Every era has its diseases. The medieval world was hit by wave after wave of bubonic plague, the most famous of which killed half or more of the entire population of Europe. During the American colonial period, the Native Americans were ravaged by smallpox, transmitted to them (sometimes purposefully) by a bunch of filthy, dirty Europeans. The first half of the 20th century was scourged by polio, killing and crippling children by the thousands before Jonas Salk finished development on his killed-virus polio vaccine in 1955.
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Leprosy has been in the news a lot lately, like this CNN article titled "Armadillos cause spike in leprosy cases in Florida" (of course it's Florida). Most people have heard of leprosy. For one thing, it comes up in both the Old and New Testaments all the time. It's been with humanity for millennia and most cultures have some sort of relationship with the disease. But what is Leprosy, really? And what's going on in Florida? And what to armadillos have to do with anything? In this week's Constant Science I answer those questions and more. As we'll discover, the news media--once again--isn't giving you the whole story when it comes to an outbreak of a disease. Click on through for the video!
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I did not set out to make a post with a rhyming title but it looks like I ended up there anyway. We do a lot of media here at Explosions, Inc., but it's mostly of the video variety. Today I've put together some pictures packed full of sweet, sweet science tidbits that are perfect for posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Imgur, what have you. They're all here in this post and I'll be tossing them out one at a time on our own Twitter and Instagram feeds over the course of the next week or two. If you don't follow us on any social media, what the heck are you waiting for?
Is this a common thing to do these days? Yes. Are we sell-outs for hopping on the train? Maybe, but that train is going places, baby! Share the crap out of these, if you would. Aaron and I really tried to make these serious and seriously interesting instead of fluff pieces and we think people will dig them. We want to see these all over social media! Click through for the pictures!
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Happy Monday, fans of science! As promised in last week's Dive Science video, I am returning to my possibly futile quest to dedicate one minute to every single element in the periodic table. This week: carbon through neon.
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In the annals of scientific research there are many sober, conscientious minds, meticulously following protocol to slowly, inexorably advance the state of human knowledge towards the goal of being just a little bit less wrong about the universe. There's also a lot of silly whack-a-doodles who can't be trusted not to run with scissors. Guess which group I'm going to write about today.........
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Last week Aaron braved back pain and a medication haze to give you his top five science moments of 2014. Today I sat in front of the camera, as I am wont to do, and did the same. There's a bit of crossover but not as much as you might think. Happy New Year to the gentiles in the audience and sorry about the constant assault of Christian holidays with pagan overtones and the Gregorian calendar to all the Jews in the audience. You can't level the International Zionist Conspiracy against me anyway because Aaron will protect me. As long as I keep up with my payments. Anyway, without further ado, click on through to the other side to find out my best of 2014.
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As the arrow of time rockets us inexorably towards the goyish New Year* it is once again appropriate to whittle down by arbitrary rules the amazing complexity of events of the past year into what amounts to the lowest hanging dingleberry on the literature bush: The Listicle. So without further ado (or much ado at all) I present:
Aaron's Top 5 Sciencey Thingies of 2014
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This week I follow in the footsteps of Daring Don Riefler and attempt my very first vlog to add my two cents about influenza and the flu vaccine.
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Happy flu season, everyone! In order to celebrate this joyous occasion I've tossed together an episode of Constant Science about viruses. What are they? How do they make you sick? How does your body fight them? Why can you only get some of them once? And most importantly, how can we protect ourselves from them? Check out the video to find out.
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Happy Monday, fans of science and things that explode. Today we're bringing you the inaugural video in our "Science Talks" series of video blogs, where we talk science that isn't exactly amenable to exciting, theatrical coverage on a big stage. I decided to start all topical and stuff and talk a bit about Ebola and why it's not really anything you need to worry about if you live in the United States. We've got ideas for further videos in this series but if there's a topic in science that confuses and enrages you and you want us to try to break it down to something simpler, let us know by dropping it in the comments. Click through for the video!
