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An Ancient Memory Technique Still Puzzles Scientists

12 Jan 2024

Spend enough time watching fictional geniuses on television and you will undoubtedly see the trope of the mind palace. Brainiacs, we are told, have mind palaces, ornate libraries that live solely...

Faraday, Dickens and Lighthouses

22 Dec 2023

I have a longstanding fascination with Victorian arts and sciences. It was the era when Darwin published the “Origin of the Species,” Perkin synthesized dyes, Lister introduced antiseptic surgery,...

Going Bananas

8 Dec 2023

Once upon a time, there was a banana plant. This banana plant lived in an English estate in the 1830s, and was named “the Cavendish”, after the Cavendish Family who lived on this estate.

A Hundred Years Ago Life Changed for Diabetics

22 Nov 2023

November 26th marks the 100th anniversary of a splendid dinner held at the University of Toronto to recognize perhaps the greatest Canadian achievement in science. A few weeks earlier, the Nobel...

DMSO Is Not a Cure-All. But the FDA’s Panic Over It Birthed a Myth.

17 Nov 2023

Imagine a drug so powerful, your government didn’t want you to have it. Now, add the claim that this drug is all natural (it’s not) and that people report it cured them of any ailment you can think...

A Houdini Low Point

27 Oct 2023

National Magic Day is celebrated annually on October 31st in memory of Harry Houdini who passed away on that day in 1926.

Not A Laughing Matter

25 Oct 2023

When I was growing up, “looning” meant one thing. You would fill a balloon with water and throw it at a target that usually did not welcome such activity. Today, “looning” has taken on another...

We Used to Look Older

20 Oct 2023

It apparently started with a tweet.

Can the Problems of the Future be Solved with Technology from the Past?

6 Oct 2023

Electric cars are often portrayed as an invention created to solve the issue of pollution generated from the exhaust emission of gasoline cars, but the electric car has been around the block before...

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