SuppleMentally Blog

A multimedia supplement to the Mensa Bulletin’s SuppleMentally science column

By John Blinke

August 20, 2025

There was a time, between 635 and 720 million years ago, when the entire Snowball Earth was covered in snow and ice. It is called the Cryogenian Period, and Macroscopic organisms had not evolved yet. But single-celled organisms had evolved, and they persisted through the snowball period. MIT researchers went to the Antarctic to see how life survives there, under Snowball Earth conditions. They found microbes in sun-melted ponds on top of the ice. Every puddle contained eukaryotic life (that is to say, cells with a nucleus), and different ponds had different varieties depending on how salty they were. Dirty ice melted more easily and was more richly inhabited. Geologist Myron Cook explores how the intense glaciation of Snowball Earth flattened mountain ranges and exposed the geological mystery known as the Great Unconformity.”

August 14, 2025

OLD TREES

Science YouTuber Alexis Dahl cheerfully plugs Michigan (my home) every time she gets a chance. Here, she talks about 1,000-year-old cedar trees growing on Michigan cliffs over the Great Lakes.

August 5, 2025

VISITORS

Another interstellar object is heading our way. Is it a spaceship? Is it a comet? University of Nottingham astrophysicist Mike Merrifield unpacks the buzz around 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object to enter our solar system from interstellar space. Unlike ‘Oumuamua or Borisov, 3I/ATLAS appears to follow a hyperbolic trajectory and may have fragmented, fueling speculation about its nature. Merrifield walks viewers through what astronomers do and don’t know, cautioning against jumping to alien megastructure theories just yet, but acknowledging the scientific intrigue such rare visitors bring.

July 23, 2025

PROMISING EV NEWS

According to the Electric Viking channel on YouTube, automaker GM is going all out on electric vehicle design. They have a new compact electric car that claims a range of 745 miles after just 10 minutes of charging. This is possible because the battery runs on 800 volts, which is twice that of most electric cars. Such EVs will require special charging stations and are likely not yet available in the U.S. But now we know this can be done (if reports are accurate).

July 11, 2025

PLUTO ANNIVERSARY

Ten years ago, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Pluto. The mission blew away all expectations of what Kuiper Belt bodies would be like. Scientists had thought of them as boring billiard balls of ice. But Pluto is as diverse as any major planet, with a thin atmosphere and its own kind of tectonic activity. It even has a vast heart-shaped glacier of frozen nitrogen! Check out ScienceNews’s recent retrospective with updates.

June 17, 2025

BATTERIES R US

Hey, boomers — remember when you had to roll out an extension cord to plug in a heavy “portable” drill? Now we use lithium battery-powered tools. Batteries are great these days for tools and cars. According to “Just Have a Think” on YouTube, they’re getting better at an exponentially increasing rate. The price of lithium has plummeted nearly 90 percent since 2022, and newer chemistries are coming out all the time. The International Energy Agency says current global battery production capacity is around 3 terawatt-hours and could triple in five years if planned projects are completed. Leading the charge are companies like BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturer, and CATL, the world’s largest maker of lithium-ion batteries and a key supplier to automakers like Tesla and BMW.

June 10, 2025

POWER PLAY

Walmart has decided that, rather than renting space to EV charging companies, it will install its own vast network of high-speed EV chargers. The retailer plans to have thousands of locations and tens of thousands of chargers available by 2030, although the details depend on local conditions. Each charger will have both a NACS and CCS connector to fit nearly every electric vehicle. Staff from the nearby store will be available for assistance.

May 23, 2025

WISE EATING

Is sugar bad for your health? Not in moderation. However, processed sugars added during manufacturing can be unhealthy due to their high concentration. Our cravings for sugars and fats stem from ancestral survival needs for high-energy foods. Consuming fruits with natural sugars is generally fine, as they come with fiber and nutrients. Dairy milk is beneficial for children who aren’t allergic to it. For those with dairy sensitivities, soy milk is a close nutritional substitute. Almond milk, on the other hand, offers minimal nutritional value, being largely water-based. Establishing healthy eating habits by age 5 is crucial. Children might need to be offered a new food up to seven times before accepting it, so persistence is key.

