Science Comes Alive
terrasig | February 15, 2009I had occasion this week to tell friends the story of my maternal grandmother. She was born in 1906 in an eastern Pennsylvania coal mining town. Her family was so poor that she was sent at age 16 to northern New Jersey to clean houses for wealthy families. She gave me pictures of her from the late 1940s as the only woman in a machine shop and, later, continued to shop for her own groceries three-quarters of a mile away well into her late 80s. Although she drove my mother crazy (my Mom is a fantastic story of achievement for another day), I suspect that grandma had undiagnosed obsessive-…
terrasig | October 17, 2008Scott Hensley, editor of the WSJ Health Blog, just reminded me that his colleague and blog lead writer, Jacob Goldstein, put together a neat slideshow on the fluorescent marine proteins for which this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded. I've been a bit behind in my reading of other blogs so it was refreshing to see this nicely accessible coverage.
The WSJ blog post, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Beauty of Fluorescent Protein, has the slideshow embedded. You may also go directly to the slideshow here.
(h/t Scott Hensley)
terrasig | March 13, 2008[Hi Mom. Will call you soon but you really need not read this post. Love, Your son.]
Bora/Coturnix just alerted me to the FDA approval of a home sperm-check test that can be used to determine the effectiveness of one's vasectomy. The product, SpermCheck Vasectomy, was developed by Dr John C Kerr and fellow researchers at the University of Virginia through their faculty business start-up program. This test could minimize the embarrassment of the 500,000 US men who undergo the 3rd most popular contraceptive procedure by obviating the need to bring a 90-day post-vasectomy semen sample to the…
terrasig | February 21, 2008Back in January several science bloggers had an exchange that degenerated into discussion of the process and aftermath of the vasectomy.
Well, as PhysioProf is wont to say, today I will sack up, literally. As part of my gift to PharmGirl for her [significant] bday next week I will undergo the knife this afternoon to render me no longer able to contribute to the gene pool. Of course, I won't be completely sperm-free until 20 to 30 post-operative ejaculations, the thought of which brings me great comfort. We have had one child and do not anticipate wanting any more - we got us a good one the…
terrasig | November 26, 2006Via Will's Clicked, a Spanish TV show on science and technology demonstrates the "shear-thickening" property of a non-Newtonian fluid (i.e., where rapid application of forces causes the fluid to behave like a solid).
Pretty cool - watch what happens around 1:49 when one of the hosts stands still atop the muck.