Tag: science

I’m an American, Scientifically

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.

  –Albert Einstein

I picked up an issue of Scientific American while in the airport recently. I’ve gone to doing all my travel reading on electronic devices, for convenience. But, inconveniently, there are those long periods on flights when one cannot use electronic devices, even if they aren’t cell phone capable and have everything about them that transmits turned off. I’m very tempted at this point to go off on a tangent, but I’ll show some rare self-restraint and come back to the main point. Continue reading I’m an American, Scientifically

Calories In, Calories Out

If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you’re not familiar with the term “calories in, calories out,” or CICO, it refers to the dearly held belief that somehow the laws of thermodynamics demand that if we eat X number of calories (energy in) and expend Y number of calories (energy out) that our weight will change by Z according to how much we over- or under- ate our caloric needs. This formula is trotted out as the ultimate answer for obesity.

And it’s idiotic.

Continue reading Calories In, Calories Out

A Mess of Greens

I don’t want any vegetables, thank you. I paid for the cow to eat them for me.

–Doug Copeland

I’m going to say some things about vegetables now. It might hurt their feelings, but I’m not going to say it to their faces. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t repeat it to your asparagus, either. Hang on, here we go:

Continue reading A Mess of Greens