Science In Action

Fire Alarm: Global Warming and Wildfires

Fires Increase Due To Global Temperature Rise While everybody talks about the threat posed by stronger hurricanes due to global warming (see this earlier post ), the greater danger in the American West is from increased number and severity of forest fires. (Fires are likely to increase in other regions as well: Australia, the Mediterranean basin, and so forth.) The increase in temperature (0.9 degrees C over recent decades) is primarily responsible for the significant increase in wildfires in

Do Cow Farts Cause Global Warming?

Bovine Flatulence--Threat or Menace? Cows can digest things we can't, especially including the cellulose in grass and grain. They do this by maintaining cultures of microorganisms in their complicated series of "stomachs" that can break down cellulose. The cows then digest the microbes and the sugars and fatty acids they produce. (Brief overview of ruminant digestion here. If you are interested in delving into the digestive physiology of ruminants in more detail, start here.) Some of these mic

Periodic Table of Videos

The Periodic Table of the Elements compresses an amazing amount of information into 118 boxes, one for each chemical element. The most stunning revelation of the table is the regularity of patterns formed by the similar properties of elements in each group (column), which has come to be explained by the quantum structure of the electron clouds around atoms of each element. More about the table here (Wikipedia). Unfortunately the periodic table can be a bit dry and boring. So much information!