I Built a Bed of Nails!

August 24, 2015 / Don Riefler

Woo 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!

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categories / Constant Science, Energy, Physics, Science
tags / Don, Aaron, Video, Physics, Constant, Bed of Nails, Science, Science Demo

Constant Science: Leprosy for Fun and Profit

August 10, 2015 / Don Riefler

Leprosy 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!

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categories / Biology, Constant Science, History, Medicine, Science, Video
tags / Medicine, Media, Science, Constant Science, Don, Video, Leprosy, History, Biology

Constant Science: Pluto and Ceres and Mars, Oh My!

July 09, 2015 / Don Riefler

This 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!

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categories / Astronomy, Constant Science, Science, Space Exploration, Video, Paleontology
tags / Don, Science, Constant, Paleontology, Dinosaurs, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Sociology, Entymology, Video, Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, Ceres, Mars, Mars One, Pluto, New Horizons

Constant Science: Kittens!

June 29, 2015 / Don Riefler

This 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!

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categories / Constant Science, Video, Science, Biology, Animal Science, Psychology, Genetics
tags / Science, Animal Science, Kittens, Biology, Genetics, Constant Science, Don

Time For A Science Break

April 06, 2015 / Don Riefler

Happy Monday to all six of our regular readers, two of whom are our mothers. I'm taking to the interwebs today to make a quick and very exciting announcement: Aaron and I are hard at work on a brand-new website! Woo! It'll be super slick and cool looking and wonderful with new images and new video that we're putting together specially for the relaunch.

But...

It means that we have to take a break from posting here at this website for a little while. I don't know how long it'll take us to finish up, but it's possible it won't be ready until May-ish. I'm headed out to Oregon to visit Aaron the first week of the month and we're going to get a ton of really cool stuff done. So don't forget us! Stay tuned! A new website awaits launching!

And don't worry if you've bookmarked this one (and if you have, thank you from the bottom of our hearts). It'll redirect to the new one, which will have the archive of everything we ever put together on this Wordpress site.

See you on the other side!

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categories / Metablog
tags / Don, Metablog

Pi Day Post-Mortem

March 16, 2015 / Don Riefler

Another Pi Day has come and gone, and this one was a little extra special because it was the once-in-a-century date when, at 1:59:26 AM and PM the date was 3.1415926. People celebrated by baking and eating pi pies, posting pictures on Facebook of pi pies, and generally being gleefully punny. On Pi Day people often celebrate the world's favorite irrational number but, and I think this is a missed opportunity, we rarely talk about it past its significance as a homophone for a delicious dessert. I aim to rectify that here and now, so ready yourself for a big heaping slice of pi!

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categories / Algebra, Geometry, History, Math, Philosophy
tags / Algebra, Archimedes, Aristotle, Don, Food, Geometry, History, Math, Philosophy, Pi, Pie, Plato

Man of Random Science: Isaac Newton Was Weird

March 09, 2015 / Don Riefler

Isaac 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.

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categories / Chemistry, History, Math, Optics, Physics, Random Science, Science, Scientists, Uncategorized
tags / Alchemy, Blues Brothers, Darth Newton, Darth Vader, Don, Electromagnetism, Farming, Isaac Newton, Optics, Physics, Random Science, Science, Star Wars

Quick Fix Science Pics

March 03, 2015 / Don Riefler

I 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!

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categories / Animal Science, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Images, Media, Medicine, Physics, Science
tags / Animal Science, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Don, Food, Images, Media, Medicine, Physics, Pictures, Science, Science Macros

Constant Science: Minute Chemistry Part 2 (of 23.6)

February 23, 2015 / Don Riefler

Happy Monday, fans of science! As promised in last week's Dive Science video, I am returning to my possibly futile quest to dedicate one minute to every single element in the periodic table. This week: carbon through neon.

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categories / Astronomy, Chemistry, Constant Science, Media, Medicine, Video
tags / Astronomy, Chemistry, Constant Science, Don, Minute Chemistry, Science

Constant Science: Dive Science

February 16, 2015 / Don Riefler

Hey, 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!

