Ethanol
Sunday, April 6th, 2008With record oil prices once again topping the headlines, today’s “Science Word of the Week” is “Ethanol”.
Ethanol is a colorless volatile flammable liquid. It is a form of alcohol, C2H5OH, found in alcoholic beverages and also used as an additive in gasoline to produce gasohol. Ethanol is used as an oxygenate in reformulated gasoline. It is also [...]
Meanwhile in Middle Earth…
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008A pair of caves on the South Pacific island of Palau has yielded thousands of bones, including the skull of an extinct three-foot-tall people. Excavated in 2006 and 2007, these remains belonged to a race that lived between 2,900 and 1,400 years ago as evidenced by radiocarbon measurements.
The Palau find has fueled much debate within the archaeological community on the relationship the [...]
Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008Sad news yesterday - Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction visionary, and collaborator with Stanley Kubrick on the iconic movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, has passed away at the age of 90. He leaves behind a prolific record of accomplishment, with more than 70 novels, short story collections, and nonfiction books, as well as a science fiction award [...]
Daylight Savings Time
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
This Sunday morning (03/09/08) at 2:00 a.m., most of us in the Continental United States will move our clocks forward one hour to 3:00 a.m.. This twice-a-year practice of shifting between “standard time” and “daylight time” began for most of the U.S. and Europe during World War I as a means of fuel conservation.
Germany and [...]
You’ll catch your Death!
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008Being that it’s cold and flu season, I thought it a timely opportunity to spread something other than germs - some knowledge!
A Cold Virus
Here are some common questions and answers about colds and flu (influenza):
What’s the difference between a cold and the flu?
A. Although both illnesses are caused by viruses, their symptoms and severity differ [...]
Dual Fuel
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008With the price of oil hitting a new record high last week, it naturally follows that there have been many news stories discussing ways in which we can save on fuel consumption. This week’s “Science Word of the Week” is one possible answer.
Hybrid Vehicle
A vehicle that employs two or more power sources to improve it’s overall fuel efficiency.
Currently, the most common [...]
Happy Birthday!
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008My own little Science Junkie turns 10 today! Being that he also loves chess, I give you a chess joke:
A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of his office, and asked them to disperse. “But [...]
Total Lunar Eclipse on 2/20/08!
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It’s a total lunar eclipse—the last one until December 2010!
This graphic by Larry Koehn depicts the sequence of the lunar eclipse in the Central Time Zone
The Sun goes down. The Moon comes up. [...]
Ice Ice Baby!
Monday, February 18th, 2008Just the other day I was talking to my brother, Lou and the topic of global warming came up. Specifically, we were talking about how the snow at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa is vanishing. Being quite the science junkie himself, my brother cited some recent studies indicating that the Snows of Kilimanjaro are not [...]
Telemetry
Sunday, February 17th, 2008Today’s word has turned up in various recent new stories relating to both the International Space Station and the U.S. military mission to shoot down that faulty spy satellite. That word is:
te·lem·e·try
n. The science and technology of automatic measurement and transmission of data by wire, radio, or other means from remote sources, as from space [...]
