Edward Willett's Blog, page 73

The uselessness of celebrity endorsements

I don't have much use for celebrity endorsements of, well, anything.

Oh, sure, it's conceivable you could be a talented entertainer and also have an informed, thoughtful opinion that adds more light than heat to the debate surrounding a contentious issue, but just because something is possible it doesn't mean it's likely. And let's face it, the mere fact you're pretty good at pretending to be somebody else in front of a camera does not give you any special insight the rest of us lack.

I also...

Terra Insegura on recommended book list for Australia's MS Readathon Novel Challenge

[image error]I have no idea if this is a big deal or not and I frankly can't imagine how my book ended up on it, but ego-Googling popped this up today: Terra Insegura is one of 10 books on the "Buff Your Brain" recommended reading list for the "Novel Challenge" fundraising effort of MS Australia.

Someone in the organization must have liked it!

The ebb and flow of curvy cars

In the 1940s and 1950s, cars had curves. From the 1960s through the 1980s, they tended to have sharp angles. But since then, they've tended more toward the curvy again…although I'm seeing signs of angularity one more.

Have you ever wondered why?

A German researcher at the University of Bamberg with the unlikely-yet-oddly-appropriate name of Claus-Christian Carbon did, and the results of his study were recently published in the journal Acta Psychologica under the title "The cycle of preference...

Wooden bones

It's easy to not think very much about your bones. After all, they're securely hidden away inside your body; not visible, except as hard lumps beneath your skin.

Funny thing, though: once you break one, it's hard to think about anything else.

When first I wrote about bones, back in a 1993 instalment of this column, I told the story of my own broken-bone experience, for which I blame my big brother, Dwight (mainly because it was his fault).

I was seven years old and he was 12. We were both...

Spring issue of Fine Lifestyles Regina now online

The Spring 2010 issue of Fine Lifestyles Regina, the local magazine I edit, is now online. There are always things you can improve, especially in a magazine that's more than 200 pages, but I think it's our best one yet.

On the cover of this one: Paul and Carol Hill. Paul Hill's company, which is over a century old, has been an integral part of Regina's development from the beginning, when his grandfather and an associate sold the government the land on which the Legislative Building now sits. ...

The Mpemba Effect

For all that we know about the physical world, there are a few phenomena that, though seemingly simple, continue to baffle us.

And one of the most baffling is the Mpemba Effect.

You may not know it by that name—I didn't until I read an article on New Scientist's website last week—but you've probably heard about it. Heck, you may even have gotten in an argument about it.

The Mpemba Effect is the proper name of the counterintuitive fact that sometimes hot water freezes faster than cold water.

As...

Morally malignant magnets

One of the things that distinguishes humans from animals is moral judgment, our ability to judge other people's actions in terms of our own sense of right and wrong.

Our moral judgment feels so integral to who we are, so much a part of our personality, that it's a bit disturbing to discover, as MIT researchers reported this week, that it can be disrupted by magnets.

Rebecca Saxe, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, has focused her research on social cognition: how we ...

My speech to the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association AGM

Here is (more or less, since I didn't read it word for word) the speech I gave today at the Past Presidents' Luncheon that closed off the 100th Annual General Meeting of the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association:

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First, I'd like to thank you very much for asking me to be your guest speaker at today's Past President's Luncheon. It's a great honour, and it's certainly made for a memorable launch of Land Surveying in Saskatchewan: Laying the Groundwork for Property Rights and Development...

A writing update: one book launches, one moves toward publication, one waits in the wings

It's been a busy week, writing-wise. My latest adult nonfiction book, with the admittedly not-very-sexy title of Land Surveying in Saskatchewan: Laying the Groundwork for Property Rights and Development, has now been released by the Saskatchewan Land Surveyor's Association. The release coincides with the SLSA's annual general meeting (at which I'll be making a speech tomorrow for the Past President's Luncheon), and the launch was held at Government House with the Lieutenant-Governor of...

A half-billion years of irritation

Just a couple of years ago, I wrote a column about the advent of tearless onions that included some background on why onions make us cry in the first place. Ordinarily I wouldn't revisit a topic quite so soon, but you know how it is with science: things change fast, and just this week there was breaking news in the field of onion-induced tears.

Well, as breaking as any news can be when it deals with something that's been around for half a billion years.

Onions have always made humans cry, or...