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Ignoring the whole philosophical issue of what is truth, is there anyway to force someone to tell the truth about something? This is a pretty common plot device in a wide range of genres. From veritaserum in Harry Potter, to creatures crawling in your brain in Star Trek, to injected drugs in spy movies, it … Continue reading
I have noticed this funny trend with my wrist, which I had my third surgery on after breaking it and tearing it before summer last year. The pain almost always starts to increase as I get close to the end of an activity. If you don’t think too much about this it makes perfect sense. … Continue reading
I don’t like daylight savings time. Actually, to be more accurate, I prefer daylight savings time (DST) but don’t like switching on and off of it. So with the time change this past weekend I decided to look into the benefits, or lack thereof. Switching from DST to standard time is associated with an 11% … Continue reading
I saw today that one of Edmonton’s city councillors wants to look at replacing some of the city’s sports fields with artificial turf. The part of me that enjoys being in nature and wants all people to have more opportunities to connect with nature is struggling. I feel like there are many different factors in … Continue reading
I don’t really like running with other people very much. I am improving but I think my preference for being on my own stems from two things. First, I have difficulty running at my pace when I run with others because I want to make sure they are getting the workout they need (not too … Continue reading
Most of us are becoming accustomed to seeing both emoticons and emoji’s in our online and text messages. Emoji’s are picture characters, emoticons are faces that show a specific emotion created with just text-based symbols :). But I started thinking about why I use them; which made me wonder if they have any impact on … Continue reading
Recently I was learning about attribution theory, and how it relates to sports. Attribution theory relates to how and why people explain events in the way they do. This becomes self-serving attribution theory when we look at people’s success and failure. You are responsible for your own success – for example, athletes (particularly male athletes) … Continue reading
My dragon boat team had an awesome festival this weekend. Our placement was good, but more than that we performed some amazing starts and showed really good focus through most of the races. But I got to thinking about focus and what improves or reduces our ability to focus on the specific task we are … Continue reading
Watching the Olympics it is interesting to see the pre- and post-performance rituals that many athletes perform and think about all the ones we don’t know of. Canadian diver Jennifer Abel talked about her ritual with her chamois before she dives, and the fact that she keeps the same chamois for an entire Olympic cycle. Other athletes … Continue reading
So, I have heard that swearing increases pain tolerance. The MythBusters even did an episode on this. It’s an interesting effect. Basically, the original study tested how long people could keep their hand in ice water while reciting non-swear words vs swear words. Swearing increased pain tolerance, decreased pain perception, and increased heart rate. Another study … Continue reading
Connecting with Science 