/oss/taxonomy/term/521/all en /oss/article/you-asked/there-difference-between-real-snow-and-artificial-snow <p>Snow-making machines actually make tiny beads of ice, each one about one ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter. Water is sprayed from a hose together with compressed air. The air is needed because as it quickly expands, its temperature drops since it has to do work by pushing away air molecules. This cooling helps freeze the water. As the water freezes, it releases heat. This should be obvious when we realize that in order to melt ice, we have to add heat. The heat released is then taken up by the expanding compressed air. This is why the "snow-making" pipes are always high in the air. If t</p> Thu, 17 Feb 2022 15:29:52 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9027 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/sweating-out-hype-over-finnish-sauna <p>What are children introduced to, on average, at the age of four and a half months? Your answer will vary depending on where you are from. In Finland, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb51764.x" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the answer</a> is the sauna.</p> Sat, 04 Dec 2021 09:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8942 at /oss /oss/article/you-asked/why-does-plastic-stay-wet-dishwasher-whereas-glass-comes-out-dry <p>Obviously, the rate of evaporation depends on the temperature. Put a drop of water in a hot frying pan and it will sizzle and change into a vapour almost immediately. Place that drop on your countertop and it will stay there for a while.</p> Fri, 12 Nov 2021 21:16:23 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8922 at /oss /oss/article/health/i-am-woman-why-am-i-always-so-cold <p>I am always cold. I’ve had this problem ever since I was a child, when I’d sneak into the living room in the winter and turn up the thermostat while my parents weren’t looking. When I still worked in an office (pre-pandemic), I noticed that often my female colleagues and I would be wearing sweaters in the dead of summer to keep warm in our over-air conditioned building. Yet my male colleagues seem impervious to the cold - often wearing short-sleeves.</p> <p>Which led me to wonder: Do women feel cold more than men and if so, can science explain this difference?</p> Mon, 08 Mar 2021 16:31:18 +0000 Gaia Remerowski, MS, Science Journalism 8647 at /oss /oss/article/health/breast-thermography-its-montreal-cradle-crowdfunding-platforms <p>Medical students in Michigan want to help screen women in rural India for breast cancer and are trying <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/breast-cancer-screening-in-rural-telangana">to raise $12,000</a> to buy a portable breast thermography device. <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/women039s-breast-health-symposium">Donna</a> in Ohio wants to raise $15,500 to provide this technology to women at her breast health symposium.</p> Fri, 22 Mar 2019 15:04:42 +0000 Jonathan Jarry, MSc 7661 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/did-you-know-science-can-help-us-make-better-pizza-and-better-roasted-potatoes <p>Students from the Edge Hotel School have brought us some <a href="https://theuijunkie.com/edge-school-method-roasted-potatoes/">starchy math </a>that can improve the quality of roasted potatoes the world over.</p> <p>The theory is that maximizing the internal surface area of the tuber will maximize the crispiness and therefore the desirability of roasted potatoes. Most of us cut our potatoes at 90˚ angles, in half, and then into quarters. These students realized that just by cutting at 30˚ angles, an increase of up to 65% internal surface area can be achieved!</p> Fri, 15 Mar 2019 16:00:00 +0000 Ada McVean B.Sc. 7648 at /oss /oss/article/health/heat-wave-fury <p><span>Like all warm-blooded mammals, we humans need to get rid of the heat we generate with every chemical reaction in our bodies. Most animals, like dogs, get rid of heat by panting. Panting is actually a fairly bad way to get rid of heat because you cannot run and pant at the same time. So a dog can only run around for a short period of time before it overheats and has to stop to pant. Dogs make for bad endurance athletes.</span></p> Mon, 16 Jul 2018 19:48:33 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7169 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition-you-asked/does-food-cooked-microwave-lose-its-nutritional-value <p>A resounding “not true!” First of all, all food is dead, unless you graze on grass or take a bite out of a living cow, neither of which is advisable. As far as nutrition goes, microwave cooking is the way to go. Cooking times are short, the temperature is only 100 C and a minimum amount of water is used. These are nutrient-retaining conditions. And incidentally, there is no need to worry about standing near a microwave oven. There is no leakage and even if there were, radio waves do nothing but heat. Bon appétit!</p> Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:00:12 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1856 at /oss /oss/article/news-quackery-weight-loss/short-solution-shedding-pounds <p><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/?p=4058" rel="attachment wp-att-4092"><img alt="Wrestlers" height="187" src="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/files/2013/02/wrestling5-300x187.jpg" width="300" /></a>I had friends in University that wrestled. And I never really got it.  The jousting, the hold-‘em-down-till-they’re-finished-mentality. And the outfits. I won’t even get started on that one. But what really got to me was the way these wrestlers went about their training and what they felt they had to endure to prepare for their time in the ring. I heard stories of riding stationary bikes. In saunas. Wearing full sweat suits, hoods and all. The point? Sweat off the pounds. Shed enough water that when being weighed, you make it to the lower weight category so your opponent would be on the smaller side. This, I felt, was just plain dangerous. <a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2013/02/06/a-short-solution-to-shedding-the-pounds/">Read more</a></p> Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:45:13 +0000 Emily Shore, OSS Communications 1868 at /oss /oss/article/you-asked/will-watering-plants-heated-microwaved-water-kill-them <p>The email features pictures of plants supposedly watered either with microwaved water or with water that has been heated on a stove top. Supposedly this little research gem was carried out by a student as a science fair project. And guess what? The microwave watered plants wither while the others flourish! One can come up with all sorts of possibilities explaining why differences could exist even if a legitimate attempt were made to carry out such an experiment properly. Was the soil the same in the two plants? Were they given equal amounts of water?</p> Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:04:59 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1683 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/why-do-lightbulbs-develop-sediment-age <p>Have you ever wondered why tungsten light bulbs develop a black deposit as they age? This deposit is metallic tungsten, the same stuff that the filament is made of. A lightbulb produces heat and light when an electric current passes through a resistance. In this case, the resistance is a tungsten filament. Tungsten is close to ideal for a filament because it has a very high melting point and does not evaporate easily.  Nevertheless, small amounts of tungsten do evaporate and condense on the cooler glass surface. As more and more tungsten evaporates, the filament gets thinner and the glass g</p> Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:29:07 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1514 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/what-greenhouse-effect <p>The greenhouse effect is caused by gases in the atmosphere that let sunlight through, but prevent some of the heat it generates from being re-emitted, acting as a blanket around the earth. If we had no greenhouse effect, the Earth would be around 33 degrees coller than it is, with temperatures averaging about -18 degrees Celsius. On the flip side, if we have too much of a greenhouse effect (ie concentration of greenhouses gases), it’s possible the planet can overheat.</p> Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:18:15 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1505 at /oss /oss/article/you-asked/can-coffee-explode-microwave <p>A sensational sounding e-mail about “exploding coffee” has been making the rounds. It describes the misadventures of an unfortunate soul who heated up water for coffee in a microwave oven. When he picked up the mug, it “exploded!”</p> Tue, 21 Feb 2017 04:18:09 +0000 Joe Schwarcz 1485 at /oss