May 16, 2025

SQUIRREL BOT

Watch a squirrel for a while, and you’ll have to admire its ability to get around. Engineers will be happy if they can duplicate even part of that agility, like leaping to a small perch and sticking the landing. That’s what scientists at the University of California, Berkeley are working toward with their one-legged Salto robot. They’ve taught it to crouch, stand tall, or windmill its arms (really, a weighted pinwheel) to land upright on narrow perches. It turns out one leg is best for jumping extremely high, even if four would help in trickier terrain. –ScienceDaily, March 19, “Squirrel-Inspired Leaping Robot Can Stick a Landing on a Branch” (Science Robotics)

May 9, 2025

ONE-IN-A-BILLION MOMENTS IN NATURE

What’s the last thing you want to see right before skiing down a glacier?

May 2, 2025

DR. KARL

If you're looking for a quick dose of science that's both enlightening and entertaining, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki's YouTube Shorts are a must-watch. Known for his vibrant shirts and even more colorful explanations, Dr. Karl has a knack for breaking down complex scientific concepts into digestible, engaging content.

One particularly intriguing short delves into the story of a virologist who injected herself with viruses to combat her own cancer.

April 28, 2025

ADVENTURES IN COMPOSTING

You can turn table scraps and yard debris into soil conditioner. But too much enthusiasm can trip you.

I bought a compost tumbler online. It holds a bushel of material and is designed to tumble to mix the compost. In my first season, I had too much brown material like dead leaves, paper shreds, and chipped-up branches and not enough topsoil. So I had messy, stinky goo to deal with. The usual recipe calls for an equal mix of slowly processing brown material and fast stuff like grass clippings, table scraps, and freshly pulled weeds. In addition, you need lots of topsoil. I mean LOTS of topsoil. This provides organisms that decompose the compost, and it physically breaks it up so it doesn’t clot too much. In my experience, the right amount looks like there is all soil in the tumbler. It should hide most of the other contents. You can dig a hole to get soil or buy some bags of cheap topsoil at a nursery.

Tumble the heck out of the mixed stuff at least once per week. You must also keep it damp enough to process. Just squirt it with a garden hose and tumble for a while to mix. Not too wet or it can rot. It should feel like a wrung-out rag if you squeeze it in your hand.

My tumbler came on skids. That’s fine when it is mostly empty. But the compost gets heavy when it is wet. I want to move it around to avoid killing a spot on the lawn, so I made a platform with wheels and can push it around every couple of days. That works fine, but I wish I had wider wheels.

How do you know when the compost is done processing? Who cares? Stop at the end of summer, or any time before it freezes solid, because you have to make room for next season’s batch. At the end of the summer it is mostly black and looks like soil. If there are a few unprocessed carrots, you can live with it. Scavengers will probably take any chewable bits that are left. Spread the compost on low spots on your lawn or add it to the garden. You can screen lumps out of it through wide carpenter cloth if you want to use it for lawn fill.

Last note: You can add meat scraps to compost. But it might attract raccoons or bears (if you live in that kind of neighborhood). It might be better to put those items in the garbage and just process veggie stuff.

Pro tip No. 1: You will add scraps to the composter starting from the time you dumped the last batch, probably in the fall. You do not have to wet it because it will be frozen all winter anyway. If you add stuff dry, you can tumble it effectively and it will be lighter when you have to move the tumbler around.

Pro tip No. 2: Don’t bother with additives other than topsoil and compostable scraps. You don’t need worms or nutrients. Just trust Nature to know her job.

