Tag Archives: science

EVENT RECAP: Adventures with Food at the ASC

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Juliana, our science-illustrating museum-loving friend, is back after another event! Here’s hoping her guest postings become a regular feature because this one sure left me hungry for more! (yuk yuk) – Ryan (the photographer)

When I wrote about the Exploratorium’s Iron Science Teacher Competition, I confessed that I’d never seen an Iron Chef competition before. Which is kind of odd because — another confession! — I’m a bit of a foodie. Not in the “raw food is the only food” way or the “I own every gadget from Williams Sonoma” way, but in the “I’m doing science and it’s delicious” way. Thankfully, the local Adventure Science Center (ASC) in Nashville had a food-based program this weekend so I could get my foodie fix.

Step one of any cooking endeavor: get a spiffy apron

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BEER REVIEW: GUBNA Imperial IPA

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Per my previous post, I’m not gonna put beer reviews up on the blog for a while. If you’re curious why, click-through the link. If you just wanna read my thoughts concerning an old favorite beer, continue on. As in my last post about beer, I’ll be using the rating system devised by Beer Advocate, where this review was originally posted.

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Someone at io9 must be listening…

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As mentioned in Episode 74 I mentioned that one of the sites I frequent for potential show topics and my own amusement is i09. I encourage listeners to scope it out as long as they still come back here for their science podcasting fix. My reason for mentioning this at all is that recently I mentioned that scientists rarely experiment on themselves and that animal testing is a necessary fact of life for certain types of biologist. Well the good folks at io9 have compiled top 10 lists related to each subject. Enjoy perusing them as I did then go leave us an iTunes review or something else productive.

Top 10 Scientists Who Experimented On Themselves

Top 10 Animals That Made Significant Contributions to Research

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PaleoPOEM

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Paleoposse member Chris sent in a wonderful poem which Ryan read on air in Episode 76 – Alien Ant Farm, but in the interests of preservation we figured it best if we posted it here as well. Enjoy, and thanks again to Chris!

There once was a science podcast
that I came upon at long last.
They talk about booze
and primordial ooze
and listening to them is a blast!

They fill my ears with their words
’bout good movie trailers (and turds)
and naked mole rats
and guano from bats
and how dinosaurs are now birds

Zombie hordes they taught me how
to survive quite well for now:
Shoot for the head,
Avoid the undead.
And that gets a PaleoPOW!

Paleopals, carry on!
And bandoliers you must don
when zombies come near
stock your whiskey and beer
’cause the breweries will be all gone

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REVIEW: The Science of Kissing

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The Science of Kissing by Sheril Kirshenbaum

272 pages / $19.99 / Grand Central Publishing

I have been kissing other people for literally years. I knew the basics behind the science; we have big sensitive lips that get engorged with blood when we’re aroused and it fun to press them on other people’s lips (and if that was more than you knew about the subject this book will be all the more enlightening!). I have been doing kissing longer than I’ve been doing science; but now, through a truly heinous turn of events, I spend all day doing science with very little time kissing! To fill this hole I life I read BONK, and it horrified me. Literally too much information. I wanted something with a little more romance and tenderness; and a little less anatomical detail and uncomfortable imagery. So with all due deference to Mrs. Roach from both myself and Mrs. Kirshenbaum, I began The Science of Kissing.

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REVIEW – Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth via iFanboy

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evolutionSometimes I really love my life. This book was kind of a perfect convergence of the things that make comics and evolution awesome. I hope you dig my thoughts. Feel free to comment here or click-through the link and comment on iFanboy.

Written by Jay Hosler

Illustrated by Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon

$18.95 / 150 Pages / Black & White

Hill and Wang

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Do Science With Patrick!

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Addendum* Lots of traffic to this post and lots of emailed questions. I’ve put up a website specifically for this project  at http://www.hairproject.wheatleyempire.com so check that out if you think you might be able to contribute some found hair to SCIENCE *end addendum

Help me Paleoposse, you’re my only hope.

I’m working on a project that will match changes in human hair chemistry to the region that the hair was grown in. I need to look at hair from lots of different regions in order to do this well. That’s where you come in.

If you want to help, it’s pretty easy…

1) Get a Ziplock bag (quart size or even smaller is fine).

2) Go to your local barbershop or hair salon.

3) Ask them if you can have some of the hair they swept up that day (tell them it’s for SCIENCE!).

4) Put the hair in the Ziplock bag (1/3 full is plenty).

5) Write down the date you did this and the address of the place you got the hair from.

6) Mail it to me…

Patrick Wheatley

Center for Isotope Geochemistry

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

1 Cyclotron Rd. MS 70A-4418

Berkeley CA, 94720

6) Sit back and await your reward.

I’ll list you in the acknowledgements when I publish the work. I’ll also send you a Science… sort of prize or two (so make sure you give me your address when you send me the hair sample). If I get enough responses I’ll blog about some of the results before the paper comes out.

If you’ve got questions, email me patrick[at]sciencesortof.com

Thanks for being a soldier for Science… sort of,

Patrick

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iFanboy REPOST: Weather Powers and Global Climate Change

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Figured most people didn’t see this originally but I enjoyed writing it a lot so I wanted to share it again over on the Paleocave. If it seems a bit dumbed down that’s because it’s written for the comic fan who may or may not be a science fan. Enjoy it for what it is!

Here’s a link if you’d like to see what comments happened on iFanboy, apparently it got heated but I wasn’t online to follow up.

SCIENCE: Weather Powers and Global Climate Change

I’ve got climate on the brain. I’ve been studying it and reading up on a lot of the nitty gritty about just how it works. Right now we’re experiencing a period of anthropogenic (mad-made) induced global climate change. (If you’ve not a fan of climate change or just plain don’t understand keep reading but also feel free to e-mail me.) I think it’s fair to assume our favorite superheoric worlds also underwent the Industrial Revolution and outside of the Watchmen, where Dr. Manhattan actually changed the course of technological history, I’d argue that they’re all getting ready to deal with some global warming too. So I got to thinking: Could any of the people with the power to control weather fix the problem?

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