Category Archives: Technology, science, and math

From the “You kids don’t know what it was like!” files: Studying on your laptop is so 2007. A group of biology students at Houston Community College’s southeast campus just turns on iPhones. “Instead of bringing your book to class, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

See here and here. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to duck and cover. Let us all hope that this isn’t a prelude to this: Look to the sky! Continue reading →

Very cool. Engineers have long lived by a simple, seemingly obvious rule when designing new computers: The machines have to deliver correct answers. If asked to compute two plus two, a computer should answer four. But what if computers didn’t … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A common refrain I hear from scientists when another political controversy over the teaching of evolution arises is that they need to do a better job of explaining what they do and why it matters. Well, when the scientists get … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Consider this to be a data point in the ongoing debate over a potential statewide smoking ban in bars, restaurants, and other indoor workplaces. A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations … Continue reading → Continue reading →

My post on e-waste recycling drew an interesting comment from Zac Trahan, Houston Program Director for Texas Campaign for the Environment that I thought was worth sharing on the front page: You are correct — municipal governments throughout Texas do … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve been aware of the issue for some time now, but it seems to me that this Chron story about electronic waste recycling fails to explore a pretty basic question. It’s Christmas morning, and there beneath the tree was your … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal reports some bad news for supporters of Net Neutrality. The celebrated openness of the Internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

That’s not too much to ask, is it? it would make them very happy, and would be good for everyone who benefits from the sound application of scientific principles. Which is to say, all of us. The verdict from Texas … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Time for some math news: Researchers at UCLA have discovered a new Mersenne prime number. UCLA mathematicians appear to have won a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for discovering a 13-million-digit prime number that has long been sought … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Olivia and I had the opportunity to attend an opening night event for the Dinosaur Mummy exhibit at the Houston Musuem of Natural Science, which was rescheduled after Hurricane Ike. That’s her in the kids’ “Dig for Dinosaur Bones” area, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Houston Musuem of Natural Science was scheduled to open its Dinosaur Mummy exhibit last Friday. For obvious reasons, that didn’t happen. Now it’s been rescheduled for this Friday, September 26, and it still sounds really cool. I’ll be taking … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Time for something a little bit lighter as Ike bears down on the coast. This sounds way cool. The Houston Museum of Natural Science, in association with the Judith River Foundation, will develop and tour a world premiere exhibition featuring … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Science marches ever onward. Long the stuff of fantasy, practical invisibility shields have been brought a step closer to reality by researchers who say they have engineered materials that can hide an object by bending ordinary light like balloon animals … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I don’t think it had ever occurred to me that you couldn’t send a text message to 9-1-1, but then that’s because it hadn’t occurred to me that you might want to. They’re working on it, however, and you will … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Dwight expresses his loathing of voice mail, then admits it’s not going anywhere: In companies where technology is a means rather than the end, voice mail is alive and well. People reach for a phone when they want to have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Houston icon Dr. Michael DeBakey has died at the age of 99. Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, internationally acclaimed as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery — and considered by many to be the greatest surgeon ever — died Friday night … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Rice University chemistry professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Curl is retiring from the classroom today. Robert Curl never sought the limelight that accompanied the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he won a dozen years ago. In his quiet way, Curl simply … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Well, this is a relief. The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The celestial body formerly known as a planet Pluto gets an upgrade. Pluto is finally getting its day in the sun, after being stripped of planetary status by astronomers two years ago. From now on all similar distant bodies in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

13th Floor contemplates the death of Philadelphia’s municipal WiFi service and wonders if there might be a better way to deliver the same thing. Sipping my coffee and tapping out e-mails at Powell’s Books, I couldn’t help thinking about a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Get ready for another fight over how we teach kids. After feuding for months over how to teach schoolchildren to read, the State Board of Education soon will shift to a topic that could become more controversial — the science … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As someone with a degree in – and a love of – math, I’m always interested in stories about better ways to teach math to kids. “Most people can’t imagine a ‘beautiful proof’ or an ‘elegant theorem,’ but in fact, … Continue reading → Continue reading →