In light of today being the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I went searching for research done by a women to profile today. I decided to start close to home and look through the biology department at the University of Alberta (U of A) where I did my undergrad and did not … Continue reading
Have you ever looked at the tracks of a snowshoe hare and wondered which way it was travelling? My experience is that most people think that the hare that left the tracks in the photo was travelling south. The two prints that are next to each other at the top of the photo are the … Continue reading
I’m suffering a bit from yet another attempt to resolve the ongoing pain in the wrist I injured almost 5 years ago. See some previous posts for some of the details. So this will be a relatively short post. I admit that I took this photo several years ago at the Montreal Botanic Gardens. At … Continue reading
Someone asked me the difference between horns and antlers so I thought I’d make it a mini post. Horns, like those of the big horn sheep, have a bony core that grows from the skull and an outer layer of keratin which is the substance that makes your hair and nails. Horns are permanent and … Continue reading
It’s a commonly seen phenomena, dust particles sparkling in a narrow beam of light, but why does this happen? Mostly, this is a result of our ability to perceive contrasts and the ability of the dust particles to reflect light. Let’s start with the latter point. Light is reflected or absorbed by surfaces. We experience … Continue reading
I went to Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes at Telus World of Science Edmonton yesterday so I had to take a photo of the Hulk. The reason I had to take a photo is that when I teach the electromagnetic spectrum in an intro physics course I always talk about the Hulk when it comes … Continue reading
The first question people ask me when they find out that my one wrist is basically a disaster at the end of an arm is “are you right or left handed?” I find this question kind of frustrating because there are very few parts of my life which only require one hand. Sure, I can … Continue reading
Humans have the ability to bundle up when the weather gets cold, but how do different animals get through the cold and snow? There are many different strategies for winter survival, and most animals will do more than one. Here are three different animals and their strategies for dealing with winter. Snowy owls migrate in … Continue reading
When I was diagnosed with asthma as a kid, I remember someone saying that it wouldn’t go away unless I stopped skating because of the air quality in rinks. I was wondering what the research on this is. Rundell (2004) found that the pulmonary function, basically how well a person breaths, of a group of … Continue reading
There’s a lot of research about the benefits of being able to see trees outside of your window while you work (e.g., Kaplan, 1993) or while you recover from surgery (e.g., Ulrich, 1984) but what about having a small plant on your desk? Toyoda, Yokota, Barnes, and Kaneko (2019) conduced a research study in an … Continue reading
