Have science, will travel
Home to the finest science shows this side of the Big Bang performed by the two best science guys in this (or any other) universe. Have science, will travel.
Back from hiatus! "Hiatus" is Latin for "Being busy and lazy," right? Cause that's where Aaron and I have been. I mean, I have work, and shows, and I'm making 4 different costumes for Gen Con and trying to play I Am Setsuna...Lots of stuff to do.
Ahem. Anyway.
I done made a video! It's about evolution! I hope you like it! Click through to watch it!
Read MoreLast week, just as I was drifting off to sleep, my dog Rowdy made a weird noise. He was almost barking, but not quite. It startled me awake and, adrenaline slightly pumping, I was more alert when he then did it a second time. It was a weird noise, something like "berf." Like he was trying to bark without opening his mouth. I realized that he wasn't dying, nor had he heard an intruder downstairs. He was barking in his sleep.
Any of you who have pets, dogs especially, have probably noticed something like this. Dogs pretty regularly start twitching their legs while they sleep, or even moving them as if they're running. Our reaction is always "Aww, he's dreaming!" Well, that was my reaction the night of the berfs. But it got me wondering: do we really know if dogs dream? And how much do we know about it if they do?
Read MoreI was prepping for a birthday show over the weekend (remember, in addition to the awesome giant two-man shows we'll do on any stage you want, we also do smaller shows for our local markets in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest) and I decided to get some of it on video. What you're about to see is a hydrogen balloon test, almost from front to back.
Remember, folks, don't try this at home! I am a trained professional with years of experience doing this kind of stuff. Also, aren't I handsome in my Vault 111 hoodie?
Anyway, click through to see something explode!
Read MoreAaron's back with another episode of Constant Science! Today he explains just how and why flames can come in different colors and he uses an old friend of ours: the Fire Tornado.
With his help you will be forever safe from The Goblin King. Click through to watch!
Read MoreEvery era has its diseases. The medieval world was hit by wave after wave of bubonic plague, the most famous of which killed half or more of the entire population of Europe. During the American colonial period, the Native Americans were ravaged by smallpox, transmitted to them (sometimes purposefully) by a bunch of filthy, dirty Europeans. The first half of the 20th century was scourged by polio, killing and crippling children by the thousands before Jonas Salk finished development on his killed-virus polio vaccine in 1955.
Read MoreThere are lots of members of class Aves out there. Birds range in size from the tiniest of hummingbirds to those big, mean, dumb ostriches. They come in all of the colors of the rainbow, sometimes at the same time. They can be as dumb as an emu or as smart as an African Gray. Their songs run the gamut from simple tweets and chirps to complex, multi-part songs to the near-perfect mimicry of the lyrebird.
Side note: I've always wanted to sneak up on a male lyrebird during mating season and play some Metallica just to see what it would sound like coming back out of the bird. Anyway.
Birds are fascinating, but, when I think of them, I keep coming back, time and again, to one singular bird mystery, one unique feathered conundrum that nobody else ever seems to ask, much less answer.
Why does Big Bird have hands?
Read MoreAaron is back! This week on Constant Science, Aaron demonstrates one of the more creative ways to break a bottle: with the powerful physics of cavitation.
Read MoreWoo Hoo! Some of you may have seen it on our Instagram, our Twitter, or our Facebook page, but for anyone who missed it, some friends helped me build a pair of beds of nails over the weekend for an upcoming physics show. Let me tell you: that is some tedious work. I need to make friends with someone with a drill press.
To celebrate this momentous achievement (and the fact that I'm super busy this week) I've decided to share our Bed of Nails episode of Constant Science again, one of our very first videos. If you're wondering why a bed of nails is a useful tool for the popularization of science, look no further. The video is a segment from a show, but I give a brief intro at the top. Enjoy!
Read MoreLeprosy has been in the news a lot lately, like this CNN article titled "Armadillos cause spike in leprosy cases in Florida" (of course it's Florida). Most people have heard of leprosy. For one thing, it comes up in both the Old and New Testaments all the time. It's been with humanity for millennia and most cultures have some sort of relationship with the disease. But what is Leprosy, really? And what's going on in Florida? And what to armadillos have to do with anything? In this week's Constant Science I answer those questions and more. As we'll discover, the news media--once again--isn't giving you the whole story when it comes to an outbreak of a disease. Click on through for the video!
Read MoreThis new website of ours is pretty sweet, but it took a while to get it all put together. During that time, Aaron and I missed a bunch of important science stories, stuff we might have talked about on Constant Science. Well, this week I aim to rectify that by talking briefly about a handful of scientific goings-on that we didn't have a chance to cover when it actually happened. Astronomy, paleontology, sociology, entymology...It's all there, folks, just click down below for the video!
Read MoreThis week I once again take to the internet to talk science. Specifically, I talk about the science of cuteness with the help of a handful of cute little animals! Check it out below!
