Hello again Science fans!

Let’s start out with something fun, and not truly science-related. It may make you laugh, may make you mad, may make you shrug your shoulders and go “so what?” It is the lowly penny.

Hello again science fans.
Bonjour à tous les fans de science.
(Over 45,000 Bay Area residents speak French at home.)

CLIMATE

Above is the world’s second all-electric cargo ship. It’s 120m long, 24m wide, and has the battery capacity of a thousand Model Y Teslas (50,000,000 Wh). Like the other and smaller electric cargo ship - the Yara Birkeland - it is plying inland rivers instead of the open oceans. Ocean shipping ac

Hello again science fans,
Здравствуйте еще раз, любители науки!
(Over 50,000 Bay Area residents speak Russian at home.)

ENVIRONMENT

“You can’t always get what you want,” and you can’t always see what you want. That is thought to be why Brown Pelicans are starving in California. These prehistoric-looking birds hunt for fish near the water’s surface, then plummet ou

Dave Almandsmith
August 19, 2024

Hello again science fans,
سلام بازهم علاقمندان علم
(Over 50,000 Bay Area residents speak Persian at home. Only about 60% of Bay Area residents speak English at home.)

ARCHAEOLOGY

BOB SIEDERER
12 August 2024

Hello again Science fans!

These past few years have put us all through a bit of a wringer. Prior to the pandemic, 11% of Americans reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to the Household Pulse Survey, a tool of the Census Bureau. Then came COVID, and that number increased to 42.6%. Today, it is down to 20.7%, but that is still almost double pre-pandemic numbers. The political climate certainly contributes to this, I’m sure. But the biggest component seems to be young adults. According to “The Morning” newsletter from the New York Times on August 8, the percentage of young adults reporting symptoms had been rising for around a decade before COVID. Uncertainty about their future, inflatio

Hello again science fans,
안녕하세요 과학 팬 여러분, (Over 60,000 Bay Area residents speak Korean at home.)

BIOLOGY

Above is an artist’s representation of a flagellar motor that spins a bacterium’s flagella. The spinning flagella propel the bacterium through water. The colorful squiggly things represent proteins. The big wheel isn’t big. It would take 10 million of them side by side to span a single centimeter (0.4 inch). A typical rate of spin is 30,000 rpm, or 500 times a second. When you get the chance, come back here to watch this über-fascinating 23-minute vid

BOB SIEDERER
29 July 2024

HERB MASTERS
July 22 2024

Greetings fans of Science and Reason,

It is hard to accept that humans first walked on the moon 55 years ago today and that humans last walked on the moon about 50 years ago! Yet still, like the flat earthers there are a bunch of folks that think 

HERB MASTERS
July 19 2024

Greetings Science Based Deciders (usually),

I want to point you to SkeptiCal 2024. It starts tomorrow, Friday 7.19 with the world’s first Global Skeptics in the Pub and continues on Saturday and Sunda

A Blast from the Past

KISHORE HARI
Jul 15 2024

Herb had some technical challenges this week, so I’ll be your guest editor. It’s only been seven years since my last turn at the wheel - let’s see how this goes!

It’s been over 20 years since the Human Genome Project was “completed” - a monumental scientific achievement marking the successful sequencing of the entire human genetic code. This groundbreaking milestone ushered in a new era of genomic discovery that continues to revolutionize healthcare and scientific research to this day. One story caught my eye about the history and legacy of that work. In an incredible invest