Category: Ionian Enchantment

Cybernetic Interface Credit: _MaO_ The American Heritage Dictionary defines a cyborg as, “A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.” Under this definition, people who wear glasses, hearing aides, and even drive cars are cyborgs. With physiological defined as “consistent with the normal functioning of an organism,” we…

As a child, I was a master at chasing the ice cream man. I remember one time when that big white truck got a good four-block lead on me before I leapt outside in a pavlovian response to its musical tunes (I still salivate when I hear them). That time, the ice cream man let…

(Reposted in honor of Martian Chess (HT BMF)) Continuing the Chess train of thought from earlier this week. I was reminded of one of my favorite legends surrounding Chess. Before the game had a King and Queen, in Persia, where the Chess was invented, it had a Shah and Vizier. The Shah is a Persian…

In Olaf Stapledon’s 1935 science fiction novel “Odd John,” an evolutionary leap of a human child wonders why we built our number system on units of ten. After all, the number twelve has six factors, meaning it is divisible by six numbers, {1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12}, while ten only has four factors, {1,…

One of the things I loooooooooove about science writing is all the free stuff. Scientists aren’t like those crummy jerks at the Associated Press, scientists want you to talk about what they’re doing. They want us bloggers to quote them, link to them, post their photos. Scientists give away tons and tons of intellectual property…

The Journal Nature has published an article calling for a Hippocratic Oath for life scientists. Medical doctors have a Hippocratic Oath, which guides their ethics and prohibits them from doing harm, and so do Veterinarians. I am 100% for this, and it appears many others are all ready well ahead on the idea. GrrlScientist has…

Like Thomas Jefferson, I eat a plant-based diet, with occasional meat in small portions. Like most Americans, I have no idea where the food I consume comes from, or how far it had to travel before reaching my dinner plate. My pickup truck, which gets about 20 MPG. Occasionally On rare occasions, I ride my…

Arthur C. Clark’s book 2010 has an early scene that was left out of the movie. A Japanese spacecraft has raced to Jupiter’s moon Europa, ahead of a joint American-Russian expedition, to claim the satellite, and all its water, for Japan. Soon after the craft lands, Earth receives a radio transmission from a lone, doomed…

53 years ago this Sunday, Dr. Vannevar Bush composed this incredible bit of futurism, where he describes an Information Technology tool called the “Memex,” a device that can instantaneously serve up any article or book in its user’s possession and navigate to any spot within the text. He describes scientists working in the field, their…

“We’ll never know the worth of water until the well goes dry.” – Scottish proverb. In November 2007 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue prayed for rain to alleviate the state’s worst drought in history. Before this last-ditch effort, he had sued the Army Corps of Engineers to cut off Florida’s water supply. Georgia legislator even made…