gasoline that we get from oil, it’s plastics, drugs, dyes, and a myriad of other critical things in your lives.  Sure, we’re finding ways to squeeze more oil out of the Alberta Oil Sands, but this is a short term fix, what we need is a solution.  So we’ve been looking at powering our cars on gas and electricity (hybrids), hydrogen fuel cells, just electricity, and …read more

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While it might seem academic to learn where AIDS and HIV came from, the recent discovery of the origins of HIV does have profound implications.

HIV originated in chimpanzees in Cameroon, say scientists who analyzed ape feces in the wild to find the oldest simian version.
Until recently, it has been difficult for scientists to trace the chimpanzee version of the AIDS virus, called simian immunodeficiency virus, to animals in the wild.

Two implications here.  First we now have our first clues of how, where, and when simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) came into contact with us and it’s natural prevalence.  From the CBC article …read more

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Okay, this bugs me.  Like, as I learned in the South, it really chaps my butt. Tom Evslin is on the "global warming doesn’t exist because the earth has been warming up for the last 12,000 years" (AlwaysOn, Fractals of Change)—actually it’s more like 10, but hey.  Umm, Tom, it’s been warming up because at the last glacial maximum the Northern Hemisphere was covered with freakin’ ice!
This where a little information is a bad thing.  Okay, one more time.  The earth does go through cycles of ice ages (glacials) and warmth (interglacials).  It gets colder and warmer on a semi-regular …read more

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Look who came for a visit!  A Boreal jumping spider!  I was by the kitchen sink saving a wolf spider and look up … and there it was!  Jumping spiders are very, very cool.  Lovely colours, fuzzy, and they jump!  They jump and attack their prey.  This little guy is about the size of a nickel.  He’s been moving around my kitchen and living room this morning .  Yes, Lorraine, I’ll be shooing him out of the house soon.  In the meantime, we’re just hanging out together.
Jumping spiders aren’t dangerous, so panic is not needed.  When you get a generally …read more

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Looking at the stats for this blog, it seems that lots of people are interested in pop-bottle water rockets.  Heck, who wouldn’t be!  Cheap, easy, safe (relatively) and … FUN! So I did a little Googling to find more resources for you.  Here’s a great quote I found on a NASA website devoted to the water rocket!

"Two-Liter Pop Bottle Rockets may well be the GREATEST PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHING TOOL EVER CREATED!!" Middle grades students can manipulate and control variables, see their hypotheses verified or refuted, and graph their findings. High school students experience the nature of science at its best. …read more

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Thanks to Laura for sending me this link …

Sony has some wild commercials for their new Bravia line of TVs.  Laura sent me one involving superballs.  Beyond the great music and amazing visuals, it hit me (hee hee) that watching thousands of superballs bouncing down the street is a fantastic analogy for how particles behave.  They fly around, bouncing into each other, reacting with each other, coming to rest when they are out of energy, unless something hits them again and get a kick of energy.  As you watch the commercial with your older kids, try to point this out …read more

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