tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63692166278095191162011-12-23T09:06:28.060-08:00My thoughts on matters relating to science and technology.Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-35462013048983148482011-08-20T14:14:00.003-07:002011-08-20T14:14:39.983-07:002011-08-20T14:14:39.983-07:00

In the abortion debate there are two main positions: Pro Life or Pro Choice. I've already written at length about the misnomer of the former and the fact that it is really just a euphemism for Anti-Choice, since pretty much everyone is in favor of life, so this post is not about that. It's about the debate between the two opposing viewpoints concerning whether or not a woman should be legally

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-62537668850090553802010-04-17T07:23:00.001-07:002010-04-17T07:23:09.107-07:002010-04-17T07:23:09.107-07:00

When Ben Franklin went out in a thunderstorm and flew his kite, he knew he wanted to capture the power of lightning, but he didn’t know what lightning was made of. He had no idea about ions or electrons. He wanted to prove that lightning was a form of electricity. But he didn’t know what electricity was. But he was the first to recognize that it consisted of positive and negative charges. A

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-73088891026189422010-02-06T09:19:00.000-08:002010-02-06T09:19:18.849-08:002010-02-06T09:19:18.849-08:00

In today's world, electronics rule. Almost everything is controlled by electronics, from your cell phone to the car you ride to school in. In the old days, cars relied on mechanical connections to operate. High-voltage electric current was sent to the spark plugs using a mechanical switching device called the points. They tended to wear out and had to be replaced regularly. The gas and brake

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-46888096060462224152010-01-10T18:38:00.000-08:002010-01-10T18:38:31.006-08:002010-01-10T18:38:31.006-08:00

There is something that everything we can touch and feel has in common: Everything is made of atoms. Atoms are composed of three particles: Protons, neutrons, and electrons. And they are very tiny; a million of them could be placed side by side across the width of a human hair. There are millions of different substances, or types of matter. But, in nature, there are only 92 varieties of atoms.

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-2725471994262191392009-12-12T10:07:00.001-08:002009-12-12T10:07:46.285-08:002009-12-12T10:07:46.285-08:00

Are we doomed in a mere three years? On December 21, 2012, the earth and all its inhabitants will cease to exist. Well, that’s if you believe the hype surrounding one interpretation of an ancient calendar constructed by the Mayan civilization. That calendar follows a very precise cyclical pattern. And the cycles end on the first day of winter in the year 2012. That’s December 21. The Mayans had

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-46607952178778462442009-10-03T17:07:00.000-07:002009-10-03T17:10:02.620-07:002009-10-03T17:10:02.620-07:00

Most people have heard of the five-second rule. It says if you drop a piece of food, such as a potato chip or an apple on the floor, and if you pick it up right away, within five seconds, it is still clean enough to eat.Our science class at George Washington Community School decided to test this rule. No, we didn’t use each other to test the rule by eating dropped food to see who would get sick.

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-80084056447514242992009-08-23T06:10:00.000-07:002009-08-23T06:11:33.000-07:002009-08-23T06:11:33.000-07:00

Before scientists can find answers to their questions about nature, they first must actually pose the question in a manner that can be answered. They must do research to see if anyone else has already answered that question to their satisfaction. Then they must form a hypothesis, an educated guess, to try to answer the question.Next, they must design an experiment so that they can test their

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-61233707222900037272009-08-22T08:18:00.001-07:002009-08-22T08:18:56.390-07:002009-08-22T08:18:56.390-07:00

The sun, like other stars, is a giant ball of extremely hot, roiling, electrically-charged gas called plasma. It is composed almost entirely of the elements hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen is the main source of fuel for the sun. Helium is what is left over after the hydrogen “burns.” But the sun does not burn by normal chemical means, such as what happens in a fireplace or campfire. The type of

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-55913433318758857632009-07-25T09:21:00.001-07:002009-07-25T09:21:29.309-07:002009-07-25T09:21:29.309-07:00

Sometimes scientists get things wrong. That should come as no surprise to anyone. Science is a process of discovery, analogous to the exploration of new lands by fifteenth-century sailors. Christopher Columbus originally thought he had discovered the East Indies when he landed in the New World.So when science gets it wrong, that sometimes means the process has to start over or change directions.

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-89098230519435875732009-07-12T07:04:00.000-07:002009-07-12T07:07:08.674-07:002009-07-12T07:07:08.674-07:00

A new Pew Research Center poll released July 9 is interesting in what it shows about the public’s perceptions about science and scientists compared to the views of scientists themselves on the same topic. The good news is that the public holds scientists in high esteem, with 70 percent of respondents saying that scientists contribute a lot to the public’s well being. Scientists rank third, below

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-58115088427504694772009-06-19T11:54:00.000-07:002009-06-19T11:57:08.751-07:002009-06-19T11:57:08.751-07:00

The advancements in consumer technologies never cease to amaze me. Take the GPS devices for example. These little units have become commonplace over the past few years as their prices have become more affordable to the average American. But what they do, and how they do it, is nothing short of amazing.Let’s take a quick look at how these little gadgets know exactly where you are and where you’re

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-6235012190581870442009-05-09T06:05:00.000-07:002009-05-09T06:06:08.053-07:002009-05-09T06:06:08.053-07:00

Did you take biology in high school? If so, were you taught about the theory of evolution? Were you also taught creationism or intelligent design? It might surprise some of us but according to recent research about a quarter of high school biology students were taught creationism as a valid alternative theory to evolution.That is having an effect on the way college biology students think about

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-47253097156804601102009-03-28T06:48:00.001-07:002009-03-28T06:48:12.962-07:002009-03-28T06:48:12.962-07:00

