gifts
sastyk | December 17, 2009The second night of Chanukah, my sons got clothes from their great aunt, which they received politely but unenthusiastically. As we were heading to bed that night, after a late night at our synagogue's annual Chanukah party, six year old Isaiah asked me "Mommy, will tomorrow night be another clothes present night?" When I told him I suspected not, since the next night's gift would come from Grandma, who likes to give toys, he sighed and said "It is ok if there's clothes, but I just needed to be ready for them." It can be tough to have good manners when you are little. We expect the kids…
grrlscientist | December 15, 2009tags: peer-reviewed paper, psychology, gift wrapping, wrapping paper, behavior, holidays, holidaze
Besides bright lights, my favorite thing about the holidays is wrapping gifts. I love covering a boxed gift with colored papers (or even with plain brown paper bags), I get tremendous satisfaction from folding the paper so it makes precise corners and then I especially enjoy decorating the wrapped gift with bows, ribbons and toy flowers and birds, christmas ornaments or other decorations. I also enjoy figuring out how to wrap unusually shaped objects. However, my most favorite thing to do is…
grrlscientist | December 4, 2008tags: peer-reviewed paper, psychology, gift wrapping, wrapping paper, behavior, holidays, holidaze
Besides bright lights, my favorite thing about the holidays is wrapping gifts. I love covering a boxed gift with colored papers (or even with plain brown paper bags), I get tremendous satisfaction from folding the paper so it makes precise corners and then I especially enjoy decorating the wrapped gift with bows, ribbons and toy flowers and birds, christmas ornaments or other decorations. I also enjoy figuring out how to wrap unusually shaped objects. However, my most favorite thing to do is…
grrlscientist | December 25, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, psychology, gift wrapping, wrapping paper, behavior, holidays, holidaze
Besides bright lights, my favorite thing about the holidays is wrapping gifts. I love covering a boxed gift with colored papers (or even with plain brown paper bags), I get tremendous satisfaction from folding the paper so it makes precise corners and then I especially enjoy decorating the wrapped gift with bows, ribbons and toy flowers and birds, christmas ornaments or other decorations. I also enjoy figuring out how to wrap unusually shaped objects. However, my most favorite thing to do…
grrlscientist | December 17, 2007
Image: Philadelphia City Paper
You only have one week left before Christmas eve arrives, so I assume that you might be getting ready to panic and spend your hard-earned money on just anything, so you can say you gave your loved ones gifts. So I thought I'd help you spend your money wisely by compiling a list of holiday gift ideas based on clever and much-appreciated gifts that my readers have given me throughout the year as well as some gift ideas that I've used in the past.
DVDs;
The Life of Birds: A must-have for kids and adults who are interested in birds. I also recommend this series…
sporte | December 8, 2007Lots of new and curious gift selections are available this year for those of you who had a dog or know a dog owner. All kinds of interesting doggie presents are showing up, like doggie DNA tests and special nutrigenomic doggy diets.
And of course, nothing tops the gift of fake testicles for the dog who's never quite recovered from the big operation.
It's true, the Bleiman brothers were the first to bring up the idea of presents for pets by suggesting the kitty toilet trainer as a holiday gift. Really, though, is that kind of gift that you give to the cat? or the owner?
I just don't think…
sporte | December 6, 2007or E. coli, or perhaps a little Giardia (just to loosen things up, of course), or maybe even Herpes.
All these scary pathogens become works of art, when Infectious Awareables puts the images on neckties.
And what could be funnier than a pair of boxer shorts full of Gonorrhea?
sporte | December 5, 2007Do you wonder what the SciBlings drool over during the holiday season?
Here are some gift ideas from Janet, Shelley, Greg, Ed, Mo, the Bleimans, and me.
And you can probably guess what Steve suggests.
awild | December 1, 2007PZ Myers gives an excellent holiday gift suggestion for aspiring scientists: a microscope.
To fully appreciate the small animals around us, they must be visualized on their own scale. For the uninitiated, the first glance of live insects through a microscope can be shocking. My favorite description comes from myrmecologist Deby Cassill, recalling her introduction to fire ants:
"Unexpectedly, a whole new world exploded into view. It was as though I had been yanked off the stool, sucked through the scope, and plunked smack-dab in the middle of a city teeming with the most beautiful glass-…
sporte | December 1, 2007The grocery store magazine covers all say that home made gifts are big this year. So I thought, some of you might like to channel your inner Martha Stewart and make gifts with a science theme.
I'm here to help to you make a merry mug with one of our favorite molecules. Yep, we're talking caffeine.
1. First, we'll go to PubChem at the NCBI. It's not an exclusive (or even last) resort but there are lots of fancy molecules hanging around, just waiting to be discovered and put onto drinking containers.
2. Now, we'll look for a molecule. I'm going to use caffeine for this example since I…