Drill down just a few miles into the earth’s crust, and the temperature will rise substantially. This heat comes from three sources: emissions from radioactive minerals, the compressive force of gravity, and to a lesser extent, solar energy absorbed at the earth’s surface. Although such energy is not truly renewable (radioactive elements do eventually decay [...]
Category Archives: Science/Math
Space Shuttle Atlantis & Hubble …Crossing the Sun
May 19, 2009 – 12:27 pm
What an image!
The NASA space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope, seen in silhouette during a solar transit at 12:17 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 13, 2009, from west of Vero Beach, Florida. The two space craft were at an altitude of 600 km above the earth. It took only 0.8 seconds for them to [...]
Swine Flu Hype
May 3, 2009 – 7:43 pm
H1N1 strain of Influenza A
How close are we to Armageddon?
Is the eleventh Plague upon us?
Blood, Frogs, Gnats, Death to Livestock, Pestilence, Boils, Hail, Locusts, Darkness, Slaying of the Firstborn…and now H1N1 swine flu?
Is this the return of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 during which about 50 million people died?
Assess swine flu this way: according [...]
The Babson Boulders of Dogtown
April 19, 2009 – 10:13 am
In his 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German economist and sociologist Max Weber theorized that capitalism’s ascendancy owed much to Protestantism’s emphasis on hard work and worldly success. Whether or not Weber was actually right, the term he coined, “Protestant ethic,” has, to many, become accepted as part of our [...]
How to Bet on the NCAA Final Four
March 30, 2009 – 11:19 am
You pays your money and you takes your chances, but the House always has an edge.
Did you ever wonder how big that edge is?
Among the simplest edges to compute is Las Vegas roulette. If your chips are on one of the numbers from 1 to 36, and you win, you get paid 35-1. That means [...]
Darwin and Lincoln: 200 Years Today (or are they?)
February 11, 2009 – 11:13 am
Born 200 years ago, February 12, 1809: Charles Darwin, who changed the way we think about a human’s place in the bios, and Abraham Lincoln, who changed the way we think about a human’s place in society.
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But perhaps these two Great Men were not born on the same day. Darwin’s birth was [...]
InTirely Nitrogen
December 11, 2008 – 4:59 pm
“Are you N2 your tires?” asks Ingersoll Rand, marketers of Nitrogeneration™, a new way to inflate your tires…and Ingersoll Rand’s bottom line.
By filling your tires with pure nitrogen instead of air, Ingersoll Rand, one of the various nitrogen-into-tires purveyors, contends that you will: (1) enhance safety because pressure decreases more slowly, (2) lengthen tire life [...]
The “Parade” of Misrepresented Presidential Tax Proposals
October 12, 2008 – 7:27 pm
Today’s issue of Parade, the fish-wrap magazine included gratis in my and many Sunday newspapers, included an article entitled: How Much Would You Pay in Taxes?
It purports to be a non-partisan evaluation of how the two presidential candidates’ tax proposals would affect citizens of various income levels, but it is an example of either [...]
Dittrick Museum of Medical History at Case Western Reserve
October 10, 2008 – 12:04 pm
I like Blue Highways and off-the-trail attractions.
I was in Cleveland.
So I examined exhibits for two hours, the only visitor at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History.
19th Century autopsy
Located on the third floor of the Allen Memorial Medical Library at Case Western Reserve University, the Dittrick is small, but immensely informative. Medical instruments (photo below), a [...]
Planetarium Earmark
October 9, 2008 – 9:38 pm
As former chairman of the Summer Science Program (SSP), an academic enrichment program for the very brightest teenagers, I know a bit about astronomy, the focus of SSP’s curriculum. I also know a bit about planetariums ["planetaria" is also accepted, but that sounds like a type of worm to me]. And since SSP once investigated, [...]
