Cue the shears and hair razor! Things are going to get a bit hairy up in here! I’ve always been a bit fascinated by hair. By age 14, I was dyeing my hair. By age 15, I was cutting my own hair. And I haven’t stopped since. My hair and I have a sort of love/hate relationship. It’s naturally straight and curly, with a bit of wavy thrown in for the hell of it. In it’s natural s... »
Last week, I wrote about our involvement in a ballet recital and how I had the opportunity to actually make costumes for 3 of my daughters for the recital. The post discussed Zoë’s skunk costume and gave a bit of information about actual skunks themselves. As stated in the previous article, my twins were cast as frogs in the recital. Upon hearing that she got the frog part, Briar immediatel... »
This article, about why stretching before a workout is foolish, sparked a lot of reactions for me. I always stretch before I work out, and I have my students do the same. It made me re-evaluate why I do. And I think the conclusion I came to was that it really depends on the kind of exercise you do. The article itself seems like a great example of two things: “science” “proving... »
If you believe certain musical groups, everybody wants to live forever (while ruling the world?). Our fascination with immortality is such that it’s a hallmark of mythology. In our daily lives, we obsess over staying young and healthy (or at least many advertisers and marketeers think we do, or at least that we obsess over how to appear young and healthy). And as a species we’ve funnel... »
Sometimes as parents we say things to our children that unintentionally lead us down paths we had no idea we’d be taking. I had this happen recently with my girls. They had caught a butterfly while they were outside. They brought it in and asked if they could keep it. I told them that keeping a butterfly as a pet isn’t a very nice thing to do to a butterfly since they only live 2-4 weeks. That’s w... »
If you could get all of the nourishment your body needed by consuming a carefully proportioned mix of vitamins and minerals, would you do it? And would you give up regular food? That is what 24-year software engineer Rob Rhinehart is trying to do with Soylent (yes, Soylent), a concoction of essential vitamins and minerals that he has been imbibing in place of meals for the past two months. His exp... »
I’m doing a bunch of staining experiments at work right now. That means that, hopefully, in the next couple weeks I’ll get a bunch of pretty pictures to analyse. It also means that I had the good fortune to spend much of yesterday at the cryostat (basically a meat slicer designed to make incredibly thin, frozen, sections – or slices). Sectioning is a zen experience for me, much a... »
We recently had a fun science experiment at our school here (have I mentioned that we homeschool?). We used bubbles to measure our lung capacity; depending on how big the outline of the bubble was when it popped, tells you how much air your lungs can take in. We didn’t have any bubble solution around the house, so I searched the internet for a recipe. I found a really simple bubble solution ... »
