Category: science
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Fascinations
I had a gloriously geeky evening on Thursday. I’ve been taking the Master Naturalist class, so my Thursday evenings have been devoted to a lifelong fascination with the world around me. Lectures on botany, mycology, geology, and more… I’ve missed this kind of learning. So I showed up to the classroom where the class is…
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Ask Questions
I find myself a little frustrated and annoyed today. I had been given a Christmas giftcard by my boss, for Amazon. My immediate thought was ‘I’ll buy a book!’ because it would enable me to spend a bit more on a book than I’d ordinarily spend on myself. These days, when I buy paper books,…
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Sourdough Culture
Having written up the ‘how-to’ of starting a sourdough culture, and the beginnings of a recipe set for it, I was asked about the nature of the sourdough starter. What’s going on in that jar of oozing, smelling, wonderful stuff? How does it work? Is it safe? And why did we stop using sourdough except…
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Regressing
After Drak recommended God in the Dock in response to yesterday’s post, I picked it up. It’s been a while since I read CS Lewis, and I knew I hadn’t read that collection of essays. I’m delighted I impulse bought this book. The essays are a broad collection, apologetics, yes, but it’s Lewis. He had…
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Learning to Dance in the Lab
I’m immersing myself in research for the upcoming career transition. If I had time, I’d be taking classes. As it is? I’m an autodidact. When I want to learn something, I take a running leap and deep dive into everything I can lay my hands on. Which is a surprising amount, especially when you are…
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Story Science
Yesterday’s story – which ended with biochemically powered holographic displays – was inspired by real science. “For foods, holograms made with nanoparticles have been proposed, but the tiny particles can generate reactive oxygen species, which might be harmful for people to eat. In a different approach, food scientists have molded edible holograms onto chocolate,…
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Galling
Now, there’s a word. Galling. I heard it spoken recently and it got me thinking. From the naturalist’s point of view, galls are a very interesting phenomenon. From the metaphoric point of view… well, galls are multivariate in origin. There is the initial cause, and then there is the reaction to that irritant, which…
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Keep Calm and Add New Knowledge
I’ve been asked, a few times, to write about the ongoing pandemic and assorted concerns. There is a lot of fear in the world. On one hand, I do understand. It’s a tiny thing, too small to see, and we instinctually fear disease, always have, always will. That being said. I’ve written before, early…
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Ready to Time Travel?
A new mathematical model purports to show that time travel without paradox is possible. As a writer, I’m looking at the article thinking… just how many ways could this go wrong? “The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox.”
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Story Seeds of Science
I am always interested in what’s going on in the world, but I try to look at it through a different lens. One of those lenses is the scientific news, and when I’m looking at it, I’m often looking at it from the point of view of an author. I find it fertile ground…
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Drop a Pebble in the Drug Vat…
The repercussions from this could be… interesting. Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually in favor of this concept (more work for me and my ilk), but it’s so vague there is going to be a lot of difficulty figuring it out. And the potential ripple effect will be disruptive, to put it politely. The…
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No Man is an Island…
I’ve written the last couple of days this week on the importance of social connection, love, and friendship. Love in the form of charity is a giving of oneself to others. The key to a lonely heart, opening it up as it were to human connection. This, we know from science, feeds not only…