ON CEPHALOPODS
THAT KID’S book review may have said, “This book tells me more about whales than I want to know.” On the other hand, I’m fascinated by the book Other Minds: … Continue reading
QUANTUM COMPUTER UPDATE
QUANTUM MECHANICS can revolutionize computing, provided its qubits can be made to behave better than conventional digital computer bits. Science, the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement … Continue reading
A RESET FOR MOTOR SPORTS
TO MANY, THE NAME John Glenn hearkens back to early days of the U.S. space program. And, to many, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would seem an odd place for … Continue reading
UCI’S HYDROGEN BATTERY
HYDROGEN STORAGE promises to make renewable energy sources more efficient. The University of California Irvine is at the forefront of this hydrogen battery research and, in fact, it has already … Continue reading
DOES AIRPLANE AIR MITIGATE JET LAG?
PEOPLE WHO MAKE long-haul aircraft trips are no strangers to jet lag, the delayed response of our bodies to different time zones around the world. Nor are travelers particularly fond … Continue reading
VARIABLE COMPRESSION RATIOS–NISSAN, HONDA AND THE CFR
AS NOTED BY edmunds.com, Nissan made news at the 2016 Paris Motor Show with its variable-compression-ratio VC-T engine scheduled for production in the 2018 Infiniti QX50 crossover. Not that it’s … Continue reading
BATTLING ALGORITHMS
MACHINE LEARNING benefits mankind only if the machine learns things to mankind’s benefit. I do not intend this simply as a play on words or philosophical tautology. The thought arose … Continue reading
CURTA CURTAIN CALL
THE CURTA CALCULATOR looks like a pepper grinder with numerals peering out. There’s a crank on the top that whirs with reassuring precision. And anyone serious about Time-Speed-Distance rallying in … Continue reading
SO, HOW FAR IS THAT STATION ANYWAY?
STUDENTS USED TO tell me they liked having the answer in the back of the textbook. Here, in a sense, it’s in the back of the website. Yesterday’s Peg Lynch … Continue reading
NANOCAR RACING
HERE’S RACING that makes Formula 1 look low-tech. Nanocar racing is right up there, er… down there with the 1966 sci-fi flick Fantastic Voyage. In Fantastic Voyage, a submarine with … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 