Today I spent nearly all day at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium (the #1 zoo in America, lest you forget it for one single second) with cruisedirector and her family. Between the holiday and the rainy weather, we had the place just about to ourselves, it was pretty awesome. And it really barely rained on us at all. Many of the animals were active or at least ( Read more... )

Anybody else watching "Top Shot" on the History Channel? It's a competition for marksmen(and women). It's kind of awesome.

Breaking News: Obama directs the DOJ to stop defending DOMA. It's about damn time ( Read more... )

Somebody over on Facebook asked me a question about Splenda today, and it got me thinking, saaaaaay. This might be a good topic for those Posts of Science Goodness that you guys seem to enjoy ( Read more... )

Last night I watched the Percy Jackson Lightning Thief movie. It was okay. I enjoyed it. But I kept feeling confuzzled because I'd had the impression that Percy Jackson was, like, twelve. I checked the Wik and yes, he's supposed to be 12 in the first book. Huh. Imagine if Chris Columbus had tried to age up the Harry Potter characters. The ( Read more... )

It has been determined at my house that the cake I posted about yesterday may possibly be able to raise the dead. That is all.

Today when I arrived at work, it was 10 degrees out. In honor of the frigidity, here are some fun and interesting Science Facts about temperature!

1. Absolute zero is a theoretical temperature barrier that can never be ( Read more... )

I am at work. I have told my boss that I will put forth a valiant effort, but am not likely to make it the full day. Cold has moved from my head to my chest, producing that super sexy Eartha Kitt voice we all love to get. It's not too bad. But I am tired and achey. I will be better tomorrow. My colds are always very predictable and resolve ( Read more... )

Went down for lunch a bit ago. Nothing on offer was really appealing, so I decided to get a wrapped sandwich from the cooler. I picked up what I thought was this blackened chicken breast sandwich they had earlier in the week, but when I got back to my office, I discovered that it was the portobello with balsamic and tomatoes and basil sandwich, ( Read more... )

So now that I've finished "Packing for Mars," which had been my lunchtime-and-coffee-break reading, I'm on to "Bad Astronomy," by the venerable Phil Plait, a hero of the skeptic/humanist movement. So you can expect frequent Science Factoids and Misconceptions from the day's perusal of the book.

Today's question: Can you balance an egg on its end ( Read more... )

So I just finished "Packing for Mars," the latest tome of interesting factoids by Mary Roach, who wrote "Stiff" and "Spook." As usual it was fascinating. This latest book was about, as you can guess, space travel...the more accessible vagaries of it. Like the people NASA pays to lie in bed for months at a time and not move so they can study bone ( Read more... )

I'm about to go all science geeky on yo ass. Be warned ( Read more... )