Learning about science starts at Mother’s knee

Mom to 2-year-old: “Don’t touch that! It’s hot.” And 2-year-old thinks: “What is hot?” What has Mom just done? She has almost guaranteed that the child will touch whatever it is that is hot. A child does not know what “hot” is until he or she has felt “hot.” It won’t do much good to physically keep the child from touching something hot. Sooner or later, they have to experience “hot” in order to live wisely. Mom ...

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Just your average Joe? Nothing wrong with that

Personally, I have always thought that mediocrity is undervalued. This is especially true in the biological science. No two living things are ever exactly alike. It’s almost eerie that way. I mean, two hydrogen atoms are just alike, and a volt is always a volt. But two Culex mosquitoes aren’t identical. How can anyone make sense of that? The way we make sense of variation is to look at averages. An average is, of course, the central tendency of a set of data. To get the ...

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Attraction can’t be denied, even if it can’t be explained

Gravity got you down? (Sorry, nerd joke.) But whether it does or not, there’s not much you can do about it. It makes no sense to get mad about gravity. It’s just one of those inexplicable, attractive forces. Whenever humans don’t know what something is, we give it a name so we can talk about it. That’s what happened when I was born. Like my parents, there are a lot of things that we give names to that we don’t actually understand. Like, why don’t I fly ...

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Think your first love makes you squirm? Try being enchanted with nematodes

They say one never truly gets over a first love. Wait! No! Honey, I didn’t mean that. I am completely over what’s-her-name. Honest! I was speaking metaphorically, or something. Really! Listen for just a minute. What I meant to say is that the first critter I fell in love with when I decided to become a biologist was a nematode. That’s what I did my first research on. I probably spent more years working on nematodes than anything else.  Today I just want to talk about ...

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There are no insignificant numbers when the grocery bill’s tallied

Why is it that when you ask someone the time, they always tell you the time to the minute? People used to just round things off to the nearest five minutes, or even the quarter hour.  Is that minute really significant? Numbers can be accurate, but not significant. Usually it isn’t very important for me to know the time to the minute. Telling me that it is 7:49 p.m. simply gets me moving. By 7:53 p.m. I have forgotten why I was going that direction to begin with. There are ...

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Young Naturalist awardee gets burned in spotlight

Whatever happened to the citizen-scientist? All a person really has to do to be a scientist is have an idea and do an experiment to see if it works. Usually it doesn’t. Or maybe that’s just my limited experience. In any case, the experimenter is still a scientist. I even claim to be a scientist, although as a specialist in intestinal parasites, I am at the absolute nadir of science, below which it is impossible to go. I think one reason citizen-scientists are so rare anymore is ...

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Moor, moor, moor: Learning leads to exciting paths

Imagine a narrow beach bordered by high, ragged cliffs, a gray sky, cold and whipping winds, and pounding breakers from the North Sea. A ragged band of men dressed in skins and furs wades ashore. Their wild hair and beards are blowing in the wind that sweeps out of the cold skies. The men carry swords and spears and are wary as they enter the new land that is untouched and untrodden. The first band finds a way up the cliff face and there they find open moors. Farther off, there are dense ...

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One, two, three ... counting bird plumage is just horsefeathers!

Do you know how many feathers a turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) has? I don’t either. Apparently no one does. Can you believe that? You’d think we would. Ben Franklin thought it should be our national bird. I wonder if we know how many feathers the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) has. The bird with the least number of feathers is the Archilochus colubris with only 940. OK, I didn’t actually count them myself. Someone must have, though, because that’s what it says ...

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SIMPLY SCIENCE: Even gobblers get the blues

There are a lot of depressed turkeys these days. It’s not hard to tell a depressed turkey from one that’s in good spirits. Depressed birds stand with their heads tilted downward or drawn into their body. Their feathers are ruffled, and their wings droop. Their eyes are partly closed. The birds may act alert and agitated when disturbed, but they quickly become lethargic again. By comparison, normal turkeys are highly excitable and often seen strutting around as if they had good ...

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Good, bad or indifferent? It’s all a matter of perspective

I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Wait, this is my column so I guess I have to decide. The only reason I asked is because I’m not sure which news is good and which is bad. The words “good” and “bad” do not have strict, scientific definitions. In fact, the two words probably best describe a spectrum in which some things are perceived as good and other things are perceived as better or worse. Good and bad are values, not facts. But we use a ...

