Imagine you’re at Starbucks. You’re halfway through a co-worker’s order (“half sweet, no foam, saffron-scented, opium-spritzed, …”) when two men wearing coveralls come in. You hear them talking about a car they’re fixing. Their garb has grease on it, various stains of indeterminate origin. They saunter up to the till, place their orders, and get their drinks before you because the trainee taking care of your order is running to the Starbucks across the street to find more panda blood for your co-worker’s beverage. Tapping your foot impatiently, you notice that the two guys in coveralls have parked themselves in…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From November, 2005
CARTOON FEATURE: EINE KLEINE ZELLE
A small cell, alone in the world, in the republic of cells.. The basic structure of life would not be nearly as interesting if it weren’t for its ability to create more cells. If you think the “random” separations between cell cycle phases are about as tenuous to remember as the first 30 digits of Pi, then you probably haven’t seen a cell shake its booty to the Pink Flamingos in a Fritz Langesque vignette yet. (includes audio) For more information about cell cycle and mitosis, check out the following link. * * * (REPRINTED FROM ISSUE ONE, APRIL 25th,…
HALF BAKED SCIENCE: A PRIMER ON MEDICINAL CANNABIS
Cannabis (marijuana) is among the most widely used of all psychoactive drugs. Despite the fact that its possession and use is illegal in most countries, cannabis is used regularly by as many as 25 million people in North America and Europe and by millions more in other parts of the world. There has been renewed interest in the potential medical uses of cannabis (Cannabis sativa) in recent years, with voters in several areas of Canada strongly supporting such a move. Opinion polls suggest similarly strong popular support for the reintroduction of medical cannabis in the USA, the UK, and many…
ELSEWHERE AND OVERHEARD
Overheard “If a woman has something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful.” BT Laboratories’ analyst Ian Pearson on computer chips that would equip one boob with an MP3 player and the other with a person’s whole music collection. (Ananova.com) “As one judge put it, if a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of super-sized McDonald’s products is unhealthy and could result in weight gain, it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses.” James Sensenbrenner, chairman of Judiciary Committee, on what has been called “The Cheeseburger Bill,” which…
MOTHER GOOSE AND THE SCIENTIFIC PEER REVIEW PROCESS.
Jack and Jill went up the hill. To fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown. And Jill came tumbling after. First of all, we are not sure there’s enough clarity in this text. Scientific literature, in particular, should leave little room for confusion. Where exactly did Jack fall down? Into the well? A little ways down the hill? All the way down the hill? It’s just too vague. Worst still, we’re not convinced that the science conducted is of high enough caliber. I mean really, who would be stupid enough to put a well on…
TO TEACH THE CALCULUS, A PLAY
The recent popularity of math and science based plays and movies, such as “Proof”, “A Beautiful Mind”, and “Copenhagen”, has catalyzed the recovery of lost plays from famous mathematicians and scientists themselves. Below is the complete text of “To Teach the Calculus,” which was recently “recovered” from the notebooks of Max Planck. After winning his Nobel Prize in 1918 for work in radiation physics, Planck explored a variety of other fields. This is his only known foray into the theater. Planck had a reputation as a difficult and demanding teacher among the students at the University of Berlin, and several…
WE SEEK CREATIVE PIECES – KEYWORD EVOLUTION.
“Hey hey, it’s time to play Evolution is what we say My my, we must try For ID is a silly lie” — Early in human history, a great divide occurred. Some – we mean writers – began writing hieroglyphs and posting stories on their websites. Others – we mean scientists – began making ruthless observations about the world. Inevitably, the writers and the scientists grew apart, and now we have the poet vs. the physicist; the blogger vs. the biologist. It is true that the divide between science and the arts runs deep, but we hope to do our…
WE SEEK CREATIVE PIECES – KEYWORD EVOLUTION.
“Hey hey, it’s time to play Evolution is what we say My my, we must try For ID is a silly lie” — Early in human history, a great divide occurred. Some – we mean writers – began writing hieroglyphs and posting stories on their websites. Others – we mean scientists – began making ruthless observations about the world. Inevitably, the writers and the scientists grew apart, and now we have the poet vs. the physicist; the blogger vs. the biologist. It is true that the divide between science and the arts runs deep, but we hope to do our…