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categories / Biology, Constant Science, Media, Physics, Science, Video
tags / Biology, Constant Science, Don, Light, Oceans, Optics, Physics, Science, Video

Surfing the Quantum Waves

February 02, 2015 / aberenbach

We may live in a holographic simulation. Everything that can be conceived of must exist somewhere in the universe. There's this cat, you see, in this box that's both dead and alive, man. Dead and alive.

s much as I love the mind-bending ideas of scientific conjecture, sometimes the use of these ideas rankle my common sense. Especially when ideas like the quirks of quantum theory are accidentally or, even worse, purposefully misinterpreted and the model of the universe science is trying to build is mistaken for the actual thing

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categories / Physics, Science
tags / Aaron, Don, Physics, Ron Diefler

Entropy, Eggs, and Energy

January 26, 2015 / Don Riefler

I 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.

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categories / Biochemistry, Chemistry, Cooking, Energy, Entropy, Physics, Science, Thermodynamics
tags / Biochemistry, Chemistry, Cooking, Don, Eggs, Energy, Entropy, Heat, Physics, Protein, Science, Thermodynamics

Constant Science: Minute Chemistry Part 1 (of 23.6)

January 19, 2015 / Don Riefler

Well, 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!

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categories / Constant Science, Science, Video
tags / Chemistry, Constant Science, Don, Elements, Minute Chemistry, Periodic Table, Video

Man of Random Science: The Power of Performance

January 05, 2015 / Don Riefler

Happy 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?

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categories / Science
tags / Don, Media, Performance, Science

Constant Science: Don's Best of 2014

December 30, 2014 / Don Riefler

Last 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.

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categories / Astronomy, Chemistry, Constant Science, Medicine, Science, Space Exploration, Video
tags / Astronomy, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Constant Science, Curiosity, Don, Mars, Medicine, Science, Vantablack, Video

All About That Numerical Base

December 22, 2014 / Don Riefler

Happy 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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categories / Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Math, Science
tags / Anthropology, Archaeology, Don, History, Math, Science

Constant Science: Data by Disney

December 15, 2014 / Don Riefler

Happy Monday, people! Sorry I missed last week; life got in the way, but Aaron made up for it with a great take on science-themed webcomics (Link mildly NSFW). Today I bring you a quick lesson in a common fallacy in reasoning that prevents you from thinking scientifically: cherry picking your data. I decided to use pop culture as my point of reference instead of something overly technical and, well, I think it works pretty well. See for yourself by clicking through.

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categories / Constant Science, Critical Thinking, Philosophy, Science, Video
tags / Beauty and the Beast, Constant Science, Critical Thinking, Disney, Don, Science, Snow White, Video

Constant Science: It's Elementary

December 02, 2014 / Don Riefler

Today on Constant Science I decided to talk about chemistry. In all honestly it's odd that it's taken us this long to get around to it because a lot of what we do is chemistry. Fire and explosions? Straight-up chemistry. Some nice chemical reactions with an attendant release of excess energy as the atoms switch themselves up, forming new compounds.

In the video I only go into the very basics of chemistry and what chemicals are; things get way more complicated than that but you gotta start somewhere. Click through to watch!

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categories / Chemistry, Constant Science, Media, Science, Video
tags / Banana, Chemistry, Constant Science, Don, Media, Periodic Table, Video, Vlog

Why Science?

November 24, 2014 / Don Riefler

Not that long ago, I had a kid ask me what my favorite thing about science was. I had to think about it for a minute. I mean, it's not an easy question. Science put humans on the moon and has shown us the depths of time and space. With a little applied chemistry, you can create all sorts of spectacular and safe (for us professionals, anyway) pyrotechnics. Hell, science gave us the technology to create Fallout 3.

After consideration, though, I gave him the answer "My favorite thing about science is that, when I think like a scientist, I'm better at knowing true things from false things." That may seem self-explanatory, but I think it bears a bit of unpacking.

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categories / Philosophy, Physics, Science
tags / Don, Einstein, Newton, Philosophy, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Science

Constant Science: The Dreaded Bed of Nails!

November 03, 2014 / Don Riefler

So I didn't have a lot of time this week to put together a new vlog covering some sweet new content. Instead I have pulled another bit from our full-length show "Don't Try This at Home," which you can watch in its entirety on our Performances page. In this clip, Aaron faces my wrath as I wield my mighty sledgehammer. After trapping him between two beds of nails. With a cinderblock on top. This is a classic demonstration of the sometimes counterintuitive nature of physics and energy transfer, but like everything we do we do it up. We bring a flair and style to this demo that you'll rarely, if ever, find elsewhere. And so far I haven't killed Aaron.

So far.

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categories / Constant Science, Media, Physics, Science, Video
tags / Aaron, Bed of Nails, Constant Science, Dangerous, Don, Funny, Media, Performance, Science, Science Demo, Show Clip, Video, YouTube

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