Those who know me personally know that I’m a huge science nerd. I love science. I probably inherited this feature from my father, who was also a science nut, math genius, and notable software engineer. Even though I live overseas in Denmark, I subscribe to Science News magazine, a weekly magazine that summarizes and highlights recent scientific discoveries that have been published in various science periodicals.
One of the coolest things about the natural sciences is that new stuff is being discovered all the time. In all fields. Biology. Chemistry. Math. Cosmology. Physics. Just when you think there’s nothing new to be learned, maybe only refinements or tweaking of existing theories, something brand new pops up that rocks the foundation of a given field. For example, in the field of cosmology, there is this article about “dark energy”, which, really, just makes no sense in my head. Trying to understand how and why the universe exists is daunting at best.
I majored in Biology at Harvey Mudd College, with emphasis on marine ecology. Together with my professor, I was co-published in the journal Marine Biology, back in 1997. “Genetic relationships within and between clonal and solitary forms of the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima revisited: evidence for the existence of two species.” And I was only an undergrad. Pretty cool.
Anyway, I’ve been a fairly avid reader of Olivia Judson column in the New York Times. She is a total science geek, but her writing puts science within reach of just about anybody. Recently, she posted this article about “bdelloids“. (No, that is not a typo. The “b” is silent.)
It reminded me of my studies from way back when, on those sea anenomes, where sometimes they reproduce asexually, and sometimes sexually. Weird, but true.
For more cool science stuff, check out Paul Doherty’s blog. Paul is the senior scientist at the Explorartorium in San Francisco. A great museum! (I worked there as an Explainer in high school, but hey, I’m not biased.)
