Q&A Blog

For this week, you have the choice of doing another nature blog or doing a Q&A blog. If you choose the latter, it should be modeled on the Q&A column in Science Times.

The Times columnist answers scientific questions submitted by readers. A typical column might run a half-dozen paragraphs. The writer explains the issue and gives the answer in plain English after calling up a scientist or two or citing a study. For your blogs, you can rely on information found on the Internet, as long as it's credible, but feel free to call up a scientist or dig up a study.

As with your nature blogs, your Q&A should have a good lede and present the information in a way that's coherent and entertaining. Do not simply answer the question; tell something about the subject.

This blog should be posted by noon Sunday.

If you have an idea for a question, let me know. Here are a few random ones of my own to pick from:

1. Can bumblebees fly? (It has been suggested that the bee is so constructed that it cannot possibly fly, but the poor bee doesn't know this.)

2. How does bug repellent work?

3. If we reside inside the Milky Way, how were we able to take pictures of it?

4. Is there more than one universe?

5. How does the emerald ash borer know that a tree is an ash? And why doesn't it attack other trees?

6. Why don't women have beards?

7. When will we run out of oil?

8. What is an esker?

9. How do backpacking water filters work?

10. Why are we repelled by the scent of a skunk and attracted to the scent of a rose?

11. If sea levels rise, will that change the official elevations of mountains?

12. Why do we die? (Could science ever make us immortal or at least Methuselahs?)

13. Could insects ever evolve into beings as intelligent as we are?

14. Is there an absolute limit to how fast a human can run a mile?

15. Why does water expand when it freezes? (This is unlike most liquids. If it didn't expand, what would be the consequences, if any, for life on earth?)

16. What's the most endangered animal in New York State?

17. How and why do leaves change color?

18. How is music "remastered"? Does the process alter the original music?