Sometime Cavemen From the bestselling novel Clan of the Cave Bear to the 1981 movie Caveman, pop-culture tends to misrepresent prehistoric people as cave dwelling brutes. But even the most speculative recreations of early human society are based on a...
Why refrigerators hum? Why refrigerators hum,on toay's moment of science.On the recent program we have discussed how fluorocarboncoolant cools your food by coming to a boil in coils hidden in your fridge. How is this possible? When you boil water o...
The Rolling Boil That Cools Your Food When you think of something boiling, you probably picture a pot on the stove, but theres another kitchen appliance that brings liquid to a boil, not to heat food, but cool it. It sounds crazy, but household refri...
The Blurry World Underwater When you open your eyes underwater, things look blurry, but with goggles, everything looks perfectly clear. Why cant we landlubbers focus underwater without goggles? First, we need to explore how our eyes focus when were h...
Why The Sky Is Not Blue Look at various parts of the sky on a clear day and you will see that it is not a uniform blue. Even if the sky is deep blue when you look straight up, near the horizon it is lighter. This is partly due to pollution, but even...
Night Vision And Humans: Why Cant We See Color? When we are in a fairly dark room, or outside at night away from lights, we can still see, but we cant see the colors of things very well. Why is that? There are two kinds of light-sensitive organs loca...
Why Do Golf Balls Have Dimples? Youre out on the golf course one pleasant afternoon. Your ball is set on the tee. You lean over the ball. You grip the club just right. Your arms are straight. Your stance perfect. Whoosh! You swing, and the ball takes...
Do Magic Mushrooms Make People Nicer? Ive heard that psilocybin, which is the hallucinogenic ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can alter peoples personalities and make them nicer. Is that true? Well, first, before answering the question, we need t...
Is My Brain Static Or Constantly Changing? Scientists used to think that for all its complexity, the brain was pretty static. Once the brain matured, it essentially stopped growing and changing. And when neurons, or brain cells, were lost or damaged,...
Glow In The Dark Cats, Monkeys, And HIV Have you heard the one about the jellyfish, the monkey, and the glow in the dark cat? Actually, its no joke: scientists are experimenting with ways to combat HIV and AIDS by injecting cats with genes taken from...