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By the numbers: body-part appraisals don’t add up

Some of the stuff I find scientifically interesting just isn’t very practical. How do cats lap up milk with their tongue? Have you ever tried to do that? Why are bees’ eyes hairy? The fact that the universe is expanding surely affects us somehow. It’s scientific but it just doesn’t seem very pressing. Sometimes science is very practical and delivers new, important products like iPhones and Wii consoles. Science has been used to create chickens that are 90 percent ...

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SIMPLY SCIENCE: Digging deep for the real truth about moles

This time of year people have trouble with moles. We are several weeks into the school year, and chemistry students everywhere are concerned about moles. However, I don’t think they are interested in saving the moles. I think they would like moles to become extinct. They were taught in earlier grades that moles were cute little animals that lived under the ground and sometimes caused bumps in the lawn. Technically, moles are neutral, being neither good nor bad. But bumps in ...

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A reasonable take on evolution - starting 6,000 years ago

I told my wife, “I think I’ll try and write a very reasonable column about evolution.” She replied, “Are you qualified to do that?” What? Does she think I’m not reasonable, or that I am not highly evolved? You might be surprised to learn that Jacob, in the Old Testament, was the first recorded geneticist. His story dates back somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 years. They didn’t have copyright laws then so the exact date is unclear. But in the 30th ...

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Simply Science, Aug. 29, 2011

There are so many problems in the world today. Let me shed some light on one of them. The problem upon which I wish to shed light is sunburn ... and why would I want to shed light on sunburn? Thanks for asking. Sunlight has a wide spectrum of wavelengths. Included are very short wavelengths called ultraviolet, or UV, light. UV light is a form of energy that can cause damage to cells. If too much damage is caused, the cell is killed and we call that a sunburn. When UV light reaches the DNA ...

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Carpe diem and count native bees

All right, this is it! This is the chance you have all been waiting for. Now don’t get too excited and start jumping around. There are a few instructions to get through first. And you are going to have to really get hot on this now, because it’s today. Cancel all other plans you may have for the morning. It will help if you have planned ahead and planted some sunflowers a month or two ago. OK, so I forgot to tell you. But you can still participate, and perhaps in an even more ...

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Scientific inquiry: A waste of time or the ultimate reality show?

Ben Franklin just had too much time on his hands. I mean, who goes out in the evening and pours a quarter-cup of oil on a pond to see if the oil will calm the wind-chopped water? If he were to do something silly like that today he would probably miss an entire episode of “American Idol.” Does missing reality television so one can experience the real world seem odd? Today we know that oil doesn’t mix with water. It forms a film just two molecules thick that spreads across ...

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Humans alone declare independence from physical laws

Science is the study of the material world. The material world works according to a series of physical laws. These laws seem to be universal throughout time. The laws also seem to apply everywhere throughout the universe. Where these laws come from, or why they exist, has never been adequately explained by science. In a universe emanating from an infinite explosion, one might expect a world of chaos. Why there is order and physical laws is a mystery to science. The material world of ...

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Ooh! Aah! That science geek really knows his fireworks!

One of the cool things about becoming a scientist is that you get to learn all kinds of fancy words that you can use to sound intelligent, whether you are or not. Most of the words just mean the same thing as normal words, but sound more cool. Before we get into that, did you know that if you carefully heat bamboo sticks, they will explode with a loud bang? That is because the gas trapped inside each segment expands until it ruptures the tough fibrous covering. I am told that Chinese ...

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Having fun with chemistry takes an active imagination

It’s June and I haven’t even told you that 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry. How big is that? I mean, it’s international! Why isn’t this in the news? I have to admit that I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with chemistry. Maybe that’s because when I first took chemistry it was in the 1960s and I had a few distractions. The Cold War was going on, nuclear war was one red button away, the Vietnam War was hot, the civil rights movement had become ...

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Food poisoning is intoxicating, but it sure isn’t a good time

I don’t think, as a scientist, that I believe in karma. But on the other hand, a few weeks ago when I wrote a column delighting in the thought of mosquitoes having food poisoning, I kind of had a feeling that I shouldn’t be gloating. Technically, there is a difference between food poisoning and food-borne illness, although those kinds of technicalities are not appreciated by those who are suffering from either one. I was explaining this to my wife, but she told me she really ...

