Happy Halloween, readers! What are you doing to celebrate this exciting annual event? Around here, our family doesn't actually do much Halloween celebrating, but I did decide to mark the occasion today by getting a flu shot! I know, I know. Really living it up here with a great party idea. But seriously, let's talk for a minute about flu shots. Flu shots, like other vaccines, are designed to prevent serious illness by tricking your body into thinking it is fighting the infect

It’s going to be a weekend, again! What are you doing? Lots of Halloween options for the last weekend before Halloween occurs, in Boston, my hometown of Sharon, MA, and in Rhode Island. In Boston, consider the Halloween pet parade (see link here: https://www.facebook.com/events/124467271538872/). For real, all jokes aside, do you think they would take kindly to me registering my python for this event? If domesticated animals aren’t your thing, how about celebrating Halloween

Let’s talk about hurricanes, people, not because they are a fun thing to live through or talk about, but because this season there have been just SO MANY OF THEM, or at least that’s what it seems. First question: Have there actually been more hurricanes this season compared to previous years? Well yes. The forecast for the 2017 season called for 14-19 named storms, and of those, 5-9 of them were likely to be hurricanes. This is somewhat above average (12 named storms and 6 hu

Almost the weekend, again, readers? What are you up to this weekend? Looks like plenty of exciting events in the Boston area, including a singing competition at Faneuil Hall Marketplace: https://www.facebook.com/events/139279143343502/, where 40 A Cappella groups will come to duel it out, and you can watch for free! Head of the Charles Regata is also this weekend – watch lots of rowing people row their way down the Charles River and cheer them on – also for free! Check out th

Let’s talk about frying, readers. My lab group recently bought a deep-fryer, named, for reasons that I will not care to speculate on, the FryDaddy (available at fine retailers like Target and Amazon). And we bought this because fried food is delicious, and this is a great way to make fried food in a relatively convenient and non-messy manner. Once we had the FryDaddy, we then thought….hey, we’re scientists, how about trying to actually do some science with this? In particular

Happy Friday the 13th, scientists and readers! In honor of Friday the 13th, we are running two exciting events tonight, one at a local Cub Scout troop where we are going to be freezing (and smashing) pumpkins, and making Jack o Lanterns puke out of their carved mouths using our favorite explosion demonstration, elephant toothpaste (bleach, yeast, soap, and food coloring, for those who want a reminder on what elephant toothpaste actually is). Also, we are making banana farts,

Recently people have been asking me a lot of questions about cooking foods in plastic bags. Reasons for doing so may include the convenience factor, such as when you are camping or otherwise trying to prepare meals over a campfire, in which case cooking omelets in plastic bags apparently works great: (see link here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/85107/omelet-in-a-bag/ or here: http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/ziploc-bag-omelet-eggs-in-a-hurry-196364). These omelets are made

So last weekend we ran a birthday party where the specific request from the birthday guest was to “make things explode.” Luckily for him, we love the science of explosions! Our party activities included: 1. Making elephant toothpaste from hair bleach, soap, food coloring, and yeast; 2. Making bottle rockets with vinegar and baking soda and launching them off of my thumb (note to self: next time use safety glasses); 3. Adding candy to sodas and watching the evolved gas fill up