First post

A few days ago my good friend of many years, Dr. Anita Brandolini, passed away suddenly.  She was a faculty member in Chemistry at Ramapo College in Oakland NJ.  She created and maintained a blog called Dr. B's Science Lab (drbssciencelab.blogspot.com) aimed primarily at the science education of children.  She had many scientific publications and wrote a children's book, "Fizz, Bubble, and Flash! Element Explorations and Atom Adventures".  I and all of her friends and students will miss her terribly, but not one will forget her.  She would be hard to forget in any case, such a force of nature was she.

I had been toying with the idea of building a science blog for some time and I decided that the time is now.  I have created this blog, similarly named to Anita's, in memory of and in fond tribute to her.  Although Anita's blog was intended for children, mine is aimed at providing more sophisticated "explanations" of  things "scientific" to the reader of any age not working in a science field.  I give the usual "layman" blog disclaimer that these reports will be non-mathematical (i.e., you don't need to be able to do calculus) but, I don't claim them to be non-arithmetical (you do need to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.)  I will also refuse to shy away from the use of simple equations (for example, F=ma) completely explained in words (in this case, force equals mass times acceleration) when such equations can provide explanation that would require pages of words.

Those are the plans.  I hope these reports will prove to be entertaining and, occasionally, enlightening. I end this initial post with a graphic that will need no explanation for many of Anita's friends but would require book-length description for others.  Suffice it to say, Anita spent years of her life carrying out the experiment symbolized in this graphic