Category today i learned (til)

health, fitness, medicine, environment, ecology, how to learn tricky topics in science and math, new discoveries, news, current events

Badass Biology: Bat Echolocation

Vision is awesomely complicated. A lot of animals, like the hawk, use vision to detect important environmental cues from vast distances. They use complex eyes and even more complex brains to locate prey, or figure out where the ground starts,…

Megalodon: Fact or Fiction?

Barbies? Yea right. Doll Houses? Please. I was never the little girl who played with mini tea cups and pretended my stuffed animals were my fellow beauty-pageant friends. I was the girl outside shooting Nerf guns at the neighbor boys…

Varicella-Zoster Strikes Again

I had chicken pox when I was 8 years old. This was before there was a vaccine for varicella zoster, the virus that causes chicken pox. When I was growing up everyone got the virus and it made you feel…

Why Does Hot Water Freeze Faster?

PROFESSOR: Hello class! Welcome to “Advanced Application of Math and Logic in Natural Philosophy” class. Look to your left and look to your right. One out of five in this room will not pass the class. STUDENT A: Sir, but…

Badass Biology: Toxoplasma gondii

Look, we humans are awesome. We own this planet. If we really wanted to, we could spill every barrel of oil we have into the ocean, light it all into one gigantic fiery blaze, get on fire-proof boats in robot…

Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone

Before I moved away from Florida I never realized how much I depended on good weather to motivate me.  I’d always believed that optimism and happiness came from within, but now I know this is only half true.  Moving to…

Berkeley grads grow mushrooms for cash – legally!

Imagine you are in your last semester at college. You’ve done well academically, studied business, and you have a job offer lined up. Your parents are letting up on the constant brow beating about expectations and preparing for the future.…

Bizzare Medical Treatments: Bayer Heroin

Bayer AG, a multibillion dollar, German pharmaceutical company is regarded as one of the leaders in its sector, producing mild painkillers such as Bayer Aspirin and Aleve, the vitamin C supplements Redoxon and Berocca, and many other well known drugs.…