Your dog can actually eat a little bit of chocolate, but if they eat about an ounce of milk chocolate per kilogram of body weight or as little as a couple of mouthfuls of cocoa mulch, there will be trouble. Read more…

In 2007, Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard University, published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the effect of social networks on the prevalence of obesity. I recently came across this study online, through links in a post by a friend, and revisited the results of the study. You can view a 3-minute interview with Dr. Christakis about his study and findings here.

After watching this interview and looking over Dr. Christakis’ website, I composed this email to him: Read more…

On Monday, December 29, the opera will air at 9 pm on Channel 13 -WNET as part of the Great Performances series.

Act Two of Doctor Atomic careens toward apprehension and anguish while a storm rages and delays the test. It opens with Kitty Oppenheimer drinking wine while her Pueblo Indian maid sings a lullaby about preserving the earth. The bomb lurks above, behind are mountains draped in cloth. Blossoms and lightning, sings the maid in her contralto, blossoms and lightning.

Meanwhile, the scientists are terribly jittery. Read more…

A week from today, the opera Dr. Atomic will air on Channel 13 - WNET as part of the Great Performances series. I saw the opera during an HD broadcast in a theatre and reviewed the first Act posted on November 25.

Here are my thoughts on the mini-doc we saw during Intermission:

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Virgin Galactic is on-track and doing very well; the WhiteKnightTwo is still slated to complete a test flight before Christmas. So why is George Whitesides, the Senior Advisor, taking a temp position? Read more…

This last week the Supreme Court has been hearing the case of Entergy v. Riverkeeper, which in layman’s terms boils down to Power Plants v. Fish, or, as always, The Bush Administration v. Environmentalists. Read more…

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a new technology striding towards drastically improving the lives of people living with a disability that hinders independent communication. Strokes and neurological diseases like Lou Gehrigs and Cerebral Palsy can result in what is called ‘locked in syndrome’, where the mind is intact but the body is significantly paralyzed. BCI technology, which refers to a device that picks up braings signals and transmits that information to a computer, can serve as the key for those locked in.

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Wall Street is in more than a slump–dare I say, it seems impotent. The question is, can the space industry fly while the market is crashing? The answer is…well, it’s debatable. Read more…

Talia: Please tell me about yourself… for example, what sparked your interest in engineering, and how did you become the Vice Dean of the Engineering School at Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá, Colombia? Read more…

Este texto lo escribí un día mientras le estaba dando biberón a mi pequeñita hija Jania, entonces de 8 meses y me sorprendió el destello que en sus ojos provocó una luz, producto del reflejo de una chispa en el transformador de la calle. Su pupila y su iris se extendían y se contraían al unísono durante dos o tres segundos. Ese hecho, tan síncrono y homegeneo me recordó lo que acaba yo de leer sobre el Premio Nobel de Fisica del 2001.

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