Apparently I am the last person on earth to have become acquainted with the … Airplane on the … Treadmill problem, which is often stated thus: "Imagine a plane is sitting on a massive conveyor belt, as wide and as long as a runway. The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of […]

Clearly, the publishers think there is. “[John] Conyers, a liberal Democrat whom one might expect to be on the other side of this issue, is taking harsh aim at a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy requiring NIH-funded scientists to archive their published papers in a publicly accessible database within a year of publication.” […]

It looks like we’ve hit bottom for the year, and it’s not exactly good news. Although we didn’t break the record set in 2007 for Lowest Minimum Arctic Sea Ice Extent In Recorded Human History, we got close. This year’s minimum, about 4.5 million square kilometers, is much nearer to last year’s low than the […]

I haven’t been placed in the situation yet, or rather I haven’t placed myself in the situation yet, but as I continue to read articles about the conflict between science and religion on the teaching of evolution, some patterns seem to emerge. I’d like to find solutions to these pitfalls for the day that I […]

I received a question today about monosodium glutamate (MSG), in particular the concentration of MSG in yeast and yeast extracts, which are often used as flavorings (Nutritional Yeast) and spreads (e.g. Vegemite and Marmite). As usual, I headed to the web to find the answer, and as usual in these kinds of matters, what I […]