Posted Archive
Merry Christmas, indeed! By Johnathan J. Dalzell – Christmas and mistletoe: Have you ever simply asked yourself … why? I have studied plant parasites like mistletoe for almost 10 years, and I’m here to tell you that the answer is absolutely fascinating. In …
Physicist plans to karate-chop them with super-fast blasts of light. By Robby Berman – (Oleksiy Mark/Borys Magierowski/Shutterstock/Big Think) Gérard Mourou has already won a Nobel for his work with fast laser pulses. If he gets pulses 10,000 times faster, he says he can …
Even if you avoid industrial farm produce it’s likely that your veggies will have been grown with the help of manure and other animal products. Jessica Glenza in New York @JessicaGlenza – A tractor spreads muck over field of stubble. ‘Most organic agriculture …
Crisco’s main ingredient, cottonseed oil, had a bad rap. So marketers decided to focus on the ‘purity’ of factory food processing. It’s all about having faith in the purity of the process. (Melissamn/Shutterstock.com) By Helen Zoe Veit, The Conversation via Smithsonianmag.Com – …
These holiday mainstays are potent fire hazards. By Alexandra Pattillo – A single spark from a broken string of lights or a jumping flame from a fireplace can transform Christmas trees from magical decorations into raging infernos. The holidays are a notoriously bad …
By Bridget Borgobello – Canadian entrepreneurs Mike Medicoff and Damien Vince have created a toothpaste that comes in the form of a tablet. Change Toothpaste. – In order to combat the hundreds of millions of empty toothpaste tubes that are destined for landfills …
If a tiny bug’s brain can do math, so can you. By Nina Pullano – With their intricate honeycombs and careful selection of flowers to pollinate, it’s no surprise that honeybees are smart little guys — despite their tiny brains. But bees …
The ambitious project was quickly thwarted by a cold lunar night. By Sarah Wells – January 2019 was an eventful month for Chinese space exploration, to say the least. On January 3, the China National Space Administration not only became the first to …
Our brains have evolved to love this thing. By Sarah Sloat – There is a new king and his name is Baby Yoda. For the uninitiated, Baby Yoda is an unnamed 50-year-old toddler who enjoys eating frogs and playing with the Force on …
Food trends are far more political — and economically motivated — than it seems. By Martin Cohen and Frédéric Leroy – If you were to believe newspapers and dietary advice leaflets, you’d probably think that doctors and nutritionists are the people guiding us …
