Richard Brill is a retired professor of science at Honolulu Community College. His column runs on the first and third Fridays of the month.
On June 8 people around the globe celebrated World Oceans Day. National Geographic magazine had a special reason for celebration: The frigid waters that flow around Antarctica have long been known as the Southern Ocean because its properties are relatively uniform throughout. Read more
When we hear the word “isotope,” most of us would think of radioactivity. Radioactive analysis is the most commonly known form of isotopic analysis, but it is only a part. Read more
Using nothing but a compass as a navigational tool, ancient mariners from China to Sumer navigated the world’s oceans. Even in the modern age of GPS, the magnetic compass is an unfaltering navigational tool for seagoing vessels, airplanes and hikers on the ground. Read more
Rock salt is a mineral, halite. It occurs in massive underground deposits on all continents. In its pure form it is sodium chloride, a crystalline substance composed of equal numbers of sodium and chlorine atoms. Read more
Thermonuclear reactions deep in the sun’s interior consistently generate the same amount of energy as 2.5 billion 500-megawatt generators, the largest on Earth. In one short second the sun produces enough energy to power New York City for 100 years. Read more
The association of eggs and rabbits with Easter is not immediately apparent. Easter is a Christian holiday, and it is a celebration of fertility and rebirth, the modern continuation of ageless rites of spring that we have borrowed and adapted from ancient pagan rituals. Read more
The sun is the source of all life and almost all energy on Earth, and we live within its extended atmosphere, protected only somewhat against its variable and harmful output of streams of high-energy particles and radiation by a weak magnetic field and our own thin atmosphere. Read more
The hydroxyl radical is the dominant oxidizing chemical in Earth’s atmosphere. It is also the most common and most active free radical present in human and other animal tissue, yet it is contained in chemically pure water. Read more
The polar vortex is a permanent low-pressure system that surrounds the geographical north and south poles. “Vortex” refers to the circulation around the poles. The term also describes smaller vortices that occur within lobes of the primary vortex. Read more
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The connection between electricity and magnetism was discovered by accident. Read more
Luigi Galvani discovered bioelectricity in the late 1770s when he began to experiment with the muscular contraction of frog legs by electrical stimulation. Read more
Proteins are the most important of all biochemicals. They are involved in nearly all bodily processes in one way or another. Understanding their shapes and how the sequence of amino acids determines the shapes is an ongoing and central problem, the most pressing and most intriguing one in biochemistry. Read more
In an atmosphere that is 99% nitrogen and oxygen, it is easy to forget about the minor constituents that comprise the air we breathe. Read more
We are all familiar to varying degrees with the atmosphere’s complex role in global heat distribution. We call it weather. Read more
Cosmic rays are not really rays. They are charged particles traveling at near the speed of light. The majority consist of protons and electrons that are ejected from the sun during solar storms. Read more
“O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb.” — William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” Read more
Werner Heisenberg, who revolutionized quantum theory with his famous uncertainty principle, said, “When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.” Read more
Concrete and cement are not the same thing, although the two terms are used interchangeably. Read more
Research has debunked the old adage that we use only 10% of our brain and has firmly filed it in the “urban myth” category. Read more
Ozone is present in extremely low concentrations throughout the Earth’s atmosphere. It is concentrated in the stratosphere, where it protects us from being fried by sunlight, and accumulates near the surface where sunlight forges it into the key ingredient of smog. Read more
Mineral resources are nonrenewable. They are both finite and irreplaceable, and they are diminishing. Read more
