Category: science
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Let’s You and Him Fight: Autoimmune Disorders and Parasites
In a forum of smart folks I’m part of, a science fictional conversation came up: if we could terraform another planet, picking and choosing what species we’d put on it, why would we bother with parasites? People bandied around things they’d love to do without, like mosquitoes, poison ivy, ticks, fleas, and various disease-causing bacteria.…
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Retrogression
What do Environmentalists, JRR Tolkein, Luddites, and Progressives all have in common? The answer is both easy and complicated all at once. The core of it is fear, but the roots lie deeply embedded in the human psyche, all the way back to a time when something out of the ordinary in the environment surrounding…
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The Dose Makes the Poison
I recently stumbled across this quote by Paracelsus (ok, I knew it before, but not who originated it), and it fits well with the topics I frequent here on the blog. Food, cooking, chemistry, wild edibles – and their flip side, wild poisons. Snakes, spiders, centipedes… and sometimes wasps. Toxicology has been a long-time interest…
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Feed the Brain, Feed the Soul
When is a cookie not just a cookie? The First Reader asked me yesterday if I would make cookies for him. He had talked about this the other day, so it wasn’t like he was springing a Monday night surprise on me after a long day at work. And the weather was perfect for baking,…
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Double-Edged Sword of the Apocalypse
There are days that I can say and mean it from the bottom of my heart: science is scary. This is true on every day, of course, but it rarely impinges on my day-to-day reality. Kids, dogs, husband, work, writing… and then there are the science journals. The headline of this article caught my attention…
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The Scent of Rain
Do you know what the connection is between the scent of a rose, and a summer rain shower? The answer is in the volatile organic compounds. Plants emit tiny light-weight compounds for many purposes, and from nearly all their parts. Root to bloom, the plant is in communication using chemicals. With these compounds they can…
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Vaccination against Substance Abuse?
Turns out, this is a very real possibility. It’s no miracle cure – this won’t be like vaccinating against smallpox and ridding the world of a dreadful disease. What it might be, if the early indications hold true through clinical trials, is a tool to combat addiction in those who are trying to fight off…
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One Small Step for Cyborgs
One giant step for Mankind. Or at least, for holding it all together while we figure it out. This article on hydrogel bonding has so many fascinating applications I find it hard to start. It’s not just the adhesive properties, but it’s also conductive, too. In the article, they discuss how they could utilize those…
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Interesting Stuff
I have Thursdays noted, on my ad hoc schedule, as the days for link round-ups. I do a fair amount of reading in odd moments, from blogs I touch in at on a routine basis, to tidbits that float across my screen seemingly at random. I’ll collect the ones that caught my eye, and post…
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Alarums and Diversions
This is a riff on the same subject I wrote about for MGC today. Sort of, not really, but it’s closely related. While I was sitting at my desk formulating the post in my head, a notification box popped up in the corner of my screen, I glanced at it, and then ignored it. Later,…
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Food Anthropology: From the Beginning
I’ve been toying with this article for a while, and decided the only way to do it justice was to write a series of articles, rather than trying to cram it all into one place. It started, as so many of my ideas do, in a conversation between the First Reader and I. We were…
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Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho!
It’s off to work I go! Finally, after months of looking and waiting for the right job, I’ve got one. I’m a bit nervous, quite excited, and will likely be tired for a week or so until I adjust to the new routine. I’ll be working as a laboratory technician, conducting microbiology tests for quality…