Colorful, cosmeticeutically-inclined man
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Archive for February, 2010
Beards & Bagels & Paper Airplanes
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The special Beards & Bagels & Paper Airplanes issue (vol. 16, no. 1) of the magazine (the Annals of Improbable Research) is now online. The pleasing-paper version was mailed to subscribers a while ago. Click on the magazine cover (below) to download a free PDF, or buy a high-quality PDF. Or subscribe to the paper version. Mel (right) says it’s swell.
Seriously funny teaching standards
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Science education standards aren’t supposed to be funny, but when Melanie Cooper showed the South Carolina chemistry standards to an audience of scientists and educators at the 2010 AAAS Conference in San Diego, she got a laugh that would be the envy of any stand-up comic….
What’snot: A quick paleontology exam
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The good news is that the Waco Mammoth Site in Texas has received National Monument status.
The bad news is that the monument may be opening too late for paleontology education in those parts.
Check the picture illustrating the article above. Then check its caption: “Not a Mammoth: Mastodon in Red River Museum. TE Photo.” Then check the photo again and write a 250-word essay on the subject of paleontology, taxonomy and photo captioning.
Mobile Phones Stimulate Saliva, Then Don’t
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Further evidence that cell phones perhaps cause effects of some sort, that “should be revealed to the worldwide population”:
“The influence of handheld mobile phones on human parotid gland secretion,” O. Goldwein, and D.J. Aframian, Oral Diseases, vol. 16, no. 2, March 2010, pp. 146-50. The authors, at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel, report:
Stimulated parotid saliva was collected simultaneously from both glands in 50 healthy volunteers whose MPH [Handheld Mobile Phone] use was on a dominant side of the head.
Results: A significantly higher saliva secretion rate was noticed in the dominant MPH side compared with that in the non-dominant side….
Interestingly, when the number of years of MPH use increased, the ratio of saliva secretion between the dominant and non-dominant sides decreased This phenomenon should be revealed to the worldwide population.
