At present, when many think of the Middle East, the first word that comes to mind is oil, following close after unfortunately is war. However, the Middle East has a rich history in the development of science. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so strangely, Islam, the prominent religion of Middle Easterners, is intimately connected with the study and development of science. A study, therefore, of Islam’s influence on science is an enlightening journey. Never before or since has the Middle East been so profoundly shaken by the words of a simple merchant from Mecca in Arabian Peninsula: Muhammad ibn Abdullah…

A hot summer afternoon in July 1994. Andy heads down the woodlands on his mountain bike, eager to get home and beat the heat with a few beers. A rainy day in March 1998, Stephanie stretches her legs in her Ford Explorer waiting to reach home after shopping for school clothes for her children. A bright morning in June 1999. Terry sets off to explore the skies in his paraglider. A sunny day in March 2003. Paul revs up his bike’s engine hoping to join his fiancée and kids for the weekend. Disparate images from the lives of different people.…

When my family moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong, I was at the awkward age of 14. In addition to language barrier and social adjustment, most of my cultural shock came inevitably from high school. One thing that impressed me the most was how popular gum-chewing was (and still is). All these cool kids were hanging out by their lockers, exchanging colourful and minty gums, and engaging in a perpetual chewing contest throughout classes. You see, students in Asia would never dream of eating/chewing/drinking/whining/talking in class. You can tell how fascinated I was at these rebellious classmates; they may not…

Science, according to John Ziman, past physicist, humanist, and author of Real Science, What it is, and What It Means (2000), states that “science is under attack.” In his book, he declares that: “People are losing confidence in its powers. Pseudo-scientific beliefs thrive. Anti-science speakers win public debates. Industrial firms misuse technology. Legislators curb experiments. Governments slash research funding. Even fellow scholars are becoming skeptical of its claims.” If science is under attack, has it always been? Or is this a relatively new problem? To answer this, specific periods in our recent history can be chosen and compared to determine…

Introduction “Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: You’re walking along, minding your own business. You’re looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. You begin to get weak in the knees. Your head’s in a whirl. And then you feel light as a feather, and before you know it, you’re walking on air. And then you know what? You’re knocked for a loop, and you completely lose your head!” In Disney’s Bambi, the wise old owl gives this memorable, and strikingly accurate, description of…

Introduction In his seminal book, The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of descent with modification by means of natural selection, a postulate he supported with considerable evidence from myriad observations and exhaustive experimentation. Darwin’s powerful insights can be summarized as follows: Offspring vary from their parents. Some of the variances are heritable. Only a fraction of the total offspring of any organism survives to themselves reproduce. Those heritable variances that are advantageous to an organism are “selected for” by the environment and those that are disadvantageous are “deleted” by the environment. This differential survival is known as…

(August 2004) Biological Diversity For approximately 4.5 billion years, the Earth has been evolving from a barren volcanic landscape into the vibrant globe full of life that it is today. The first forms of life, small microorganisms, have been found in fossils from 3.5 billion years ago. Around 1.5 billion years ago, motile microorganisms emerged allowing life to migrate to different environments with different environmental conditions like increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation or higher temperatures. Microorganisms began to evolve with the changing environmental conditions of the planet. These new environmental conditions, acting as selective pressures, drove the evolutionary process. They…

(August 2003) The cultivation of plants is an important aspect of today’s society in many ways. Not only do plants supply us with a major food resource and flow of nutrition but they are also an important source of chemicals and other non-food products such as drugs, oils, latex, pigments, and resins [3]. Because of the high value of plants, farmers are constantly trying to increase the yield and quality of their products by using more effective production techniques. The physical appearance of plants is determined by genetic factors that are inherited from parental crops. The natural transfer of genes…

(August 2004) 1.0 The Beginning The planet Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old. During the initial 0.7 billion years following its formation, the early Earth was heavily bombarded by solar system materials, such as comets and asteroid-sized objects. The energy released by the largest impacts was sufficient to evaporate the oceans and destroy any existing life on the Earth’s surface. The first signs of life evidenced by the fossil record came into being approximately 3.5 billion years ago [1]. Figure 1. The early Earth’s reducing atmosphere provided conditions for the formation of organic polymers from either terrestrial or extraterrestrial…