Twice (here and here) over the past year or so I've chided the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" show for editing out basic chemistry facts from their programs -- facts that can be easily uncovered with a simple Google search. For those who are interested in encouraging their kids to look into careers in chemistry and science, […]
MIT Atmospheric Science professor Richard Lindzen has an article in today's Wall Street Journal on who is really being silenced on the debate over global warming -- the skeptics. There's a slashdot discussion on the article here. After reading Lindzen's article, I found this slashdot comment to be the most enlightening. "Science" and "Nature" are […]
Last week, I linked to an article about an experiment that created plasma much hotter than the center of the sun. Here's a picture of the machine that did it. The caption also includes this gem: During the unexpected powerful contained explosion, the Z machine released about 80 times the world's entire electrical power usage […]
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have created plasma that exceeds 2 billion degrees Kelvin -- that's hotter than the center of the Sun, which is only 15 million degrees Kelvin. The best part? They don't know why it happened. The article says they don't know how they did it, but they know exactly how, because […]
OK, maybe I shouldn't claim credit for this, but I will. Congress on Friday agreed to establish a national databank of umbilical cord blood and bone marrow that would allow doctors to quickly find a match for patients who need transplants. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote. The House passed the bill in […]
I know that's an inflammatory headline, but yesterday Senate Democrats decided to hold hostage a bill that passed the House by a vote of 431-1. The bill would create a federal program to store umbilical cords -- which are typically thrown away -- that can be used to successfully treat all sorts of diseases. Why […]
The New York Times has a very interesting article on time travel and the possibility of paradox. The article is accessible even for those who are not sciencephiles, but there's one thing about it that troubles me. But what about killing your grandfather? In a well-ordered universe, that would be a paradox and shouldn't be […]
Scientific American has an article on real-world quantum cryptography. It's an interesting article for anyone who's ever had an interest in cryptography. Unfortunately, Scientific American's explanation for the process of quantum cryptography is a little hard to understand. If you're looking for a good book on the subject, I heartly endorse Simon Singh's "The Code […]
It shouldn't come as any surprise that The New York Times editorial page writers use language in such a way that it becomes meaningless. Case in point is this editorial in last week's paper on a proposed cloning ban at the U.N. Seeing as how it is the U.N., any measure would be mainly meaningless […]
Go here to see a list of winners. My favorite was the Psychology winner -- a study entitled "Gorillas in Our Midst." For demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a man in a gorilla suit. The site has links to the video […]