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Assessing the ill effects of finals on willing subjects, teachers alike

Due to stress and lack of sleep, students often become ill during finals week. In an effort to find a solution to this ongoing problem, I recently conducted a study during final-exam week at Mesa State College. We tested the use of placebos, extra-strength placebos and generic placebos as final-exam disease preventatives. The placebos tested all contained the active ingredient CHOThe placebos and extra-strength placebos were obtained through a classified ad in The National Enquirer. The ...

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Tonic water: Miracle cure for the scourge of malaria

The story of Dona Francisca Henriquez de Ribera, the Countess of Chinchon, might even be true. Because it is said to have happened in 1638, it is a little hard to verify. But the story goes that the countess became ill while living with her husband in what is now Peru. She came down with intermittent fevers, or ague, today known as malaria. Malaria is a parasitic disease that can cause a series of severe, periodic fevers, which often lead to death if untreated. If one does survive, it may ...

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Explaining the elephant in the room, or rather, the river

It’s May and the river is up. My friend Greg Trainor is a river runner and knows a lot about water. I’m not exactly sure what a river runner is. Personally I can’t even walk on water on a still, small pond, but he apparently can run on the river. Anyway, when we went to dinner the other night he told me that there was 10,000 cubic feet of water flowing in the Colorado River that day per second. They expect there to be as much as 35,000 feet per second flowing at the ...

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Trying to understand fractions is risky business

I’m not very good with fractions. Oh, I do all right with things like one-half, one-third or one-fourth. But as soon as it goes any further, I get a little confused. For example, can you easily cut a pie into fifths? OK, I’ll let you cut, but I get first choice of the pieces. Fractions are ratios. While we learn to manipulate them in school, I just don’t grasp what they mean very well. A ratio is a relationship between two numbers that indicates how the first number is ...

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Is it so wrong to want baby blood-suckers to die?

I know I should repent. It just seems wrong for me to rejoice in the misfortune of others. But I have to admit that I was pleased when I first learned that mosquitoes can get sick. It still tickles me, in some perverse way. It seems so right that at the moment mosquitoes are biting me, they themselves may be being bitten by little, arthropod parasites called mites. I wasn’t as happy to learn that almost all insects can get sick, and that there are mites sucking blood from my bees as ...

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Ride the wave to learn how sound is transmitted

Imagine that you are carefully submerged in a pool of water to the level of halfway up the pupil of your eye. Half of your view is above water and the other half below. Imagine that the water is as smooth as glass. Then imagine what happens if someone leans over and drops a perfectly round pebble directly in front of your nose. All of the water molecules surrounding the pebble will be pushed to either side. However, there are innumerable water molecules pushing in from all directions. So ...

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It’s normal to ask questions in assessing change

The question has come up as to whether or not I am normal. I immediately became defensive when confronted. Of course I’m normal! However, I almost always resent being told that I am just like someone else, too. It seems I want to be unique, but not too unique, I guess. Does anyone else feel this way? What is normal anyway? Is normal conforming to social norms of behavior? Is it good to conform to social expectations? Does it make me happier and more successful? Or is conformity a ...

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Strength in numbers? You better bee-lieve it

Some people say that this is the “age of man,” but that is probably just because men get to say such things. If insects got to write newspaper columns, they would probably say this is the “age of insects.” Estimates from various sources differ, but most experts think the number of insect species is close to a million. However, there are at least twice that many that have not been identified. Some people think there could be as many as 30 million different species. ...

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You’re not getting older, you’re getting ... who knows?

I recently had a birthday. My family made guesses as to my age, and their estimates were ... interesting. As I considered some of their guesses, though, I began to notice an intriguing pattern. This led me to do some basic research, and I think I have discovered some fundamental relationships that underlie the data. The earliest known record of my age is based upon my birth. However, for the life of me, I can’t recall the moment or the date. I also discovered I don’t have that ...

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A recipe for scientific discovery: seaweed and Jell-O

When I was late for dinner as a boy, my mom would put the food on my plate and set it on the table until I came home to eat. I didn’t mind cold food so much, but the hot food on the plate would melt the Jell-O. Then the Jell-O would run all over the plate, and I hate lime Jell-O in peas. Gelatin is an interesting compound. It is derived from a protein in vertebrate animals called collagen, which is found in cartilage and tendons. It is used as a thickening agent in foods, ...

