Day 854: Training Your Barometer To Be A Really Long Ruler

originally published May 3, 2014 One day a young student at the University of Copenhagen was asked if he knew how to measure the height of a building using only a barometer. The correct answer involves measuring the atmospheric pressure on the building’s roof and again on the street below, then calculating the height through […]

Day 827: Riding The Double Helix To Sweet Freedom

originally published April 6, 2014 It’s almost a little frightening how far we have progressed over the past 30 years. And I’m not just talking about the rampant availability of online pornography or that I can watch any episode of Quantum Leap at a moment’s notice (should the need arise); the mid-80’s world of forensic […]

Day 796: Science-Sanctioned Baby Torture

originally published March 6, 2014 I have always been an enthused spectator to science, particularly when it aims to show off just how messed up we humans can be. I wrote about the Milgram Experiment, in which doctors talked their subjects into inflicting painful electrical jolts through innocent people, and I’ve also touched on some […]

Day 786: The Pun Disease – When You Think A Seizure Is A Roman Emperor

originally published February 24, 2014 Did you hear the one about the kleptomaniac? His doctor told him to take something for it. How about the painter who was hospitalized for too many strokes? Or what about the lady with amnesia who had to re-learn how to walk up the stairs, step by step? These and […]

Day 774: Beware The Madness Of Jerusalem & Paris

originally published February 12, 2014 A few days ago, I attempted to bake a word-brew that would adequately (or at least semi-adequately) justify the singular importance of the Beatles’ inaugural appearance in American culture on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. We all know what followed that show – the British phenomenon known as Beatlemania spent the next few years pummeling […]

Day 766: My Anti-Kilo Kilograph

originally published February 4, 2014 As a young child, awash in homework that involved converting decameters to hectometers and other such metric mathery, I asked my father why the Americans (from whence he came) continue to make use of inches, feet, ounces, pounds, gallons, quarts and Fahrenheit when the system we use, where everything is neatly divisible by 100, […]

Day 745: Mind Over Brain Matter

originally published January 14, 2014 It is more than a little discomforting to imagine the center of one’s universe of perception, that grey squishy head-gloop that defines for us our life, our world and our being, getting plopped onto a table and poked by scientists in search of some glimmer of truth within the think-meat. […]

Day 718: Ball-Busting Horror Stories From The Sperm Bank Vaults

originally published December 18, 2013 As one who has followed the somewhat boring and traditional path in raising a family, I admire those who carve their own onramp to the domestic highway, so long as they do so with the passion and commitment of quality parentage. Single mom? Single dad? Two moms? Two dads? Seven […]

Day 710: Wolfgang Pauli – Physicist, Genius, Breaker Of Stuff

originally published December 10, 2013 Do you sometimes feel as though you’re haunted by bad mojo? Do you sense a crinkly shadow slurping up your footsteps, stalking you with hand-wringing deviousness and an insidious yen to muck up your days with the swift slap of a paranormal brute? Well, I have good news for you. […]

Day 696: Here Is Ceres

originally published November 26, 2013 If you haven’t read the article or seen the t-shirt, you’re probably nevertheless aware that our ninth planet, Pluto, was demoted in 2006 to the meager status of dwarf planet, a lower classification that for whatever reason enraged pockets of the populace. I suspect a chunk of that outrage had […]