The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' --Isaac Asimov
That's Funny… random header image

Day 1: On the Ice

January 14th, 2014 No Comments

Barrow, Alaska January 13, 2014 -24°C (-11°F), partly cloudy, light wind We made two trips to the ice today. The first trip was to a near site, just offshore, at about 10 am. At that hour it is still dark and we needed headlamps to work — the sun hasn’t risen here since November 18, […]

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Bacteria! the video game (beta)

January 5th, 2014 No Comments

Are you a microbiologist? Do you just play a lot of video games? I’m looking for suggestions for how to make the game more educational and fun. Let me know your ideas! Already implemented: Physics — environmental parameters allow setting the viscosity and diffusivity of the environment by changing the Temperature and Salinity Respiration — […]

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IPY2012 FrostByte on ‘hima’ and ‘ddmp’

March 2nd, 2012 No Comments

I’ve made a short video teaser for my upcoming talk at the IPY2012 conference in Montreal. Check it out! [It took me all day to find the right combination of tools to produce this simple video in Linux! First I tried making it as a presentation in OpenOffice Impress, exporting that as a swf video […]

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Hamilton ScienceCafé — life in the universe

October 27th, 2011 No Comments

I’m starting up a ScienceCafé in Hamilton, and it’s always hard to get other people to volunteer to go first, so I did it myself! There were about a dozen participants for the first session, which was held at the Mulberry Street Coffeehouse on James Street North. Future meetings will be there on the last […]

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How many bacteria are in the ocean? And how far is it between bacteria in the ocean?

August 25th, 2009 4 Comments

There are about 1,000,000 bacteria per milliliter (1/5 of a teaspoon) of water in the coastal ocean. (!!) A lot of these bacteria degrade dead plant and algae material and turn them into useful nutrients which can allow further growth of plants and algae and animals. Without bacteria in the oceans to regenerate these nutrients, […]

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