The Power of Pee Yes, we were supposed to do Arizona botany, but there’s a Carnival on. We’ll save the lengthy discussion about flora for next Sunday, and instead, you can head over to Cujo’s place for a brief chat about urine: The net effect of research efforts like these could be that someday, we …

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Science Books in Bed Alas, I’ve fallen behind in my research work for the next in my Arizona Sensational Science series. Also, I decided I desperately needed to read a few more books on Arizona geology that I’d never heard of but now cannot write another post without. Such is the life of a bibliophile. …

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Sunset Crater The winter of 1064-65* wasn’t a particularly good one for the locals. There was the 6 mile fissure that opened and began pumping out lava. Then one end of the fissure started throwing scoria at them, collapsing the roofs of their pit houses under hot heaps of fresh cinders and ash. Then more …

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Celestial Photography Summer Milky Way above Yavapai Point Trail in Grand Canyon. Wally Pacholka/Astropics.com. Nothing chock-full of scientific facts this week, but plenty of beauty. Whilst I was on vacation, I came across the photography of Wally Pacholka in various visitors’ centers. What’s remarkable about his photography is that it isn’t contrived: Pacholka said he …

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Overselling Ida: A Cautionary Tale Brian Switek’s Brilliant Discovery If you haven’t heard of Ida, the perfectly preserved Darwinius masillae, you’ve been living in a box. Plenty of information about this remarkable but not utterly revolutionary fossil shall follow. But first, I want to share an illustrative personal anecdote. A couple of day ago, my …

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Celebrating Hubble The Hubble Space Telescope’s been sending back spectacular images since April 1990. It’s coming to the end of its life – it’ll be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014 if the best-laid plans o’ mice and men don’t gang aft agley – but that doesn’t mean NASA’s given up on …

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Woo Gets Whacked In a world full of woo, who do we turn to? There’s a small army of bloggers out there whose mission, which they enthusiastically accept, is to seek out new and old forms of woo wherever they flare up, set the phasers on “obliterate,” and hit the snake-oil salesmen right between the …

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Doctors in the Blogosphere So, we have an outbreak of swine influenza in Mexico, a chronic infestation of “healers” who wow with woo, and loads of health misinformation everywhere we turn. It’s turning critical. Someone call a doctor-blogger! In this edition of Sunday Science, we’ll be making the medical rounds. And don’t forget to refer …

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Starring Geology It’s teevee week at the Hunter household, and it ain’t all about House, either. We’ve been indulging in some educational programming, too. There’s some good stuff out there which makes good supplemental viewing. In this edition of Sunday Sensational Science, I’ll introduce you to two of my favorite geology programs. Television does one …

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Quack Medicine Kills in Africa Most of you have probably already seen this, considering our Cephalopod Overlord highlighted it. But Ben Goldacre begged readers to steal this chapter, there might be a few of you who aren’t Pharyngulites, and it’s a matter of life and death. I’ve added illustrations that link to sites with further …

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