Skip to content

Alyssa Gonzalez

Why Don’t Animals Have Wheels?

As children, we learn about the various kinds of simple machines that underly most human constructions. Levers, pulleys and inclined planes all serve to help humans turn force in one direction into motion in another or otherwise make it easier to move objects. The six kinds of simple machines (levers, pulleys, wedges, inclined planes, screws and wheels) were identified and defined in the Renaissance and have formed the basis of more complex machines ever since. Indeed, simple machines are basic enough consequences of physical laws that animals can evolve some of them as parts of their bodies: a carnivore’s teeth are wedges and most of our joints are levers. However, one simple machine in particular stands out as something that, by and large, does not occur in nature—and it reveals some of the limitations of biology.

Why are there no animals with wheels?

Read More »Why Don’t Animals Have Wheels?

Why Do Whales Breathe Air?

It’s a fair question. Most multicellular life on Earth requires oxygen to sustain metabolism, and those organisms get it from the fluids around them. (Yes, even plants.) But while organisms that breathe water but live on land are few and far between, aquatic and semiaquatic air-breathers are abundant. Many frogs, salamanders, crocodilians, caiman lizards, sea snakes, turtles, penguins, loons, grebes, and multiple lineages of marine mammals make their homes, temporarily or permanently, in water while breathing air—giving them the strange distinction of being able to drown in their preferred habitat. Given that most animals, including most vertebrates, breathe water, and that the physiology required to get oxygen from water is so simple that even some air-breathers have versions of it, why do so many of these animals keep breathing air? What do they get out of all this drowning risk?

This question has two answers, which get to the heart of biological evolution and the physical chemistry of water.

Read More »Why Do Whales Breathe Air?

Art and Science: What Is a Tattoo?

Few subjects have their relationships portrayed as wrongly as science and art. Popular culture presents art and science as natural opposites, one the domain of emotion and the other of hard math, with nothing to say to each other.

We here at Talk Science to Me disagree completely. Art and science are the most natural partners since gravy and cheese curds. (Ask your favourite Canadian if you don’t get it.) Getting people to understand difficult topics requires more than mathematical formulas and dense, precise prose. Art brings to science an understanding of what affects people, what connects ideas in a helpful way, and how to arrange the pieces of a story to make sure that the person receiving it comes away with the desired message. Conversely, science is also necessary for creating art. Science has studied how narrative structures create effective or ineffective stories, how visual composition affects the impression made by photos and paintings, and numerous other details about how art works. More than that, art depends critically on science to understand the materials of which it is made. Materials science explains how textiles interact when bonded together, which inks mix with or overlay which other inks in an artwork, and how to safely store and handle old books to keep them from disintegrating. Far from being opposites, art and science are in endless conversation, and nowhere is this more evident than in the art of tattooing.

Read More »Art and Science: What Is a Tattoo?

What Gender Is a Coconut?

Sometimes seemingly nonsense questions have interesting answers. Few plants are as emblematic of the tropics as the coconut palm, Cocos nucifera. This tree can be found on just about every postcard depicting a tropical beach, anywhere in the world, and for good reason. Coconuts are improbably suited to human cultivation in places where few other… Read More »What Gender Is a Coconut?

We Won’t Do Your Homework But We Will Tell You About The Martian Lichens

We at Talk Science to Me receive a fair bit of email through our contact page, most of it inquiring about our services and often leading to fruitful client-provider relationships. Every now and then, though, someone tries to get us to talk science to them a little less honestly. Today, we endeavour to provide an answer.… Read More »We Won’t Do Your Homework But We Will Tell You About The Martian Lichens

The Precision You Mean: Trans-inclusive Language In Science And Medicine

As science communicators invested in the ability of science to achieve a better, more informed, less ignorant world, we aim to balance the need for specific scientific language and the desire to make science accessible to a broader audience. Scientific terms exist because scientists, engineers and other specialists need language to efficiently describe complex and… Read More »The Precision You Mean: Trans-inclusive Language In Science And Medicine