Articles written by Bennett Kalafut - Page 3

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A single-molecule biophysicist in the final stages of a PhD.

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Food & Drink > Meat & Poultry Tips for buying wild game: 2 of 5
Under the laws of most of the United States - Alaska may be an exception - it is illegal to sell wild game. Any website or mail-order company purporting to offer "wild game" - animals taken from the wild - in the USA is either breaking the law or making a fraudulent claim. The situation may be different in the UK or other co... More..
Education > College Courses & Majors What college preparatory classes should be required for high school students: 2 of 5
Capacity to think analytically and critically is the key to success in college and beyond. To foster such capability, students should be required, to receive a high-school diploma, to take and pass at least one rigorous course on literature, in which dumbed-down, multiple-choice tests on plot elements are nonexistent, a gene... More..
Food & Drink > Cocktails Drink recipes: Old fashioned: 4 of 9
The Old Fashioned is an old cocktail, indeed, having been known as "old fashioned" for well over a century. Conflicting reports of its origin exists. The most common claim is that the Old Fashioned is named after a long-gone brand of whiskey, created at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, KY, in honor of the distillery's owner... More..
Food & Drink > Ethnic & International Foods How to handle chiles safely: 5 of 10
Except at concentrations approaching that of defensive pepper spray, capsaicin and the related capsaicinoids-oils produced by chiles to ensure that they be consumed by birds (which scatter seeds) and not mammals (which digest them-are not dangerous, thus safe handling is simply a matter of not choking on a poorly reconstitut... More..
Food & Drink > Fruit & Vegetable Recipes Recipes: Chile relleno: 3 of 6
Diners with critical tendencies adopt certain touchstone dishes by which to evaluate or at least size up restaurant kitchens and chefs. For me, chiles rellenos can be the measure of a Mexican restaurant. Is the breading eggy or crisp? Did they get the frying right, or are the chiles greasy? The choice of cheese, of chile (An... More..
Food & Drink > Fruit & Vegetable Recipes Recipes: Pickled jalapeno peppers: 1 of 2
Jalapeno pepper plants put forth a high yield over a long growing season and can in all but the worst years easily produce more peppers than a single person or family can use as they come. Many hot peppers-cayenne, ancho, and pasilla, to name a few-can simply be dried, but the thick flesh of the jalapeno limits its usefulnes... More..
Sciences > Mathematics Mathematics: How to do implicit differentiation: 1 of 2
"Implicit differentiation" refers to differentiation of an implicitly defined function. Ordinarily the definition of a function is explicit: the name of the function appears on one side of an equals sign and the operations on the independent variables that define the function appear on the other, for example, f(x)=x^2+3-sin(... More..
Food & Drink > Wine Knowing the difference between Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon: 1 of 2
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are the most common red varietals found on American wine shelves (with Syrah, Zinfandel, and Pinot Noir perhaps jockeying for a distant third), and along with Cabernet Franc they form the core of the esteemed reds from Bordeaux in France and the "Meritage" blends of California. Both also tend to... More..
Pets & Animals > Aquarium Fish How to build a wet/dry aquarium filter: 1 of 1
Dissolved oxygen very often limits the rate at which Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria can oxidize ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate in the aquarium. A wet-dry filter, in which water is splashed or trickled over a porous medium, wetting it without immersing it, provides a large water-to-air interface, substantial... More..
Sciences > Cellular Biology The basics of gel electrophoresis: 5 of 8
Gel electrophoresis is used to separate fragments of charged proteins or nucleic acids approximately by mass, in order to identify or purify a specific fraction. If charged molecules in a salty solution are placed between two plates of opposite charge their thermal diffusion (drift) will be biased toward the plate on which t... More..