IBDIND, Inc. has been trying to get hold of me for the past 12 hours in effort to see if I had finished my Science Saturday piece. Well here it is boys and girls, long overdue. But know this: you won’t have Eric to kick around anymore when I am […]
Category Archives: The Word
There has been a lot of talk this week about the flu and flu season. In some parts of the country, flu vaccines are running low—but fear not because we are not short of supply nationwide. A virus causes the flu, or influenza. Epidemiologists labeled the virus subtype this year H3N2. But should we be […]
You may have noticed a lack of Science Saturday last week. I got a lot of emails and messages asking if I was okay, if perhaps there would be no Science in the year 2013, if the Apocalypse really did occur a week late and everyone had transcended into a forgetful yet pansophical knowledge of […]
In 1890, the German chemist Friedrich Kekulé woke up from a dream. After spending a few decades trying to figure out the chemical structure of benzene, the dream had revealed the secret. What he saw was a kinky green snake with the masochistic idea to eat its own tail. Whether the self-destruction of such a […]
The short history of psychology has given the world such noble names as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Ivan Pavlov. Their pioneering work helped us realize that we want to sleep with our mothers and we will salivate at the sound of a dinner bell even if no dinner is […]
The following is a selected entry from the pioneer John Wesley Powell’s diary. At the time of this entry, Powell was exploring the Colorado River north of the Grand Canyon. In all my life, I have not turned down an adventure. The two days after our Day of Independence, Goodman—a Brit anyway so what […]
Alright, it’s time for another Science Sunday. I mean Saturday. Did I say Sunday? Oops. Well the topic this week is the Golden Ratio. Sounds boring and mathematical. It is. But the Golden Ratio has implications at the smallest levels of the universe and (you guessed it!) the largest levels—assuming the universe is the scary, […]
Nietzsche can be a downer sometimes: “That everyone may learn to read will in the long run corrupt not only writing but also thinking. Once the spirit was God, then it became human, and now it is even becoming the mob.” –It’s a Beautiful Day, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It's a Beautiful Day I Need a Drink 