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Scienceblogs is promoting the writing of "Science 101" general topic posts all through the "back to school" month of September. So, here is the first in a multi-part series on Heat Capacity in Biology:
Heat Capacity in Biology 101: What is it?
Heat capacity is basically a proportionality constant…
Like addicts, we would love to stick to what is easy, familiar, and dependable. The withering consequences of our actions, abstracted to an intangible future, are easy to deny. Prominent politicians say that global warming is a fantasy, that we can keep doing what we're doing, that everything will…
There's an interesting evolutionary psychology paper in the new Nature. It's by Tooby and Cosmides, and it investigates the roots of the incest taboo. The researchers found that, on average, our repulsion at the idea of having sex with a sibling correlates with two variables: how long we lived with…
When I was reviewing the paper on skin color and ethnic ancestry a few days ago I saw a peculiar figure in a related paper which I thought I would highlight. The paper is Skin pigmentation, biogeographical ancestry and admixture mapping. The samples were 232 African and African-American…
Thanks Bora. Hot enough for you? (sorry,it's a Southern thing to ask).
Even the water in the pool is too hot!
I followed the link, and after reading the explanation, I still think the heat index is bogus. I see the point in trying to indicate that heat with high humidity makes it hard for people to cool themselves when they exert themselves physically, but assigning an actual number to that effect is ridiculous. Calling it the "feels like" temperature is even worse, because 95 degrees does not feel like 100 degrees in any case. Here's an experiment. Take a day when the actual temperature is something like 85 and the heat index is in the 90s. Set your house thermostat to the heat index (let's say 95) and sit on your front porch in the shade until the heat goes off. Then go inside and see if it feels the same as it did outside. This happens to be one of my pet peeves, as you can probably tell.