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Cops and Donuts
Posted by Dr. Science on 04/05/2013
Is there a scientific basis for the affinity that law enforcement officers have for donuts?
———- from Peter Diggs of San Francisco, CA
There is and it lies in the criminal nature of pastry. Being toroidal in shape, donuts are the culinary equivalent of a snake eating its own tail, a perpetual motion machine, if you will. This violates the laws of Thermodynamics and any cop worth his badge has a gut feeling whenever a law is broken. So the next time you enter a donut shop and see a policeman chowing down on a baker’s dozen, keep a respectful distance. He’s risking his cardiovascular system to serve and protect.
Gold and Neutrinos
Posted by Dr. Science on 04/03/2013
What effect does bombarding gold with neutrinos have?
———- from Rishi Rakhit of New Dehli, India
It really irritates the gold, corroding it. One of the things that causes people to prize gold in the first place is its incorruptibility. Gold corrupts others but it itself remains uncorrupted. In that way, neutrinos can be seen as bad company or a constant stream of temptations that eventually override even the most vigilant conscience. Gold that has fallen from the moral highground eventually disintegrates into fool’s gold, which then is sold in tourist shops for ridiculous prices. So the spiral of evil all begins with the neutral little neutrino.
Free Electricity
Posted by Dr. Science on 04/01/2013
Why can’t I take electrical energy, run it through a transformer, and continue to create electricity for free?
———- from Joe Price of Honolulu, HI
You could, but you’d risk being punished by the Underwriter’s Laboratory Police. These agents, often disguised as a little guy with jagged arms and legs and a lightbulb for a head, lurk around in our basements just waiting for someone to try to violate the First Law of Thermodynamics. Punishment is swift and certain. Imagine having electrodes attached to your nostrils and toes, and then wired to a sine wave generator cranking fifty amps. No, it’s best to play by the rules, unless your idea of a good time is twitching like a frog leg.
The Truth About Hydroponics
Posted by Dr. Science on 03/29/2013
Can you tell me the history and importance of hydroponics?
———- from Estelle Assad of Fairfield, IA
Hydroponics has a lurid and shameful past, one I would be delighted to sharewith you. As anyone who lived through the seventies will remember, manypeople sought to escape the harsh reality of the workplace by hiding intheir basements and growing certain plants under “grow lights”, those longfluorescent tubes which DEA agents can easily identify through drawn shades.These plants stewed in a concoction of nutrients and hormones which were amuch guarded trade secret of their growers. Most of those self-employedtypes are now incarcerated, or working in the fast food industry.
Boiling Eggs
Posted by Dr. Science on 03/27/2013
All my life, I’ve heard that when a liquid is heated it changes into a gas. When we boil an egg, however, it solidifies. Why is this?
———- from Siddiqui Mohammed of Cairo, Egypt
