I climb into the truck and check the map again. After leaving Tucson, I-10 E to El Paso drifts past towns with names like “Dragoon”, “Cochise” and “Bowie”. My daughter should be with me. This should be her pilgrimage. As I drive, the sights and smells of the Southwest bombard me through the gap in the driver’s side window—dry desert sand, the smoky smell of mesquite, and sage. I’m headed to sacred places that don’t belong to me.
With a mischievous grin and gleaming dark eyes, Dr. Dragos Zaharescu raises a small spatula to his lips and tastes. At his feet are four containers, each filled with a different type of ground rock—granite, basalt, rhyolite or schist. Zaharescu will blend this rock with bacteria or fungus, creating a sandy medium for seedlings he grows here under the glass dome of Biosphere 2.
The demographic reading science journalism is “getting older” according to a panel member at the breakout meeting entitled “A View From the Future” presented at NASW’s 2013 meeting at Gainesville, Fla. Read about this and other conference topics.
New guidelines could increase the number of people prescribed statin drugs, medications used to lower cholesterol levels.
“Those beasts are not our best friends, but are vermin…, ” says Dr. Clive D.L. Wynne, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University.
Here in Arizona, we have personal experience with dust storms, called “haboobs,” that carry large quantities of dust for miles on atmospheric gravity currents. Similar storms are observed in the Sahara desert, across the Arabian Peninsula, in Kuwait, and regions of North America. Dust storms from Africa dumped 50 million metric tons of dust on the state of Florida in the summer of 2013.
I met Rosie Klingman in the Las Vegas International Airport on Nov. 1, 2013 where she was charging her cell phone while waiting for a plane. Rosie remembers Mr. Wizard, and like many Baby Boomers, she’s interested in science.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer might have titled her book “Scorpions for Breakfast,” but the grasshopper mouse really does eat them. Don’t try this yourself unless you’re the grasshopper mouse!
“The Fourth Helix” is a reference to the DNA structure of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes. Our telomeres shorten as we age.
“Watch Mr. Wizard,” a television program that ran from 1951 to 1965, was a science show just for us—the Baby Boom generation. Mr. Wizard entertained and enlightened his viewers with experiments concocted from every-day items. The Fourth Helix is written especially for the grown-up fans of Mr. Wizard, but anyone can join us!