Americans tend to have an unwavering sense of fairness and balance. It probably stems from the fact that we live in a democracy. But some controversies cannot be settled by the democratic process.If you were seriously ill and you had a choice of listening to a team of doctors recommend your treatment or a group of lay people who were generally intelligent but never attended medical school, you

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-41815210526661659832009-03-14T06:33:00.000-07:002009-03-14T07:18:43.261-07:002009-03-14T07:18:43.261-07:00

You stick a DVD or Blu-Ray disc into the little drawer on the player, push a button or two, and sit back to enjoy a full-length motion picture complete with surround sound. Most people don’t think about how it all works. How can a complete movie and all the extras fit onto a tiny disc? Unlike film, you can’t even look at the disc and see small images, so how does the player turn a silvery sheen

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-80251998217772566422009-02-14T09:39:00.001-08:002009-02-14T09:57:50.603-08:002009-02-14T09:57:50.603-08:00

This month is being celebrated by the scientific community, and by people in Britain, because it marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the great men of science, Charles Darwin, the English biologist who put forth his theory of evolution by natural selection. This year is also the sesquicentennial of Darwin’s greatest work, The Origin of Species. If Darwin were alive today, I can’t

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-63734211263433849882009-01-31T08:33:00.000-08:002009-01-31T08:34:12.782-08:002009-01-31T08:34:12.782-08:00

By the middle of the year, the United States will be an all-digital TV nation. The exact date of the switchover will be either February 17 or June 12, depending on whether or not Congress decides to delay the conversion. As of this morning, January 31, the switch is still scheduled to take effect February 17.I say let’s keep it that way. A delay will do nothing more than add to the confusion of

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-89990871067044421452009-01-24T09:23:00.001-08:002009-01-24T09:23:57.407-08:002009-01-24T09:23:57.407-08:00

I have been online longer than most people. I feel confident in making that sweeping statement because, to most people, being online means being hooked to the Internet. I was online almost a decade before the Internet started to become a serious contender in online communication and file sharing.And I wanted to be online even before that. Back in the days when The Source and CompuServe were the

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-89312082165910117412009-01-04T06:57:00.000-08:002009-01-04T06:58:44.427-08:002009-01-04T06:58:44.427-08:00

There are very few people under age 50 today that actually remembers watching Neil Armstrong step off the lunar lander to make the first human footprint on a world other than the earth. That’s because it has been 40 years this July since that event took place.It was a monumental moment in history. It was a giant milestone of human exploration. Every other place that intrepid explorers, from

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-6409973502014656222008-11-22T09:00:00.001-08:002008-11-22T09:00:58.569-08:002008-11-22T09:00:58.569-08:00

I was reading an article the other day about how the cell phone has replaced some of the items we used to find indispensable, such as the pager or a wristwatch that is worn to actually tell time rather than look nice on your arm. That got me to thinking: What do we all use in our everyday lives that we don’t really need to use anymore because there are better ways to do the same things?First,

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-61167923259245631612008-11-01T07:37:00.001-07:002008-11-01T07:37:37.075-07:002008-11-01T07:37:37.075-07:00

How do you watch movies?Prior to 1980, the only answers to that question would have been either “at the movie theater,” or “on television.” If you wanted to watch a recent movie without commercials, your only option was the movie theater. Movies played on broadcast TV, which was the only kind of TV available before HBO came to households in the late ‘70s, were all years old and filled with

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-48925605233241682642008-10-18T06:33:00.001-07:002008-10-18T06:33:51.031-07:002008-10-18T06:33:51.031-07:00

Go look under your bed or behind the closet door, way in the back of the top shelf, or maybe in your attic. Pull out those dusty old boxes of Super8 movie film or those old Ektachrome color slides from Christmases long ago. Then, locate all your old photos hiding away in boxes or binders in the corner of the garage. Dust off the old video tapes of weddings and holidays that are still probably

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-26353995749946249642008-09-13T06:56:00.000-07:002008-09-13T06:57:32.180-07:002008-09-13T06:57:32.180-07:00

It’s in our nature. We humans often get a kick out of crashing things into each other. I remember watching Demolition Derby on TV when I was young. It was fascinating to watch drivers crash cars into each other on purpose until only one was left running. And remember when David Letterman used to throw things off the top of a tall building just to see how they would smash upon impact with the

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-80226064393514150962008-08-16T05:26:00.001-07:002008-08-16T05:26:57.172-07:002008-08-16T05:26:57.172-07:00

How far back can you trace your genealogy?Somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago, according research done by Steve Olson and Joseph Chang, there was a single person who was the last individual on the planet to be the direct ancestor of every person alive today, all 6.5 billion of us.They can’t narrow down exactly who he or she was, but whoever it was most likely lived somewhere in eastern

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-28010190905838902172008-07-17T13:14:00.000-07:002008-07-17T13:20:36.915-07:002008-07-17T13:20:36.915-07:00

Ok, it's no Colorado or Arizona There are no mountains or giant canyons. But Indiana does have a lot of landscape features that even many Hoosiers are not aware of. These include cliffs, tree-covered hills, giant sand dunes, and tons of glacial features.First of all, let me point out that the landscape of the northern two-thirds of Indiana is a legacy of the Ice Age. Vast ice sheets covered much

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6369216627809519116.post-34438407467279867392008-07-13T12:29:00.001-07:002008-07-13T12:30:55.051-07:002008-07-13T12:30:55.051-07:00

I have a new dedicated URL for my blogs, both this SciTech blog and my newspaper column, Over Coffee, blog. ReadJerryWilson.comBe sure to bookmark it and visit often!

Jerry Wilsonnoreply@blogger.com0