Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rupicapra rupicapra When you hear the word chamois (which I pronounce “shammy” without a clue as to how correct that is), what do you think of? A leatherlike absorbent cloth that dries your car whilst you wring it out over and over? A pair of padded bicycle shorts necessary for comfort on long distance rides?Continue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 19 of 63”

The Color Blue Most people today can describe the color blue (it happens to be my favorite) and have incorporated it into their daily expressions: a blue sky, the deep blue sea, blue jeans, etc. So it came as a surprise to me when I read that many ancient cultures had no separate word forContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 18 of 63”

The Sleeper Must Awaken Although I normally avoid reviews of things on my blog as much as possible, today’s post is sort of a review on the new Dune movie. I’ll cut to the chase and say it’s definitely worth watching, but if you read the book first you’ll get so much more out ofContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 17 of 63”

The Uncertainty Principle In the 1920s a scientist and mathematician named Heisenberg began publishing work on a concept that has become central to our understanding of quantum mechanics. It is the notion that we can never know with absolute accuracy the position and momentum of a particle. This concept flew in the face of classicalContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 16 of 63”

Telling a Captivating Story One of the ways I’m trying to improve is in my storytelling. Anyone can tell a story, and to some people it comes quite naturally, but telling a story that people engage on, are moved by, and remember is something altogether different. A couple of good, quick points of advice IContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 15 of 63”

The Ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and Future Halloween is admittedly one of my favorite holidays. As a youngster I gravitated toward T-shirts with skulls and other “scary” designs (much to my mother’s chagrin), and I loved horror films and candy. So of course I enjoyed the one day of the year when all theseContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 14 of 63”

Pumpkin Power ‘Tis the season to argue about whether pumpkin spice-flavored foods like lattes are delicious or gross. People seem to either love them or hate them with nobody on the fence about it. But there’s one thing that can’t be denied: Pumpkin (the fruit itself, not the flavoring) is packed with health benefits andContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 13 of 63”

Doing It Exactly Wrong The quote “When you do something exactly wrong, it always turns up something,” is attributed to the artist Andy Warhol, and I find it intriguing. Obviously the “wrong” in this quote does not mean morally or ethically wrong, and it doesn’t necessarily mean incorrectly either. It’s something I’ve found difficult toContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 12 of 63”

(Prehistoric) Life Imitates Art Remember the movie Jurassic Park, where scientists take dinosaur DNA preserved in amber and splice it with other animal DNA to re-introduce dinosaurs to Earth? Some scientists are now working on doing just that, not with dinosaurs but with wooly mammoths, with a plan to use CRISPR technology and an artificialContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 11 of 63”

The Biggest Living Thing What is the Earth’s largest living organism by mass, currently? If you didn’t know, you might picture a mammal such as a blue whale or an elephant. Or you may imagine a large single tree such as a giant sequoia. The truth is it’s a clonal colony of quaking aspen (PopulusContinue reading “The Neurocycle: Day 10 of 63”