SCIENCE TIME TRAVEL
SUPPOSE YOU could travel back in time and share some 21st Century knowledge with someone of an earlier era. Whom to choose? What knowledge to share? In its “NextGenVoices,” 5 … Continue reading
WHALE TALES
I DISLIKE multi-tasking but confess what follows is simultaneously a book review, a favored research activity and a technological report. Christopher Moore’s book Fluke is a tale of whimsy, fantasty … Continue reading
GAMING NOISE
“I WON! I won!” Or maybe not. Artfully engineered responses from games—and gambling hardware—are designed to encourage continued play through what researchers call “losses disguised as wins.” This concept is … Continue reading
ONLINE HOOKUPS
I SPEAK here of hookups in the more permanent sense of the M-word—of marriage. A recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, June 3, 2013, proposes … Continue reading
CHEETAHS: SPORTS CAR FELINES
YOU’VE PROBABLY heard that the fastest animal in the world, with reported bursts of 70 mph, is the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). However, A.M. Wilson et al, reporting in Nature, 12 … Continue reading
FAILED DESIGNS
ENGINEERING HAS been defined as “doing a lot with a little.” But, of course, too little is not a good idea. This is the theme of To Forgive Design: Understanding … Continue reading
GEOTHERM ENERGY
THE U.S. could supply the world’s current energy needs for the next 30,000 years. Were we to tap only the most accessible of it, the energy obtained would be thousands … Continue reading
MURRES, MULTI-TASKING
QUESTION: DO polar bears eat penguins? Answer: Not usually, as the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is native largely within the Arctic Circle of the Northern Hemisphere and the penguin (Sphenisciformes … Continue reading
KING’S BLOOD!
IT SOUNDS like a great Tudor English expletive: “King’s Blood!” But, in fact, it’s a bit of recent research reported in Science magazine, 24 May 2013, published by the American … Continue reading
ARCHAEOLOGY, MARITIME STYLE
AVAST, YE—Them that dies ’ill be the lucky ones. Now that I have your attention, I’ll share information on maritime archaeology as detailed in the 17 May 2013 issue of … Continue reading
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