Author: Warren Szewczyk

As your humble science columnist, I have spent the past two-plus years writing about the successes of Science and the empirical method. These triumphs have helped answer difficult questions about our past, present and future. Throughout the thousands of words I’ve written in this space, which I’ve been both lucky

Arguably the most famous work by acclaimed surrealist painter Salvador Dalí is his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, a foreboding composition that features melted clocks scattered over a dark landscape. The painting is often erroneously described as a tribute to Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Dalí was an enthusiast

The United States is in the midst of a stimulant kick. With each passing year, increasing numbers of Americans are ingesting ADHD medications—Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse, to name a few—both for prescription and non-prescription use. A study of 15 million annual prescriptions in the United States by Express Scripts, a

Five-time golf major championship winner Phil Mickelson has a funny nickname, ‘Lefty.’ You may guess where it originates: Mickelson plays golf left-handed, meaning his clubs are the reverse image of right-handed clubs, and he lines up on the opposite side of the ball compared to his right-handed counterparts. What’s interesting

We all know the importance of sleep. We know how terrible it feels to be deprived of sleep for just a single night. Even relatively minor losses in sleep quantity or quality can affect mood and cognitive function the next day, especially if a person has been losing sleep night

The year 2014 was a good one for Austen Heinz. Cambrian Genomics, his modest start-up of 11 employees, raised $10 million in investment money. For a small company, Cambrian has nailed down contracts with some big-time partners, including pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline (2013 revenue = $38 billion) and Roche (2014 revenue

The most common word in my text message repertoire isn’t actually a word, but an acronym: lol. Laugh out loud. I’ve sent thousands of lol’s, lolol’s, lolz and lulz. In my after-school instant message days, I thought I was alternative and used “lawl.” Not proud. The lol lingers, as it

Ah, autumn in Claremont. That distinguished time of year when the weather fluctuates from “how can 60 degrees be so cold” to “this sweater really gets the pit sweat going” in the span of a single, 50-minute lecture. The trees seem to vaguely realize winter might saunter on through, and

In case you missed the state’s headlines over Fall Break, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution Oct. 21 prohibiting the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) seeds in Los Angeles.  While that may seem like welcome news against the backdrop of the media’s obsession with the Ebola-ISIS-Putin Axis of

I like to think that I’m pretty good at sensing the world around me. My body is covered with specialized sense organs (e.g. eyes and fingers), products of millions of years of natural selection. Sometimes I think about the ancient humans and primates who died grisly deaths at the claws