I first became familiar with the stars on the sleeping porch of my grandmother’s house on Ninth Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the early 1940s.
Articles from October 2022
Photo by Klemen Vrankar on Unsplash
Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash
The spinning Earth keeps time for us
Just back from Europe. I’ve reset my watch, turned the small hand back five hours. Reset the clock in my laptop. There’s one clock I can’t reset so quickly — the one inside my body, the tick-tocking proteins that tell my body when to wake and sleep.
The view from above the summit of Mount Brandon in Ireland • Photo by Berx22 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Early Irish surveyors cast long shadows
On the summit of Mount Brandon, near my summer home on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula, is a square concrete pillar about 4 feet high.
Photo by Anastasiia Rusaeva on Unsplash
This mussel man is digging deep
There is no more delicious meal than a mess of saltwater mussels steamed in white wine, accompanied by a stick of just-baked French bread and a crisp green salad. And, of course, a carafe of chilled white wine.
Photo by CDC on Unsplash
Biodiversity thrives on the planet you
Imagine for a moment that a spacefaring crew of extraterrestrials is approaching Earth. From a distance of a thousand miles, they see a globe dappled with clouds, water, land patchy with color; no unambiguous signs of life. They speculate about whether the planet is inhabited.
Earthrise from Apollo 16 • NASA (Public Domain)
Faith-based science is not really science
Now that we have been introduced to the idea of faith-based social programs and faith-based public-education (vouchers), surely it is time for the administration in Washington to make its move on faith-based science.
Illustration of the COVID-19 virus, a SARS variant • Photo by CDC on Unsplash
Viruses can help us understand ourselves
All human knowing is metaphorical.
Image by Cloudinary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Conclusive science is the best kind
Fifteen thousand years ago, most of northern North America was covered with a continent-spanning glacier a half-mile or more thick. The ice reached south to the valleys of the present Ohio and Missouri rivers, and extended from coast to coast.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
Levi was caught between disciplines
Few working scientists, other than physicians, have achieved Primo Levi’s degree of literary acclaim. Had he lived longer — he died in 1987 at age 67, an apparent suicide — he might have won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Statue honoring Charles Darwin at the Natural History Museum, London • Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
Evolution was, and is, a great notion
What was the greatest scientific idea of all time?