For nerds like us, every Tuesday is like a birthday – with a new NYT Science Times section ready to be violently unwrapped, played with, and tossed aside. So here’s this week’s: Predigested and regurgitated in an owl-like fashion just for you!
+ Thinking about running a marathon? Thinking that practicing, taking your vitamins, and saying your prayers will make you the best runner/Hulkamaniac ever? Forget it. How about organizing a conference of trainers, exercise physiologists, and racers to use their combined brainpower to overcome one of the runner’s (and the current New Yorker’s) worst enemies: humidity? Now you’re talking. During humid conditions, a runner can lose up to a minute of time for every seven degrees the weather is above the ideal race temperature of 54. And as runners sweat more and more in humid surroundings, becoming more and more dehydrated, their bodies traitorously send more blood to the skin (in an effort to cool off) than to their muscles, slowing them down further. So what have the eggheads come up with? Taking glycerine (which basically acts like a water sponge) before racing for backup fluid stores, avoiding wearing lotions which could block up sweat glands, and eating meals spaced throughout the day.
+ Last week, the Times was all over Francis Crick. This week’s all about trying to crack the genetic code of his partner, James D. Watson, to shake just a little more DNA knowledge out of the old man's pockets.
+ The space shuttle Discovery returned home yesterday despite a broken thermal heat panel and NASA uncrossed its fingers.
+ A transsexual scientist takes on some guy named Lawrence who said some stuff about chicks going into science.
+ Puberty wiped out the dinosaurs.
+ Some people [will] never remember a face.
+ Did you know/care that its been getting mistier at Niagara Falls?
+ A new fancy vaccine to prevent cervical cancer can’t compete with a good old-fashioned Pap.
+ Animal Planet will air anything. Seriously.
+ Things you can't see can sculpt rocks and make gold. How humbling.