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The mosquitoes must dye, even if by photodynamic means

My wife thinks that mosquitoes have a contract out on me for killing their babies. For many years I worked in mosquito control, and we mostly eliminated the larval, or baby, stages. I suppose one shouldn’t be proud of being a paid baby-killer. In the case of mosquitoes though, I am rather proud of having served my community. There is more than one way to kill a mosquito. The old way of swatting them is effective in the short term, but can sometimes be messy. Then there are ...

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Scientific exploration reveals the hole truth

Much of science involves counting things. So why is it that accountants are called ac-count-ants and scientists are not? I think if I had it to do it over again, I might be an accountant instead of a scientist. Counting money has accounted for much of the time I spend anyway. Also, accountants seem to have more of it to count than I do. But if I had been an accountant, I’d have missed counting so many other interesting things. Over the years I have counted nematode eggs, scavenging ...

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Failure beats inaction every time

Several years ago I attended a workshop at MIT to learn a computer programming language. On the first morning the crew of instructors spent at least an hour showing us examples of what could be done with this language. I recall thinking that this was a waste of time since each of us had traveled far because we already knew that this was a powerful tool. Following this display of projects we were handed a very brief set of commands; 12 as I recall. We spent about 30 minutes going over these ...

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Grammys, science combine for Arcade Fire win

I love it when science and popular culture come together. The story of how radio was discovered is complicated and involves many players. But, in essence, it was discovered in the late 1890s. The vacuum tube, born in 1906, set the stage for major advancements and the first known transmission of amplitude modulation, or AM radio, occurred in that year. Alvin McBurney was born in 1908 and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He showed early signs of mechanical aptitude and built his first radio in ...

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Washington’s cure fatally worse than his disease

Writer E. B. White once wrote, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” Now I have always thought that dissecting a frog was pretty interesting. But his reference to dissecting, in conjunction with humor, is not all that farfetched. Early Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians all thought that humans were composed of four bodily humors, and that an illness was evidence that these humors were out of balance. Remedies to ...

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Geeks need love, too, or why scientists make good valentines

Have you heard about the two red-blood cells that loved in vein? Well, OK, but don’t let me catch you repeating it then. The truth is I don’t understand anything about the science of love. I think there are some subjects that just don’t lend themselves to scientific explanations. We scientists need to recognize our limitations. For example, I have never understood what it is that women find attractive in men. Honestly, what could any woman possibly see in a handsome, ...

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Regional science fair can be springboard to scientific career

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I once gave my wife a beautiful Brazilian beetle embedded in plastic. I think she might have preferred a diamond. She apparently didn’t know that beetles and diamonds have something in common, though diamonds have little in common with plastic. Maybe that was the problem. But ask Lauren Richey of Springville, Utah, about beetles and diamonds. For her, beetles have turned into gold. Or am I mixing my metaphors here? It all started with ...

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Taking the measure of a man — or a clod of dirt

I used to help my grandfather in his garden, at least until he got tired of my help and sent me home. In the garden he had a screened, wooden frame with quarter-inch mesh wire on it. Every day he would throw several shovels of dirt onto this frame. The small stuff would fall through, but the larger rocks and sticks would be retained to be hauled away and discarded. This was one way he constantly improved the texture of the soil in his garden. It was an easy concept to grasp. Anything that ...

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How to learn is not how to teach

Every year I try to learn something new. One year I learned a programming language on the computer. Another year I worked on robotics. I took guitar lessons for several years and then switched to mandolin. A couple of years ago, I started raising native bees, and then added honeybees. Last year my grandson and I studied for our amateur radio licenses. After many months of study, we went and took our tests together. He not only finished before I did, he got a higher score. Now I have to ...

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Frozen flies? Mosquito popsicles? It really happens

I guess I’ll have to buy flies now. I have a student who wants to do research on pesticide resistance. All the pests are frozen this time of year, so we’ll have to raise our own Musca domestica. They’re the common housefly we spend our summers trying to get rid of and now I’m raising them! We have to do strange things in science sometimes. You may be asking yourself, “Where did all the Musca go?” Or not. Well, most of the flies are dead. Then there are ...

