Dropping A Water Balloon At 3000 feet per second!

There is something about high-speed photography that always gets to me. You don’t really learn all that much from watching this film clip… but it sure is interesting and, more importantly, fun! Footscray City College Science Students use the Photron high-speed camera to shoot balloons at 3000 frames per second. I don’t know about you [...]

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Bacteria that Commit Honourable Suicide

How can any samurai, kosher or otherwise, NOT be attracted by this title? The Bacteria that Commit Honourable Suicide Bio-cell seppuku. Kamikaze microbes. Organically pre-programmed harikiri. You got to love it. OK, kids, it goes something like this… In multicellular organisms (like us) it is essential that every cell behaves and does the job it [...]

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Exhibit Two Gets Aished!

Exhibit Two Gets Aished!  (Exhibit Two at Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem earlier this month) A bit of explanation is in order. Aish = Aish HaTorah. [1] Aish HaTorah is an apolitical network of Jewish educational centers in 35 branches on five continents. [2] Aish is all about Jewish education and kiruv… drawing Jews closer to [...]

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Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 5): Creamer Eyes

You may have seen them out of the corner of your eye… at the next table or across the restaurant. Sometimes, you may have had the misfortune of seeing them up close and personal, across the table from you. No matter how you run into them or how they are inflicted upon you… the result [...]

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Dogs may have helped Humans beat the Neanderthals

Dogs may have helped Humans beat the Neanderthals One of the most compelling – and enduring – mysteries in archaeology concerns the rise of early humans and the decline of Neanderthals. For about 250,000 years, Neanderthals lived and evolved, quite successfully, in the area that is now Europe. Somewhere between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago, [...]

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One Year Anniversary!

One year ago, yesterday, May 17, 2011, I created this blog, the Kosher Samurai. One year ago, today, I published my first blog article, set out below. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I prefer to spell it bl*g or bl*gging. I have some strange aversion to the way the word is usually spelled. Not sure why. I just do. [...]

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Are We Attracted To Our Opposite?

They say that opposites attract. That presumes that the attraction is mutual, I suppose. (The gun totin’ Southern Redneck Good Ole Girl) I’m not sure that is always, or even often, the case. (Hitler Youth – more my son’s type than mine, really… but still…) Take the example some of the kinds of women to whom [...]

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Sullivan Ballou Letter – Ashoken Farewell

I’ve not yet had the opportunity to see Ken Burns’ masterful work, The Civil War. But I did see this one clip. [1] A week before the Battle of Bull Run, Sullivan Ballou, a Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife, Sarah, in Smithfield. The letter was written from Washington, D.C. [...]

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May the Fourth… Be With You!

Today is Star Wars Day, for obvious reasons. [1] Here are a couple of Star Wars related photos that have tickled me over the past year or so. For me, Imperial Stormtroopers are a constant source of fun! I love nerd humour! Yoda is also good for a few laughs. We’ve all seen Star Wars [...]

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Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 5): CW & the Orange Smile

Years ago, my beloved friend, CW, and I were sitting down to dinner. We’d met not long before and were still very much in the ‘getting to know each other’ phase of our relationship. Things were going very well. We were both quite fond of one another. Conversation was light, entertaining and quite enjoyable. We [...]

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