Ink and Equations

We write real science as stories, poems, satire and speeches

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Ink and Equations

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We write real science as stories, poems, satire and speeches.

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  1. How an Old Ball Swings the Wrong WayUnpacked, 8 Nov
  2. How a Rock Ended Up Running Your PhoneDeep Dives, 5 Nov
  3. Aristotle Was Wrong for 2,000 Years, and That's Good NewsRhetoric, 4 Nov

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    Small lives

    Bacteria, viruses and a leaf breathing out.

    123 3 pieces, best read in this order

    1. Stories My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria Every night, Ammi saves one spoonful of curd. It takes a week away, a cold December windowsill and two ruined batches for anyone to ask why. The idea Curd sets because bacteria ferment the milk sugar lactose into lactic acid; as the pH falls towards 4.6, the casein proteins lose the negative charge that keeps them apart and link up into a gel.
    2. Satire & Humour Local Man Furious That Antibiotics Did Nothing for His Cold "I took the whole strip," says a local man, who is still sneezing. The idea Colds are caused by viruses, while antibiotics attack structures only bacteria have, such as the cell wall penicillin stops them building; so antibiotics cannot help a cold, and every unnecessary course selects for the bacteria that can survive them.
    3. Poetry Trees Are Made of Thin Air This poem asks where a tree actually comes from, and the answer isn't the soil. The idea Plants build their bodies mostly from carbon dioxide taken from the air, using light energy to split water and fix the carbon into sugar; the soil supplies only a small share of their mass.