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December 25th, 2008

Santa said :

Merry Christmas!

April 19th, 2008

mcbealer said :

congratulations on the greeting contest :0)

February 8th, 2008

surlygirl said :

ahh. if only i had put a little more thought into asking my question! i’m not particularly interested in an exotic pet. i just thought they were cute. and i’m mildly allergic to dogs and quite allergic to cats, so something a little less furry was appealing.

Questions

• July 22nd, 2008

  Where to watch the Tour de France in NYC?

  Great Question (1)
• July 13th, 2008

  How does one turn off the engine after hotwiring a car?

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• June 25th, 2008

  29 going on 30? Whence does this expression originate?

  Great Question (1)
• June 17th, 2008

  Grammar question: When to use "a" instead of "an"?

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• June 13th, 2008

  Is this a racist term?

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Answers

• 1 month ago

  Does your life have a custom built in soundtrack?

  “Shine It” by Medeski Martin and Wood. Nonstop.
  Great Answer (0)
• June 20th, 2009

  Wouldn't it make more sense to be dark-skinned in cold climates and light-skinned in hot ones?

  @walterallenhaxton don’t you mean, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution?” (Theodosius Dobzhansky)
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• June 14th, 2009

  Wouldn't it make more sense to be dark-skinned in cold climates and light-skinned in hot ones?

  @Fyrius: Change in height across the last few centuries is really more of an issue of modern nutrition. Turkana Boy and others are of so-called modern stature, so there has not been an “evolution” of height in recent times, as is my understanding. I don’t know enough about the changes in hearing frequencies and changes in peripheral vision to discuss those topics at length with you, but I am curious. It’s not really possible to extrapolate what the hearing frequencies of early hominins would have been, since (1) they aren’t around to test, and (2) soft tissue and ossicles of the ear don’t generally fossilize, so we can’t run any cool tests a la von Bekesy. What I do know about the range of human hearing is that it spans from about 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz (but generally most sensitive to sounds between 1 and 4 kilohertz). Cool factoid: humans can hear at such soft sound intensities (decibels, or dB SPL), that the lowest intensity we can detect is just a hair louder than the sound given off by Brownian Motion.
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• June 14th, 2009

  Wouldn't it make more sense to be dark-skinned in cold climates and light-skinned in hot ones?

  Actually, it has a great deal to do with surface area to volume ratios. Those who live in hotter climates close to the equator tend to be tall with long arms and legs, thereby facilitating the release of heat. Those who live farther away from the equator and closer to the poles tend to be shorter and stockier, and can better keep heat in. Skin color does have to do with sun exposure on many levels, and a high SA:Volume ratio mitigates the heat dissipation/retention problem. Check out cool concepts like Bergmann’s Rule and Allen’s Rule.
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• June 11th, 2009

  What about new suggestions for this summer's reading?

  Hi Gail, long time no post. I would highly recommend Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything. Very good read. I might also recommend anything by John Irving for a taste of the perverse. I did just read World War Z, which is an oral history of the Zombie War – kind of a more modern War of the Worlds, told in narrative form. If you’re going for a more non-fiction route, I might read Your Inner Fish, What the Nose Knows, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, or The Making of the Atomic Bomb. For fiction I would try Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and of course, one of my favorites, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. Happy reading!
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