Gluten, Sourdough, Fads and Ailments
Gluten, that everyday protein found in many grains, has become the health-fad followers’ most recent evil spectre, and many (one in three, stats show) have jumped onto the anti-gluten bandwagon,…
science
Measuring ghosts
MEASURING GHOSTS A recent article in Science Translational Medicine asks the question “Can We Measure Autism ?” To my mind this begs the question, “is there really something called “autism”…
Measuring ghosts
MEASURING GHOSTS A recent article in Science Translational Medicine asks the question "Can We Measure Autism ?" To my mind this begs the question, "is there really something called "autism"…
Measuring ghosts
MEASURING GHOSTS A recent article in Science Translational Medicine asks the question "Can We Measure Autism ?" To my mind this begs the question, "is there really something called "autism"…
Measuring ghosts
MEASURING GHOSTS A recent article in Science Translational Medicine asks the question “Can We Measure Autism ?” To my mind this begs the question, “is there really something called “autism”…
I’m struggling with this…
My recent passion for bread and baking has caused a bit of an internal upset. Not the baking thereof, but rather the writing about it. I’m doing a lot of…
Bread, Madness and Christianity
The witch craze of Europe is a popular, albeit often misrepresented, part of our collective history. Everyone knows witches were hunted, tortured and often killed – burned at the stake,…
Full Esteem Ahead
This morning, as I was making my way through my email, I caught a short news item in Academica Top Ten about a school in Calgary discontinuing awards and competitions…
Woo and health charities
Charities and non-profits operate under tough conditions. There is never enough funding, staff, or expertise to achieve perfection and the demands from clients, donors, and funders often force the charity…
Anti-Intellectualism: The New Elitism
There’s a growing – and disturbing – trend in modern culture: anti-intellectual elitism. The dismissal of art, science, culture, philosophy, of rhetoric and debate, of literature and poetry, and their…
Survival of the Fittest
Charles Darwin has long been associated with the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” For a century and a half people have used it to refer to their understanding of his…
Infestations, Microbes & Parasites
Staphylococci, Corynebacteria, Actinobacteria, Clostridiales, and Bacilli. They’re the most common, but they’re not the only ones. Bacteria. Microbes. Yes, even parasites. Living in your belly button. And on your skin.…
Are we alone? More importantly, are we even awake?
The “man the life boats and head for the stars” answer to our present human dilemmas is simply delusional. We can and should explore space, but if we don’t get…
From 7 to 29. Should I be worried? Or just keep monitoring?
Seven cents per kilowatt hour. That’s what the energy monitor was showing me a moment before I plugged in the kettle. Then it jumped to 29 cents. Wow! And this…
We are Stardust… and Viral Genes
In her classic song, Woodstock, Joni Mitchell ended with the chorus: We are stardust Billion-year-old carbon We are golden Caught in the devil’s bargain And we’ve got to get ourselves…
We Have The Technology to Stop Air Pollution
Listen to a scientist say very clearly that we have the science and technology to create 100% renewable power in the United States within my lifetime (2050). We’re only held…
Why Creationists Don’t Win the Nobel Prize
Looking at the list of Nobel prizes awarded in 2013 for science, we see three prestigious entries: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 François Englert and Peter W. Higgs “For…
The Smallest Helper
While I was pondering the nature of flour in my cogitations about bread machines (I’m still debating which model, by the way – suggestions welcome, but local stores have few…
New book articulates Harper’s unrelenting war on Canadian science
“The War On Science: Muzzled Scientists and Willful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada”, a new book by Canadian author Chris Turner, presents “a passionate and meticulously researched argument” against the…