Light from the sun takes a mere eight minutes to travel to Earth across nearly 100 million miles of empty space. But it takes 120,000 years to travel just 400,000 miles from its origin in the sun’s core to its surface. Read more
As with many issues over which emotions run high, there are many myths surrounding irradiation, not supported by or directly contradicted by good scientific studies. Read more
The one thing you know for sure is that no product is chemical-free. Even the air we breathe is a chemical. Read more
Beyond merely noticing how cloudy it is, how often do we really pay attention to clouds? Read more
The old saying advises us to eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away. Knowing about antioxidants and free radicals, you might add spinach and broccoli, carrot sticks, a cup of tea, and … pizza. Yes, pizza! Read more
The allure of a diamond makes it the most highly revered among gemstones. It has many qualities that make it so desirable and beloved, not the least of which is its rarity. Read more
To build a sundial that keeps accurate time is not an easy task. A sundial is more than merely a statue that casts a shadow on numbers as the sun moves across the sky. Read more
Equinox derives from Latin for “equal night,” actually referring to equal length of day and night. It is not true that day and night are exactly the same length everywhere around the globe, but they are nearly. Read more
Greek mythology has Prometheus sneaking into Olympus to steal fire from the gods. Other cultures have similar myths. Read more
Lowly bananas are the world’s most popular fruit. Sadly, the yellow fruit is in danger. Read more
Imagine a world without patterns, a featureless, colorless canvas of nothingness. Read more
Sea level exists as a concept for us. No measurement can define a “global” sea level. Such a thing does not exist. In reality it can only be what we define it to be at a given time. Read more
Today is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, but the longest day in the southern hemisphere. Read more
The hottest lights on the market today are cool light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. Read more
In 1898, Friedrich Loeffler and Paul Frosch discovered that the cause of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock was an infectious particle smaller than any bacteria. This was the first clue to the nature of viruses. Read more
Ozone is a devious chemical. High in the sky it protects us from UV light, while low in the atmosphere it is a pollutant and a health hazard. Read more
‘Liquid crystal” ought to be an oxymoron, but technology has rendered it sensible instead. A crystal is by definition a solid with a repeating, orderly, three-dimensional l attice. Read more
Sunlight is the primary illuminator. Its spectrum is a familiar rainbow with maximum emittance in a color that most of us would call yellow-green — light of wavelength around 550 nanometers. Read more
Aristotle famously claimed that nature abhors a vacuum. True, air does rush into the space from which air has been evacuated, but not because nature has feelings of any kind about the vacuum. Read more
Where is ET? After nearly 50 years of searching for intelligent signals from space, astronomers have yet to receive a single verifiable signal of intelligent origin. Read more
Water vapor is the gaseous form of water that exists in the atmosphere along with nitrogen, oxygen and other minor gases such as argon and carbon dioxide. Read more
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