Many of us learned about the stages of the scientific method when we were children. We make observations about the world, formulate a question based on what we see, and write a hypothesis from our question. Then we conduct an experiment and observe the results, and see if the results confirm our hypothesis. The …
Continue reading “The Truth Is Out There: Being a Positivist Researcher (NRES 598)”
When we think of major aquatic species (as one tends to do), whales come to mind as some of the most iconic ocean animals. It is somewhat surprising to learn that their evolutionary path has taken them out of the water and onto land, only to later return to the realm beneath the waves. This …
Continue reading “Scientists Discover Extinct 4-Legged Whale! + Whale Ancestor Facts”
I try to avoid writing about similar subjects in consecutive weeks, unless I’m specifically writing a miniseries. But I’ve wanted to write about this event in railway history for months and figured that now is as good a time as any to do it. In 2002, the BBC conducted a poll on the 100 greatest …
Continue reading “A Grand Experiment: Brunel’s Atmospheric Railway”
To be mesmerized is to be fascinated, obsessed, and so attentive to something that you appear to be under a spell. Of the words in the English language, “mesmerized” has a relatively recent origin. In fact, it was produced s a result of a fascinating (mesmerizing?) type of pseudoscience that was popular in the 18th …
Continue reading “Mesmerism: the Man, the Word, the Pseudoscience”
When considering humanity’s effects on our planet, it always seems like there is a serious impact coming from a relatively unexpected sector. One human activity that is an unexpectedly high source of greenhouse gas emissions is the production of concrete. Cement is the main ingredient in concrete, and its manufacturing process produces a substantial amount …
Continue reading “Concrete from Algae: A Greener Foundation”
If you look at the periodic table, you’ll see four elements that have rather similar names: Yttrium (Y), Erbium (Er), Terbium (Tb), and Ytterbium (Yb). This is not just a coincidence; all four of these elements were discovered in a mine in a place called Ytterby. Pronounced itter-bee, this Swedish village is found on an …
Continue reading “Trivia Time: The Swedish Island of Ytterby”
No tricks in the title. This blog is simply about interesting information related to our planet’s original satellite. There’s not really an over-arching story, and not much questioning of power structures occurs. Still, at the very least it’s interesting trivia, and, if you’re like me, great facts to spout just for the sake of it …
You’ve seen the conflicting headlines before. This week: eggs are bad for you. The next: eggs are good for you. Scientists just can’t seem to figure out what foods are killing us and which ones keep us alive. Meanwhile the population is getting sicker, plagued by chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. 55% …
Continue reading “It’s the Food (Says John McDougall) Part I: Nutrition”
When you think of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, you may be able to conjure up memories of Chernobyl, the nuclear meltdown that took place on 26 April 1986 in what would become modern-day Ukraine. Thousands of people died from acute radiation sickness in the immediate aftermath or from radiation-induced cancers in the years following …
Continue reading “Chelyabinsk-40: the USSR Nuclear Disaster Decades before Chernobyl”
I love stories of accidental scientific discovery. It makes me feel like if all these people made important contributions to humanity by accident, maybe I can make a slightly important contribution on purpose. Theodore Gray, the author of the wonderful book “Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe” said in this …
Continue reading “Warfarin: A Classic Tale in Which Someone Discovers Something Useful By Accident”
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