Science in Prison and more...

Quirks and Quarks

10 years ago we first saw gravitational waves — what we’ve seen since

In September 2015, LIGO—or Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory—captured the ripples in spacetime produced by the cataclysmic merger of two black holes, from over a billion light years away. This discovery confirmed Einstein’s hypothesis about gravitational waves and gave astronomers a new way to explore the cosmos. In the decade since, LIGO’s scientific team, including physicist Nergis Mavalvala, has been busy, including new results announced this week confirming a 50-year-old prediction by Stephen Hawking about how black holes merge. Mavalvala is the dean of the school of science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The latest discovery was reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

What wild killer whales sharing food with humans says about their intelligence

After an experience of being offered a recently killed seabird by an Orca, cetologist Jared Towers decided to document other instances of killer whales approaching humans to share a snack. Towers, the executive director of the marine research nonprofit Bay Cetology, found dozens of examples of this behaviour. It’s a perhaps unique example of a wild creature sharing food with humans for its own diversion and curiosity. The research was published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Sweat science — This research really was 90% perspiration

While the biology of perspiration is relatively well understood, the physical process by which water excreted from our skin cools us is not. This motivated engineer Konrad Rykaczewski to strap himself into a specialized full-body, tube-filled suit to observe how water emerges from sweat glands over the skin. Rykaczewski, a thermal and materials engineer at Arizona State University, found that sweat rises out of sweat glands in pools, eventually spilling out and soaking the top layer of the skin. The research was published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

What came first, the tomato or the potato?

As it turns out, the potato came from the tomato. By tracking their genetic lineage, an international team of researchers, including University of British Columbia botanist Loren Rieseberg, have found that the noble potato actually resulted from the tomato naturally cross-breeding with another unrelated species, more than eight million years ago. The research was published in the journal Cell.

Bringing science education to the incarcerated

We speak with a scientist who spent much of his summer working in Canadian prisons doing brief, but intense, science education courses. Phil Heron created the Think Like a Scientist program to teach critical thinking skills to those who may have had negative experiences with education. He believes that the scientific method will help people understand how failure in life, as in science, can be a pathway to success.

We spoke to:

Phil Heron, assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Scarborough campus, in the department of physical and environmental sciences and founder of the Think Like a Scientist program.

Dalton Harrison, founder of Standfast Productions and former program participant finishing a masters degree in criminal justice and criminology.

Phoenix Griffin, university student in criminal justice and criminology and former program participant.

Jamie Williams, a director with Spectrum First Education and a co-facilitator of Think Like a Scientist.