Sure, Christmas is a religious holiday and science and religion share common people but not often common ground.   That doesn't mean we can't all join together and share some Christmas science ... and an awesome electric car (5 MPH!) I assembled for my youngest kids last night (picture to come later).    Like Rock'em Sock'em Robots, even adults think miniature cars are cool.   If you're the environmental type, I am basically teaching my kids to like a Prius - and it goes about as fast.  So thank me by reading some of the terrific science below:

Tuesday began as a day like any other.   Rolled out of bed at 10AM, read some awesome science  blogging (here, where else?) over coffee, then went to the office where I was looking forward to a round of golf and a nap before playing some X-box before going home.

I arrived at the office and remembered I hadn't eaten breakfast; golf would have to wait.  "Hey Bloggy," I said, "want to go to Mels?  It's biscuit and honey day."

No answer.  I looked over at where Bloggy would usually be boring into me with his wee beady eyes, making sure work gets done, but it was empty.   Instead there was just a note.  It read:

It's World Series time, which means it's time to talk about physics and baseball once again.    This season, among other things, we've covered the farthest homerun ever hit and how fast a pitcher really can throw (1) and today we're going to cover the curveball.   But that's more that just physics, it's also vision.

I had relatives visiting from out of town and, because they had never been to Las Vegas, we took a two day, one night,  short plane trip over the mountains.   

Naturally, I won some money.   Is that because I am a mathematical genius?  No, everyone except the truly elite is going to lose money in a casino by knowing just enough probability to be dangerous while the truly stupid are going to be the foundation of any gambling town.

When Republicans were told, as part of a recent study, that diabetes results from social factors that mitigate personal responsibility, like a lack of neighborhood grocery stores or government-funded places to exercise, they were not inclined to want to enact legislation to rectify that - but Democrats reacted better to a government approach when culture was to blame rather than individuals.

Both were equally supportive when diabetes was presented in terms of genetic factors.

Was the lesson that framing is bad and science is good?  Well, no, though personally I am inclined to think that way.