137 search results for: Oliver Kuhn
Science Break: Concrete
…People love coining terms to categorize periods of human culture into distinct Ages. I suppose it’s an exercise in how future societies will view us. The industrial age, the computer age, the hydrocarbon age, the information age…even geologists have got into the game, with the term Anthropocene. I wonder if…
Science Break: The Human Ear
…Compared to our other sensory organs, the human ear has always struck me as odd. We are delivered touch, smell, sight, and taste in such a seamless, integrated way that it’s almost magical. In comparison, the ear seems to be a home handyman job! I can relate to that, and…
Science Break: Calendars
…Calendars A friend of mine recently put forward the theory that differences in the historical levels of technical sophistication between human cultures are largely a matter of latitude. His thinking is that the further an ancient society lived from the equator, the more affected they were by the changing seasons.…
Science Break: Hominin Update (Part 1)
…The last few years have seen several significant finds related to human prehistory. There was the 2003 discovery of Homo floresiensis, aka “the hobbit”, a distinct (and extinct) species in the same genus as us, Homo. In 2017, more accurate dating pushed back the date of human arrival to Australia…
Science Break: Metal Leaching
…The term metal (or metallurgical) leaching refers to the processes involved in separating useful metals from non-valuable ore constituents. The science behind these processes, while not a very glamourous topic, is important: beyond the obvious practical necessity of extracting the metals, leaching methods historically have left behind toxic waste products,…
Science Break: CRISPR Genome Editing
…TCRISPR is a simple acronym to remember, but it refers to a very complex technology that promises to revolutionize gene editing and splicing. The letters stand for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. The palindromic repeats are short repeated DNA sequences found in some bacteria that geneticists have been aware…
Science Break: Reader Follow Ups & Blood Types
…Sometimes reader feedback leads to interesting dialogs. Two recent exchanges on DSLR cameras and ocean currents are worth sharing. First though, I want to apologise to all Cheeseheads. In Figure 1a from the Great Lake(s) article, I forgot to label the Green Bay lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet –…
Science Break: The Human Microbiota
…Growing up, I viewed the human body as a castle, with defenses to keep all the nasty bacteria and viruses out. White blood cells were the soldiers, sent off to do battle at breaches in the walls. In fairy tales everything good is inside the castle walls, everything bad outside;…
Science Break: DSLR Cameras
…The amount of sophisticated technology packed into a modern digital single lens reflex camera is simply astounding. In this article we’ll look at three of a DSLR camera’s most scientifically interesting components: the SLR mechanism itself, the camera lens motor, and the image sensor. Single Lens Reflex A single lens…
Science Break: And Now for Something Completely Different... Math and Science Jokes
…There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary numbers and those that don’t. There are two types of people in this world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data There are 3 kinds of people in the world: 50% understand percentages, and 50% don’t. When…
Science Break: Fear of Music
…To mark the 30th anniversary of the RECORDER magazine, a nostalgic article. Back in the 70’s and 80’s theme albums were all the rage... Thick as a Brick, Dark Side of the Moon, Diamond Dogs, to name a few. Music, lyrics and art work combined into a united theme or…
Science Break: The U-Curve
…This curve (Figure 1) describes the level of general happiness over an average person’s life. Studies are consistently showing the same result – human happiness starts high in youth, reaches a low point in mid-life, and then rises until death. Our late life happiness levels actually exceed those of youth.…
Science Break: Coral
…Coral colonies create reefs stretching for hundreds of kilometres, and corals are preserved in the Earth’s rocks since the Cambrian; as geoscientists we all know that. But what do we know of the humble coral polyp? The basic facts on this amazing little creature follow. If you read no further,…
Science Break: Practical Applications of Science
…Perusing my recent articles, I realized I’ve been touching on some rather somber topics lately, such as mental illness, psychopathy, prion disease, Nazi death camps, etc. So this month I decided to lighten things up and cover some cheerful examples of how science can be applied in day-to-day ways. Astute…
Science Break: Sociopathy
…If life was a sport, sociopaths / psychopaths would be the players repeatedly cheating. In real life they flagrantly flout fundamental human social rules, such as ‘Do unto others as you would do unto yourself,’ and ‘Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’ If a sociopath had written these rules…
Science Break: Aerial Archaeology
…GIS technology, especially Google Maps and Google Earth, has given anyone the ability to view even the remotest parts of the globe. When my grandparents were young, in the late 1800’s, there were huge areas of the Earth that were simply blank spaces on western maps. The source of the…
Science Break: Prions
…Even before I saw the scratchy old movie clips of Papua New Guineans afflicted with kuru shaking spasmodically in the days leading up to their inevitable deaths, I found prions frightening. There is something otherworldly about prions, akin to a horrific sci-fi plague or biblical scourge, and they seem to…
Science Break: Morality
…A sense of morality is a universal human trait. Every single human who has taken a breath, no matter where on this planet, or when in time, has had a strong understanding of what is right or wrong. People may not be able to articulate those beliefs, and in fact…
Science Break: In the Glue
…This month I’m going to look at glues, or adhesives as they are also known. Everybody understands these terms – they refer to substances, liquid or viscous, used to bind two objects or materials together. Writing this article underscored for me how very interested I am in ancient history, the…
Science Break: The Math of Mosaics
…It is a common misconception that the artistic depiction of people is forbidden by Islam. Scholars debate this – various hadiths contain such prohibitions, but many of them are specific to this or that sect within Islam. But regardless, within the Islamic world the depiction of people in art, especially…