Read MoreIsaac Newton is, quite justifiably, one of the most famous scientists in history. He was a scientist before scientists were even scientists, back when they were called “natural philosophers” and you pretty much had to be a rich white male to even think about joining their ranks. Back before regular experimental protocols had been developed. The Enlightenment was a turbulent time for our understanding of the universe, and Newton was one of the people sitting right in the center of it.
And Isaac Newton was really kind of weird.
But let’s start with the science.
Read MoreI did not set out to make a post with a rhyming title but it looks like I ended up there anyway. We do a lot of media here at Explosions, Inc., but it's mostly of the video variety. Today I've put together some pictures packed full of sweet, sweet science tidbits that are perfect for posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Imgur, what have you. They're all here in this post and I'll be tossing them out one at a time on our own Twitter and Instagram feeds over the course of the next week or two. If you don't follow us on any social media, what the heck are you waiting for?
Is this a common thing to do these days? Yes. Are we sell-outs for hopping on the train? Maybe, but that train is going places, baby! Share the crap out of these, if you would. Aaron and I really tried to make these serious and seriously interesting instead of fluff pieces and we think people will dig them. We want to see these all over social media! Click through for the pictures!
Read MoreHey, hey, hey! I'm back from my travels (you know, the travels that led Aaron to write about my super-cool doppelganger Ron Diefler) with a video that combines some sweet underwater footage my wife and I got while scuba diving in the Caribbean with a whole bunch of science. I talk about water pressure, dive medicine, optics, and, of course, marine biology. Click through to check it out!
Read MoreI was reading through science news, like you do, when I came across this article about some chemists at UC Irvine who have developed a way to un-boil hard-boiled eggs. The process wasn't developed specifically to turn back the clock on boiled eggs, though, but to "reset" proteins that have been tangled and misfolded through some sort of chemical process so they can be recycled or reused. Medicine, biotech, and food production rely on the steady production of proteins but sometimes the manufacturing goes awry. Currently the only way to reuse the misfolded proteins requires an expensive and time-consuming process. This new one cuts the time and the cost to a small fraction of what it used to be.
And it doesn't really unboil the whole egg, either. It just resets one of the proteins in the egg what to what it was before the heat screwed it all up and solidified the albumen. The protein is lysozyme, which makes up only a few percent of the albumen. The egg isn't completely reset; heck, the egg white isn't even mostly reset, but it's still a really cool proof of concept.
This got me thinking about two things: first, if we're now one step closer to reversing the Maillard reaction and fixing overcooked steaks (probably not) and second, entropy.
Read MoreWell, my voice is back in good working order so it's time for another episode of Constant Science! This week I've decided to embark upon a long and hopefully fruitful journey across all 118 elements of the periodic table, giving myself just one minute to tell you some basic facts and cool stuff about each of them in order. Today we start with hydrogen and end with boron.
And don't worry; this won't be the only thing I do for the next 23.6 videos. I'll just come back to it from time to time. Click through to check it out!
Read MoreAs someone who has been, for years now, essentially a professional Science Guy (not nearly on the level of Bill Nye, of course, but a man can dream) it might surprise some people that my background is not actually in hard science. In fact, neither is Aaron's. We both have oddly parallel histories when it comes to college education. Both of us have degrees in philosophy. Both of us later went back to undergrad for second degrees, mine in anthropology and his in music. Both of us went into informal science because of a deep love and appreciation for science and the scientific method even if our formal schooling wasn't in hard science. We're living, breathing examples of what we preach: that science is for everyone, whether or not you studied it specifically in school.
Read MoreHappy Monday, everyone! Unfortunately, I have fallen victim to whatever bug has been going around the Midwest for the last month or two. I’m not dead on my feet by any means but my voice is not exactly ready for prime time. Today, then, instead I’m going to write a short entry about why we do what we do.
I already answered the question “Why Science?” in a previous post. Today I’m going to try to answer the question “Why science shows?” In other words, why do Aaron and I perform science on stage? What do we get out of it?
Read MoreLast week Aaron braved back pain and a medication haze to give you his top five science moments of 2014. Today I sat in front of the camera, as I am wont to do, and did the same. There's a bit of crossover but not as much as you might think. Happy New Year to the gentiles in the audience and sorry about the constant assault of Christian holidays with pagan overtones and the Gregorian calendar to all the Jews in the audience. You can't level the International Zionist Conspiracy against me anyway because Aaron will protect me. As long as I keep up with my payments. Anyway, without further ado, click on through to the other side to find out my best of 2014.
Read MoreHappy anniversary, everyone!
What, you’re not sure what I’m talking about? How could you all forget? I’m so insulted. Yesterday was the second anniversary of the December 21st, 2012, the day the world was supposed to end according to a number of nutjobs, crackpots, and professional film-flam artists. Congratulations on surviving another year past fake doomsday!
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