Category: Science

Hey that is what my first degree in in…

Posted on

Does Ice Cream Cause Breast Cancer?

Is Your Favorite Ice Cream Made With Monsanto’s Artificial Hormones? – Huffington Post Article

Why my title?  It is a quick synopsis of the article by John Robbins in Huffington Posts. Basically rBGH, artificial growth hormone that is so prevalent in our milk supply was developed, pushed through FDA approval, and promoted by Monsanto Chemicals. One of the effects in cows of rBGH is increased IGF-1 in their milk. Monsanto’s own research showed Continue reading “Does Ice Cream Cause Breast Cancer?”

Posted on

How different are dog fighting and football

A recent article in The New Yorker, Offensive Play How different are dog fighting and football? By Malcolm Gladwell, explores the effect of extreme contact sports like football and boxing on the human brain.

For an American male, I’m a bit of an anomaly.  I do not really follow sports, except professional golf mildly.  There are several reasons for this.
 
One would be that for me personally sports are more for the doing rather than the watching.  I engage in several at a fairly incompetent level, but I enjoy them nevertheless.
 
Secondly, a while back, I just got bored with them.  Continue reading “How different are dog fighting and football”

Posted on

Let your kids play

Article in the Feb/March 2009 edition of Scientific American Mind reports that there is a correlation between lack of unstructured play time for kids and crime, “By age 23, more than one third of kids who had gone to play-free preschools had been arrested for a felony as compared with fewer than one tenth of play-oriented preschool alums.” Continue reading “Let your kids play”

Posted on

Memes, is there a self?

memeI just finished reading a book by Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine. 

Meme may be an unfamiliar term to you so I will attempt to explain to the best of my limited ability.  All of us are familiar with DNA and genes; these can also be termed replicators.  It is how the blueprint of a species is passed down the generations.  Modifications/mutations of DNA are the backbone of evolution.

Memes were not first proposed by Ms. Blackmore, but she explores the concept deeply.  It is her contention that what separates Homo sapiens from other species is our ability to imitate.  Continue reading “Memes, is there a self?”

Posted on

You don’t still use a screen saver, do you?

By Don Willmott , Forecast Earth Correspondent

I’m happy that at this stage in my career I often find myself writing articles about energy-efficient ways to use computers, peripherals, gadgets, and consumer electronics. It makes me feel so, you know, virtuous.

Whenever I crank out a list of helpful hints, one of the first items I include is this obvious but often overlooked gem of advice: Kill your stupid screen saver. In the good old days of tube monitors, screen savers such as those unforgettable flying toasters were invented to prevent burn-in, a permanent shadow branded into the phosphors of your monitor by a static image of, say, a spreadsheet that you left on your screen all weekend. Continue reading “You don’t still use a screen saver, do you?”

Posted on

Link to interesting article on Global Warming

You’ll need Adobe Reader for this, a free download

Here is the link to the article:  Article no longer on web site

Below is an excerpt from that article:

Usufruct is as American as the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Preamble “to ourselves and our Posterity”. It is explicitly discussed in a famous letter of 6 September

Continue reading “Link to interesting article on Global Warming”