(Last week was reading week at UBC, but we were so freaking busy that we didn’t even get a chance to rest. Therefore, this week we get to catch up on our sleep by reprinting some of our finest. Enjoy.) – FROM THE ARCHIVE – January 17, 2005 I received the syllabus for my Humanities course. A humanities course should not be required for my B.Sc degree in Physics. To add insult to injury, we are supposed to do an analysis of Well’s The Time Machine. We are to focus on the historical context when the topic is time travel?…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From February, 2007
HOW I GOT OUT OF WRITING AN ESSAY ON H.G. WELL’S THE TIME MACHINE.
(Last week was reading week at UBC, but we were so freaking busy that we didn’t even get a chance to rest. Therefore, this week we get to catch up on our sleep by reprinting some of our finest. Enjoy.) – FROM THE ARCHIVE – January 17, 2005 I received the syllabus for my Humanities course. A humanities course should not be required for my B.Sc degree in Physics. To add insult to injury, we are supposed to do an analysis of Well’s The Time Machine. We are to focus on the historical context when the topic is time travel?…
THE NUDE MOUSE – A SCIENCE CREATIVE QUARTERLY PIN UP (NO. 1)
(Last week was reading week at UBC, but we were so freaking busy that we didn’t even get a chance to rest. Therefore, this week we get to catch up on our sleep by reprinting some of our finest. Enjoy.) – FROM THE ARCHIVE – (CLICK HERE FOR PIN-UP POSTER – pdf file ~250k) — We suggest photocopying at 129% – LTR to 11×17 — Earlier this week, we had the chance to sit down with a member of a growing army of naked bubble mice. In thousands of biology labs around the globe, these lab mice quietly do their…
A MISPLACED CHAPTER FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS
(Last week was reading week at UBC, but we were so freaking busy that we didn’t even get a chance to rest. Therefore, this week we get to catch up on our sleep by reprinting some of our finest. Enjoy.) – FROM THE ARCHIVE – And lo, it came to be that God was sitting around in his Lazy-God recliner one quiet millennium, and He sayeth unto His Godlike self: “God is bored and needs some entertainment.” And lo, God created the Earth and all it’s inhabitants without getting up from the Lazy-God chair, even whence God needed the occasional…
A CHEMISTRY STUDENT’S INNER VOICE GUIDE TO ACID/BASE TITRATION
A. INTRODUCTION .: This experiment consists of two parts. The first is designed so that you may screw up and not face any further consequences. The second requires your utmost diligence, as the products from this experiment will serve as the basis of every other experiment for the rest of the semester. .: In the first part, you will use a primary standard solution of potassium hydrogen phthalate (pronounced ‘phth-al-ate’) to standardize a roughly 0.1 molar solution of sodium hydroxide. This is perhaps the easiest exercise performed in any laboratory on campus, and your soul will be crushed as you…
BILL HICK, SCIENCE PRICK, SERVES SUCKAS ON THE BLOCK
Dear Mr. Hick, Hi! My name is Sammy, and I live in Alaska with my mama, papa, and puppy dog, Puppy. I am only six, so my mama typed this for me. You are one of my favorite people. Ever! There’s this thing that we see up here a lot called the aurora borealis. (That looks like a hard word to spell! Wow.) My papa says it has something to do with electrons (another really hard word!), but I have a secret: I think it’s heaven. What do you think, Mr. Hick? Love, Sammy Davis Fairbanks, Alaska Dear Sammy, Sammy,…
DENATURING GRADIENT GEL ELECTROPHORESIS (DGGE): AN OVERVIEW
Imagine a scenario, where you have a patient with a life-threatening infection. Such a patient might require prompt antimicrobial therapy. However, in clinical microbiology, there is this constant race against the clock in identifying these disease-causing organisms so that an effective treatment can be provided. In fact, often, it is only after the death of a patient that the disease-causing organism is identified. This is primarily because traditional culture methods can be laborious, and in the case of mixed cultures, other analyses are required to identify microorganisms at the species level. Taken together, the entire process can be time consuming,…
RUB-A-DUB-DUB, A POLAR BEAR IN A BATH TUB
(See here first) This is just a friendly reminder that we have a science humour writing contest going on. Go on – be funny. Do some math. Win an iPod or a whole bunch of books. Note that entries do not have to be a whole piece that incorporates each image (like the one below) – just something funny will do. Click here for larger view of image Exams are always the worst. But they are especially rough when you end up staring at the same question for what seems like an eternity. Through the eyepiece of a lab microscope,…
RAMAN EFFECT
If you wish to make the color blue take a piece of sky and put it in a pot large enough to place on the flame of the horizon …And I left the recipe for whoever, one day, would imitate the sky. — Nuno Júdice Translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith River kites, with sun-smeared wings climb towers of spiral stairs with currents paying out their cords from the choppy waves at the harbor. White wings dazzle, helicoid against a cerulean mystery — witnesses to a mythopoeic voyage unlocking the color schemes of nature. After the rain, the sun…