Sunny Deck Drinks: Salty Science

Sunny Deck Drinks: Salty Science

Summer is coming. The time of camping and cold, frosty drinks. I've been working on developing a freeze dried beer that comes in a small pack and rehydrates fully carbonated with all its alcohol…
Too many numbers - I'm a believer

Too many numbers - I'm a believer

How many numbers should you include in an article? This is debatable, depending on the subject matter and audience. But using too many numbers will lose a reader. Read this story from the Christian…
Getting Rid of Tenure

Getting Rid of Tenure

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…
The Humanities Are In Crisis - Science Is Not

The Humanities Are In Crisis - Science Is Not

Graduate education in the humanities may have its problems, but don't try to tar science with the same brush. In a NY Times Op-Ed, by Dr. Mark Taylor, the chairman of Columbia's religion department,…
Source code for the greedy bump bias

Source code for the greedy bump bias

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…
Bleach: not just for sparkling whites anymore

Bleach: not just for sparkling whites anymore

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…
How Better Pizza Led To Better Micro Motors

How Better Pizza Led To Better Micro Motors

If pizza isn't already on the list of 7 greatest inventions of the post-modern world (because nothing goes with wanting to strangle someone who invokes Foucault like a nice slice of pepperoni) a new…
The Neural Basis Behind Our Ability To Read

The Neural Basis Behind Our Ability To Read

Most people are expert readers, but it is something of an enigma how our brain achieved expertise in such a recent cultural invention which requires a cognitive interface between vision and language.…
Spooky Action's Quantum Ghosts

Spooky Action's Quantum Ghosts

The idea that far distant particles can somehow 'talk' to each other led Einstein to call it 'spooky action at a distance'. Having confirmed its existence, scientists today are learning how to use…
Gods & Cephalopods

Gods & Cephalopods

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…