Something has been pulling the fake flowers off of our hummingbird feeder. Raccoons are the primary suspect. Hummingbirds don't seem strong enough, and don't need to tug at petals to feed. Also, the vandalism occurs overnight. Oh yeah, and there are the incriminating raccoon paw prints all around the feeder. Seemed pretty cut and dry. But then a headline about how "some hummingbirds are flower robbers" caught my eye. Maybe hummingbirds do engage in more than nectar sipping. … [Read more...] about Science Corner: It *IS* a question of where he grips it!
Science and Faith
Science Corner: You’ll Kill More S. aureus with Honey AND Vinegar
Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow. - Men in Black In the film, Tommy Lee Jones' Kay wants to make Will Smith's Jay consider what else he might be wrong about (beyond the existence of aliens). In doing so, Kay reinforces two related ideas: knowledge only ever accumulates, and by extension those who came … [Read more...] about Science Corner: You’ll Kill More S. aureus with Honey AND Vinegar
Science Corner: Weltraumgötterdämmerung
This summer's installment of "If you don't teach your kids theology, Marvel Studios will" comes in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Sure, it's not a Scorsesian theological treatise. At times it felt very much like a roller coaster ride--an impression helped along by the fact that just a month ago I was riding an actual Guardians of the Galaxy coaster with filmed story elements featuring the same cast. But every now and again, this technicolor space opera takes a breath between virtuosic cadenzas of violence … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Weltraumgötterdämmerung
Science Corner: Seeing Infrared
Telescopes have been troublemakers for centuries. They've revealed that the Earth is not the center of the universe, not even the center of the solar system. They showed us our sun was just one of many stars in our galaxy, then showed us our galaxy is just one of many in the universe. They provided the evidence that the universe is expanding, which in turn implied the beginning of the universe in the Big Bang. Now the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is adding wrinkles to our understanding of how those galaxies formed … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Seeing Infrared
Science Corner: Finding the Proteins of Theseus
Last month we mentioned the challenges of studying blue whales in a laboratory setting. If we want to know what a particular gene or protein does in an animal that large, we often have to rely on inference based on what a comparable gene or protein does in an animal we can study more readily like a mouse. And how do we know which protein is comparable--or homologous, to use the more technical term? Typically the search for homologous proteins starts with a sequence similarity scan, a check of an entire library of … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Finding the Proteins of Theseus