In case you missed last weekend’s National Chemistry celebration at the Museum of Science, do not despair! The week ends with a similarly exciting celebration at the Boston Children’s Museum on Saturday (http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/calendar/national-chemistry-week-celebration-chemistry-out-world), with a show and hands-on activities that are geared to slightly younger audiences. On Sunday, in case you need even more science from this fantastic museum, they are doing

This is a wonderful weekend to be a chemist in Boston, because we are starting National Chemistry Week on Sunday with an enormous chemistry celebration at the Boston Science Museum. Check out this link: https://www.mos.org/public-events/national-chemistry-week-celebration and plan to be there to celebrate! But what is National Chemistry Week, you might ask? Well, it started as National Chemistry Day in 1987, and was expanded to a full week of chemistry celebrations a few year

What are you up to this weekend, scientists? If you haven’t checked out King Richard’s Faire, in Carver, MA, this would be a great time to try it! Check out the official website here: https://kingrichardsfaire.net/. Basically this is a Rennaisance fair, where you can travel back in time effectively and experience lots of Rennasaice-era entertainment, games, and performaers. Why is it a good idea? First of all, because it’s fun. Second, the research on eduation is pretty clear

Last day of November, so I guess that mean’s ski season is just around the corner. I grew up skiing a few days a year (usually on one outing to the Poconos or the Berkshires or occasionally Vermont). Now that our family lives so much closer to ski resorts, I have been taking my children much more often, and at least one of them is starting to get the hang of it. Now, for some thoughts about skiing: 1. WEAR A HELMET. When I was growing up, virtually no one wore helmets when t

Let’s talk about chess. Why, you may ask? Well, on a personal note, my oldest child (and to a lesser extent, my younger two) have become very interested in playing chess over the past couple of years, and have participated in a whole variety of chess tournaments (which incidentally, can be torturously boring for the parents) (consider yourselves warned). But on the upshot, it seems there are lots of educational and developmental benefits to kids when they play chess. Check ou

Continuing in our Thanksgiving theme, let’s talk about cranberries. There is a strong local crop of cranberries (see blog post from earlier this month) and their peak harvest time is this month, so you are likely to find lots of local cranberry options available. How do cranberries stack up as a health food? Pretty well in fact. It turns out they have lots of anti-oxidants, which are chemicals that help treat oxidation processes inside you. What does that even mean? Well, as

One week away from Thanksgiving, so let’s talk about turkey. First, true confessions: I do not actually like eating turkey. I don’t like its taste, or the texture, or even the smell to be honest. STUFFING, on the other hand. Sweet potato pie. Cranberry sauce. Pumpkin everything. These are all the foods I can eat forever. But what about the turkey? Is it true that it makes you tired? More or less tired than other foods you might eat? Well, turkeys do contain the amino acid try

As you may have noticed, we changed the clocks this past weekend, and so now it is starting to really feel like winter is coming. Personally, I like this clock change, at least in the mornings, because for most of the year I am a morning person, except when it starts to be SO. DARK. EVERY. MORNING. like it has been for the past couple of weeks. As you may have heard, though, Massachusetts is considering ditching daylight savings time and joining the Atlantic Time Zone, offici

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