Halloween is a time when witches fly, black cats prowl and zombies rise from the grave.聽 But it is also a time for magic.聽 No, not supernatural charms, spells or incantations but the time honoured...
Smells of course are caused by volatile compounds which stimulate receptors in our nose. There is a large variety of such compounds with a great diversity of molecular structures. But many of the...
"That's the way the cookie crumbles!"聽 How often have you heard that expression?聽 It is usually a statement of disappointment which may be paraphrased as "tough luck."聽 But why does a cookie...
鈥淟aughter is the best medicine!鈥� That鈥檚 an old adage, maybe even dating back to the biblical era. The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament proposes that 鈥渁聽 merry heart doeth good like a medicine:...
When John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost that the mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, without realizing it, he was talking about the 鈥減lacebo鈥� and the 鈥渘ocebo鈥� effect. 鈥淧lacebo鈥�...
Eventually we will run out of oil.聽 There is no doubt about that.聽 The earth is of a fixed size, and the amount of oil stored in the ground is not infinite.聽 We take it out of the ground and do not...
