What do you want to know?

Humans have a long history of looking to the stars. As a race, we have curious fascination with the unknown: the vast expanse of space is about as unknown as you can get. Modern telescopes have expanded our view, but the universe hasn’t given up all of her secrets yet.

One of the most basic features of the universe, its size, is still an enigma. As we look up above, we can see lots of darkness peppered with stars. We know that it is big, but how big is it? Well, scientists don’t always agree. The trouble is that we can’t see that far.

[Read more →]

Global warming has been a hot topic lately: the earth is getting hotter, and its got everyone in a frenzy. Despite the political debate surrounding the issue, the general scientific consensus is that (among other things) rising carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air is the culprit; and humans are to blame for the CO2. No matter what the cause, the earth is getting hotter, and something needs to be done about it.

[Read more →]

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American tobacco farmer who got cervical cancer at the age of 30. Despite her doctors’ efforts, her case of cancer was too aggressive to control; she passed away in October 1951. But this is not the end of the story.

[Read more →]

Everyone knows not to put a sharpie in the hands of a 2-year-old. When he goes running down the halls, drawing on the walls (and his clothes), those marks are going to be much harder to clean up than if you gave the kid a crayola.

Why is a crayola “washable,” and a sharpie permanent? When you put the crayola through the wash, the water can dissolve the ink out of the shirt, but this doesn’t happen with sharpies. The answer has to do with the chemistry of the dyes.

[Read more →]

We encounter different types of fat when cooking a meal. Butter, lard, vegetable oil, olive oil, fats in meats, fats are everywhere. They are also versatile  sculpture media: butter art is a common fixture at state fairs.

But what is it exactly that makes butter solid? And why is vegetable oil liquid at the same temperature? They are both essentially the same thing: fats. What makes them different? The answer has to do with their chemistry.

[Read more →]

When I think of something that is “cold-blooded,” I think of a slimy reptile that is cool to the touch. You know what I mean, the animals that make little girls make a face and say “eew.”

Yes, some of these animals may be gross, but just because they’re cold blooded doesn’t always mean they’re cold.

[Read more →]

In humans, cancer is not something you can catch. Cancer is a disease where your own cells divide and grow out of control. This underlies one of the major divisions between types of diseases: communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Two different types of communicable pathogens under a Gram's Stain.

Communicable disease are usually caused by a pathogen, something nasty that gets in your body and makes you sick. Pathogens can be things like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other things. The thing that they have in common is that they are caused by an infection. This infection is something that uses you to reproduce and pass to someone else.

[Read more →]

We are all familiar with color mixing. There are things which we agree are to be called the color blue, things which are the color green. When these colors are put together, we would all agree that they would be somewhere in the middle.

Like these photos of a blue-green iris and computer art:

But no matter how much egg nog you have, you cannot see a color which you would describe as red-green (even if you stare cross-eyed at the Christmas tree).

[Read more →]

The Scene of the Crime:

“What was the time of death detective?”

“When we arrived, rigor had begun to set in. I place time of death at 4 hours ago.”

This scene is typical of a CSI murder drama. The Medical Examiner steps on the scene and examines the body for signs of rigor mortis. Like clockwork, the muscles of a dead body begin to stiffen starting 3 hours after death. Full rigor comes on around 12 hours (the medical term for the body at this time is a “stiff”).

[Read more →]