OLFACTORY MATTERS
A RECENT PODCAST by CrowdScience, BBC World Service, June 28, 2021, was devoted to our sense of smell. Here are tidbits gleaned from Anand Jagatia’s CrowdScience olfactory podcast, together with … Continue reading
L’ELIXIR DE MORAY
GEE, LYRICAL EEL talk is fun! It started with a memorable headline in Sabrina Imbler’s Trilobites science article in The New York Times, June 22, 2021: It’s titled “When an … Continue reading
COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS COMES TO THE CONCERT HALL PART 2
ORCHESTRAL MUSICIANS TEND to occupy the same seating at each concert performance. However, this may be changing to enhance circulation of air (and aerosols) suggested by studies of computational fluid … Continue reading
COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS COMES TO THE CONCERT HALL PART 1
CONCERT VENUES ARE reopening, thankfully, through efforts including widespread vaccination. Enhancing this pandemic mitigation, science has demonstrated the effects of airborne transmission. It turns out that swapping orchestral seating and … Continue reading
REMBRANDT’S A.I. PALS
EVEN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ARTISTS can profit from Artificial Intelligence. An example is given in Nina Siegal’s “Rembrandt’s Damaged Masterpiece Is Whole Again, With A.I.’s Help” in The New York Times, June … Continue reading
BUILT LIKE A BRICK
THESE DAYS, E-tailing downplays the term “brick and mortar.” However, this building material duo has interesting aspects, as described in Arianne Shahvisi’s “Diary” piece “Life in a Tinderbox,” in London … Continue reading
$1.2 MILLION, EVENTUALLY, FOR LOSING A DEBATE WITH EINSTEIN
THIS IS A WIN-WIN story in the annals of theoretical physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein published the equation E = mc2, thus positing that energy and mass are essentially two … Continue reading
CAN YOU FEEL IT WITH ME NOW?
CELLPHONES ARE so reliable now that we rarely ask, “Can you hear me now?” However, Science magazine, April 28, 2021, reports that “New Google Effort Uses Cellphones to Detect Earthquakes,” … Continue reading
BEVS AT A CRITICAL JUNCTION
BATTERY ELECTRIC VEHICLES have hitherto been few and far between. But environmental goals around the world are increasing BEV presence and impact. True, these are clean-air vehicles, even with mixed … Continue reading
RETHINKING NEANDERTHALS PART 2
JOHN LANCASTER’S ARTICLE, “Twenty Types of Humans,” London Review of Books, December 17, 2020, got me thinking about the status of Homo neanderthalensis. In particular, perhaps they weren’t knuckle-dragging stocky … Continue reading
