Making Good v. Breaking Bad

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Making Good v. Breaking Bad

What’s addictive, rots your teeth, and plays a starring role in AMC’s hit New Mexico-based drama Breaking Bad?

Sugar, obviously. Why, what were you thinking?

Well, if you’ve seen the series you undoubtedly thought of methamphetamine, the illicit drug that launches an ordinary man down the dark path from cook to dealer to head of a deadly empire. But just as the ruthless Walter White was played by a light-hearted, child-like Bryan Cranston, his ruinous crystal meth was played by sweet, child-friendly rock candy. Does something as lovely as sugar really bear a chemical resemblance to something as destructive as meth?

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Dark Secrets of the Cryptobiotic Crust

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Dark Secrets of the Cryptobiotic Crust

Think of a desert and you probably picture dry, dead dirt. If so, surprise! Much of the world’s most arid ground is alive with a tiny ecosystem, no more than a few inches thick. It’s so tiny, in fact—so thin and delicate, so apparently parched and lifeless—that this “secretly living” layer of soil is called a cryptobiotic crust. So what other secrets is it keeping?

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Tearing the Nation Apart

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Tearing the Nation Apart

Sorry to say it, but New Mexico is tearing the country apart.

Or, to be more precise, it’s stretching it apart. We’re talking plate tectonics, in which slabs of the Earth’s rigid lithosphere drift atop the stiff-but-fluid mantle, gradually rearranging the oceans and continents. What’s so special about the Rio Grande compared to other rivers around the nation?

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Feel the Burn (Don't Taste It)

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Feel the Burn (Don't Taste It)

Love it or hate it, you know the sensation of biting into spicy salsa: the burn, the rush, the sudden sweats (or eye-watering or nose-running). Behold, the power of capsaicin! 

And that power is in fact a burn, not a flavor. Capsaicin doesn’t trigger the gustatory receptors in our taste buds or the olfactory receptors way up in the nasal cavity, so what exactly is it doing to our mouths—and our brains?

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