Is tenure good for America? Mark Taylor, a professor of religion, has observed (in the New York Times) that: "graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no…

A Brief History of the English Language Part 5 - Early Modern English Part 1 briefly covered the period from the 5th century CE to the 14th century.Part 2 describes Chaucer's influence on the…

A comment in the thread under my recent post on the greedy bump bias stimulates me to provide here idiot-proof instructions on how to study the effect by yourself, if you wish to spend your time this…

Now I know what happened to Michael Jackson: he tried to self-treat his eczema at home with Clorox. A study in the May 5 issue of Pediatrics suggested a combination of "bleach baths" and intranasal…

A Brief History of the English Language Part 4 - The People's English Part 1 briefly covered the period from the 5th century CE to the 14th century.Part 2 describes Chaucer's influence on the…

A great temple to the god Amon was built at Karnak in Upper Egypt around c. 1785. It is from Amon that we get his cephalopod namesake, the ammonites and also the name origin for the compound ammonia…

Myomancy was a method of divination by mice. Their behaviour was observed and taken as a omen of what was to come. If their movements were calm, aggitated or aggressive, much was read into it.…

The experience of pain appears to be a complex phenomenon with humans.  The reason for the occurrence of pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both of these causes.  And…

One possible solution to the occasional lack of access to, or shortage of, primary care doctors is what are known as retail care clinics, or convenience care clinics. The popularity of these clinics…

c. 260ish...  Look at the history of money. What we've learned... Patterns... Rampant inflation brought a devaluation of currency and a return of bartering throughout the Roman Empire

c.280 Pappus, an Egyptian mathematician, compiled a summary of all mathematical knowledge to date (list) c.300 In Bernares, Vatsayana Mallagana publishes the Kama Sutra, a comprehensive guide to…

1609 Johann Kepler formalizes his first and second laws of planetary motion

Machines to move things and people The Industrial Revolution was made possible by machines that multiplied the force of human strength. First water power, then steam, made possible the factories that…

This guy is the poster child for computer nerd with no social life. Not that I'm making fun - my social life is pretty much nil. I'm also disturbed that technology moves this fast. I still haven't…

Nobody wants to have a stuffy, runny nose and itchy eyes year-round, or to not be able to breathe deeply. (Or maybe there are some that do. Whatever floats your boat.) The current magical mystery…

Back on a frozen pre-Inaugeration Day, I picked up a hitchhiker on US295N. We exchanged the usual banter ("Got any guns? No? Great!").  He wasn't a local, just in town to help assemble…

MP3s, podcasts, etc. are not really our thing - most of our readers want data they can use and you can't forward a clip from an MP3 or copy and paste it conveniently ( "go to minute 18 for my…

“We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense this is a participatory universe.”  One Year has passed. On April 13, 2008, John Archibald Wheeler, the doyen of…

The Hubble Telescope was carried into orbit on this day, April 24th, back in 1990, which makes it 19 years old. Now it can finally legally drink alcohol in Ontario! The Hubble Space Telescope (HST)…

I was out tonight visiting with my friends Lucky and Saskia. Lucky is a passionate flamenco enthusiast and theoretical physicist. We were enjoying an evening of live music and talking about advances…