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Happy New Hexachron, or hope you have the time of your life

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ...” No, wait! That’s already taken. How about, “To everything there is a season ...” What? That’s already been used, too? Then how about, “The time of your life”? I know it’s a clich&233;, but I really mean the “time” of your life. Our lifetimes take place at certain rhythms that are sometimes obscured and forgotten in our modern world that is driven by technology. It ...

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Even in dead of winter, there is the promise of life renewed

There are many human experiences that are enhanced by scientific knowledge, and I try to celebrate them in this column. But knowing that the Earth’s axial tilt is 23.26 degrees does not make the winter more beautiful or Christmas sweeter. The fears and uneasy hearts accompanying dim days and dark nights are seldom mitigated by knowledge of why it is dark and that it will pass. The joys of warmth and firelight are seldom enhanced by facts and material circumstances. No, there are ...

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Rudolph’s nose may be bright, but it won’t be frostbit

Have you ever worried about reindeer getting frostbite? I used to think about this a lot, which tells you something about my personal life. It is confusing because when I watch National Geographic specials, the reindeer are all just out there in the open, and it gets pretty cold up at the North Pole. Maybe Santa keeps his reindeer in a special barn or something. But still, flying around for hours on Christmas Eve must put them at risk for hypothermia. But ever since I went to school and ...

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It’s a bird ... it’s a plane ... it’s a super snowstorm

Here in Colorado, we have all watched a rainstorm across the street leave us completely dry. It can rain heavily in one part of the valley, but not in another. Like my dad always said, “If you don’t like the weather around here, wait 10 minutes.” In December of 2007, there was a particularly unusual snowstorm on the Front Range not far from Denver International Airport. It lasted 45 minutes and was about 20 miles long, but only 2 1/2 miles wide. It covered the ground with ...

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The true cost of Christmas indulgence

Scientists routinely come up with new ideas for products, procedures and technologies. But they almost never acknowledge the true costs. Of course they calculate prices, the price being what the products will sell for. Strangely, though, the price seldom reflects actual cost. Let me use scientists’ relatively newfound ability to manipulate genetic traits as an example. Imagine that we can use genetic engineering to make a new milk cow that can produce 50,000 pints of milk a year. ...

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Wake up! Here’s some important news about yawning

Yawn. Nice nap? After Thanksgiving dinner, I mean. This holiday got me to wondering about why we yawn. And guess what? We don’t know. Yep, the whole yawning thing appears to be a big mystery to scientists. Wow! How can we not know the reason for yawning? And people think science is boring. So I decided to demonstrate just how daring a scientist can be and devote an entire column to yawning, in spite of the evidence that yawning is contagious. There is a huge risk of putting my ...

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‘Please pass the myoglobin,’ or the science of Thanksgiving

Is turkey gravy a colloid or an emulsion? I’ve always wondered about that. But I only remember to think about it at Thanksgiving when I am too sleepy to think straight. Because turkey gravy has particles imbedded in a liquid, it must be a colloid. But because it has water suspended in oil, a liquid in a liquid, it must be an emulsion. To avoid the question, we sometimes barbecue steak for Thanksgiving. I know it’s not conventional, and for some it would be a disappointment. But ...

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Electron estimators filled with uncertainty

In response to a recent column on the electric company, I have been besieged by questions from readers wanting to know how to tell if they are being resold the same electrons as last month. Well, OK, two people asked. But that’s a bigger response than usual, so I thought I would look into it. It turns out that this is actually more difficult than it first appears, and it appeared plenty difficult to me at first. Electrons are pretty small. In fact, they are so small that there really ...

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Turning back the clock won’t save the pineal gland

As the shadows lengthen and the sun sinks into the west, darkness gently falls. Quiet settles over the land, interrupted only by the theme song of “The O’Reilly Factor.” Walking through the streets you can see each home alight with the loving, flickering, blue-light of television and the occasional steady glow of the computer terminal. In the inner recesses of each human brain, accompanying the deepening shadows, will be the slow but sure release of ...

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The shocking news behind electricity

There’s electricity in the air. It’s mostly from electronic sensors that set off electrically generated blood-curdling screams and electric, flashing, blue lightning, shining on fake tombstones set in the yard as decorations for Halloween. It used to be Christmas before one could smell the ozone. Just what is this electrical power that allows modern, enlightened, sentient creatures to celebrate the powers of magic and make-believe? And where does electricity go after it is ...

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