April 15, 2025

HOPEWELL CIRCLES

Much of North America was once covered with ceremonial earthworks created by Indigenous peoples like the Hopewell culture. They had up to 10,000 mounds just in Ohio before European settlers arrived. The Great Circle Earthworks near Newark consisted of earthen circles, squares, and an octagon figure, all covering 5 square miles. First reported by settlers in 1800, the site might have served as a center of philosophical or religious inspiration, since tribute items seem to have flowed into the area but not out of it. Hopewell ceremonial culture could have been similar to one of the large religions of today, with churches in many places sharing more or less the same philosophical message, modified locally as needed. Farmers leveled many of the structures of the Great Circle Earthworks, and railroads used the heaped-earth burial mounds as a handy source of fill for their train tracks. The few remaining mounds are now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

April 4, 2025

PYRAMID SCHEMES

There are all kinds of ideas about the great pyramids of ancient Egypt. Professional archaeologists say they were built by powerful rulers as monuments and launch pads to the afterlife. But pyramids also became giant “rob me” signs for thieves. In a YouTube lecture, archaeologist Beth Hart walks through the sequence of development, from ornate wooden pavilions in predynastic times to the massive Fourth Dynasty “Horizon of Khufu” that we call the Great Pyramid of Giza.

April 1, 2025

INFRARED RADIATION ABSORPTION BY CO2

One of my favorite videos relating to infrared theory and climate change: Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth, UK, demonstrates infrared radiation absorption by carbon dioxide.

March 3, 2025

BOAT RACE

This video is ostensibly a friendly grudge match between an electric RC boat and a comparable gas powered model. Actually, it's an experiment with video from a trout-eye view at the water level — which we hardly ever see. The video is from a “key fob” camera Velcroed to a foam float. This was a good thing to do because the glue let go just as the other boat swamped me and my flex drive broke! I was able to recover the camera.

March 3, 2025

METHANE BUGS

Chemistry of the deep sea is an ongoing mystery. But scientists are unraveling it bit by bit. They knew methane was being oxidized into carbon dioxide — yet this was happening in oxygen-starved waters where fish can’t survive. Was some organism doing this? The answer turns out to be that no single bug is responsible. It takes two microbes working together, using sulfate as a source of oxygen.

February 28, 2025

ON THINNING ICE

Given the massive global flooding problems that will occur if Greenland sheds its ice cap into the ocean, NASA and ESA want to monitor the ice with satellites. ESA’s CryoSat-2 has a radar altimeter that can see through clouds and ice all the way down to bedrock. NASA’s ICESat-2 has a laser altimeter that can gauge the ice surface but cannot see through clouds. The two agencies have put their satellites into similar orbits so they can combine data for more precise measurements. They found that Greenland ice has diminished by 2,347 cubic kilometers in 13 years — a little more than the combined volume of Lakes Ontario and Erie. The loss was greatest at the edges.

February 28, 2025

ALASKA-SIZED SHORTCUT

A land bridge across the Bering Strait once connected Asia to the Americas. It was the way some peoples arrived there. In our mind’s eye, a land bridge seems like a narrow ridge or isthmus, but it was not that. The Bering land bridge was as wide as the state of Alaska—an expanse of wooded land full of game where migrating people may have lived for generations.

February 24, 2025

BLOOD SUGAR: NOW VS. THEN

Your doctor might poke your finger to check blood glucose and also draw blood for an A1C blood sugar test. Two sugar tests! What’s going on? The finger-poke is a check of your blood glucose at the moment. The A1C measures the average over three months based on sugar molecules that stick to red blood cells.

John Blinke has been the Mensa Bulletin’s science editor since 1984 and is a two-time recipient of American Mensa’s National Service Award. He lives in the wilderness of Michigan and keeps busy with a wide range of hobbies, including astronomy, RC models, drones, photography, model rockets, and fooling around with microscopes and other scientific gear. John spent 50 years as an electrician with Ford Motor Company. He holds a BA in English from Wayne State University, completed the UAW-Ford electrical apprenticeship, is a certified Level II Thermographer, and has an Extra Class amateur radio license. Email him at BulletinSupplementally@us.mensa.org.