Science

My elephant’s drug dealer.

/ Andrew Tanner, PhD / 3 Comments

I’ve never done LSD.  It’s not that I haven’t had the time, it’s just I’ve never really had a desire to have hallucinations.  I have enough trouble keeping track of what size bed sheets I need to buy.  I am pretty sure auditory and visual hallucinations would just induce me to buy extra king sized sheets for my queen sized bed.

Despite my reluctance, there is definitely a market for psychedelic drugs.  There is even a recent trend to write articles about how taking low doses of LSD might enhance work performance, make you more creative, and save your marriage.  To be perfectly honest Continue reading →

Looking for life in all the wrong places.

/ Andrew Tanner, PhD / 3 Comments

Being boiled alive has never seemed like an exciting activity to me.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good cup of boiled water (tea leaves preferably included) I would just rather not be immersed in it.  It has a remarkably negative impact on human life expectancy, because we just aren’t built to withstand temperatures of 212ºF (100ºC).  I’ve also got to believe, that awareness of the safety hazard of very hot substances, is far from a recent development.  One has to imagine that shortly after fire was discovered, some one to two million years ago, that it was followed by the discovery of stop, drop, and roll.

Boiling bacteria on the other hand, was a largely unconsidered endeavour until much later.  Antonie von Leeuwenhoek learned that such things existed back in the late 1600’s when he was busy Continue reading →