Evolutionary Tail Fins?
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008We sometimes forget that like everything else on Earth - not to mention the planet itself - we humans are a work in progress. The following are nineteen body parts that are in the process of being deleted from our design…
VOMERONASAL ORGAN
A tiny pit on each side of the septum is lined with nonfunctioning chemoreceptors. They may […]
Really Big Bugs
Monday, March 31st, 2008There was a time in Earth’s prehistoric past when insects grew to enormous sizes. Fossil records reveal that there were once dragonflies with the wingspan of a hawk and millipedes that were perhaps 6 feet long.
Scientists have long theorized why modern insects should have elvolved to such dramatically smaller sizes. The answer appears to be linked to the nature […]
Getting “Campy”
Sunday, March 30th, 2008In addition to being a science junkie, my 10 year-old son is also a military junkie. He is a huge fan of the History Channel and especially of the show Mail Call and it’s host, R. Lee Ermey - hardly a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, but I guess that’s not the image the […]
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 […]
Science and the Urban Legend - Part II
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008For your entertainment and edification, here are five more persistent yet patently false urban legends…
The Great Wall of China as seen from space by the ESA Proba Satellite
The Legend - The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the moon.
The Truth - From a low Earth orbit (160 to 350 miles […]
Recombinant DNA?
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008Yesterday’s post, Sci-Fi Movie Survival Tips, touches on a recurrent theme in sci-fi movies; the manipulation of genetic materials. In the realm of science fiction, tinkering with nature inevitably leads to disaster. Africanized “Killer” Bees demonstrate that this is sometimes true in the real world as well.
Some of the genetic combinations proposed in science fiction movies seem quite absurd indeed. One fails […]
The Horror Must Be Stopped!
Friday, March 14th, 2008Fact: A junior high school student won a science fair by reporting on the dangers of “Dihydrogen Monoxide”.
Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!
The Invisible Killer
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. […]
An indispensable bathroom accessory
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008For otherwise wasted time…
Find out just how entertaining the universe we live in can be! “Uncle John Plunges Into The Universe“>Uncle John Plunges Into the Universe” is an antidote to every textbook that has ever made science seem boring. In Life Sciences he explores the weird solutions that different organisms have devised for their […]
Become a Bubbleologist
Monday, March 10th, 2008Ok, so there’s not really a science called bubbleology but that’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of science to be learned from bubbles. At Exploratorium, Ron Hipschman does a fabulous job of explaining the elemental forces at work in a soap bubble.
Mix yourself up a batch of bubble solution at home using […]
A Shrewdness of Apes?
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Did you know that a baby alpaca is called a “cria” or that a group of cheetahs is known as a “coalition”? Me neither!
EnchantedLearning has compiled a comprehensive list of animals with the correct nomenclature for the male, female and young of each species. This site also provides the terminology to describe a plurality of each animal so that if […]
