Back in 2000, Dr. C. Everett Koop said: “Except for smoking, obesity is now the number one preventable cause of death in this country. Three hundred thousand people die of obesity every year.” Childhood obesity is certainly a national concern. To address this science and health based issue, Discovery Place ScienceReach offers a popular program entitled: “You Are What You Eat” The program helps learners to make healthy and wise dietary choices. But how do we show the importance of nutrition with living things so that people can experience and observe it? How could I experiment with this idea? So this got me thinking …

Do organisms other than humans have to make “wise nutritional choices”? Specifically, do insects get fat?

It is always a good... Keep reading.

Every autumn we are captured by color. But is it only color? There is also form, contemplation of sequence and order in the world which capture us too. Looking from a distance at the edge of a pine tree or more closely at the margin of a leaf, you will notice an undulate (toothed, notched, or wave‑edged). Resin ducts or twigs, the mineral Halite (salt) and Galena (lead ore) are cubes. Needles, twigs, human fingers, are cylinders. Leaf and wood fibers are lattices, and the cells in wood, needles, and blood are spheres or spheroids. If the sun shines just right, the shadow of a tree forms a rough circle or ellipse on the forest floor. When you look at any living thing as a whole, it is a composite of many geometric shapes or patterns — the composite. Are we not also a part of... Keep reading.

Do you ever wonder about your very strange body? What is the deal with crusty versus liquidy earwax? Why is it different colors? Why does its consistency change over time? Where does it come from? Is it produced by the body or captured from the atmosphere? Are some people more predisposed to earwax production/capture than others? Is there a genetic foundation to earwax production? Are there uses for earwax that I have not considered? What wonders do you contemplate about your body?

SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure is with us at Discovery Place right now and we’re very excited. But the exhibit does raise a few questions:

* Since the sea floor is about the same size as the area of the moon’s surface, how do marine archaeologists find anything and how in the world did Odyssey Marine Exploration find the U.S.S. Republic? Seems to me like that’s not a needle in a haystack; it’s a pinhole in one of grandma’s old quilts.
* Which do you think is the most important ingredient: luck, technology, or science?
* What are ROV’s and photomosaics, anyway and how do they apply to marine exploration?
* Aside from finding artifacts, what other uses are there for ROV’s and photomosaics today?

NASA is interested in brewing beer in space. Now there’s a topic I never saw coming… I’ll avoid all the obvious frat house jokes and go right to the questions and--- well, maybe we’ll keep a few of the frat house jokes just to see if you’re paying attention. What genius came up with this study anyway and why? What are the benefits? How would the fermentation process differ in space? Does yeast sink or swim in zero gravity environments? Would the intoxication factor be less or greater in space? How many scientists volunteered to test the intoxication factors? What would you do for a hangover out there? Where do the bubbles go when a beer is uncapped in space? What happens to the gas in your stomach in a zero gravity environment? What would happen if you lit... Keep reading.