Forget for the moment that the actual year of Christ’s birth was probably sometime between 7 BC, when Augustus ordered a census of Judea, and 4 BC, when Herod died. Forget that the season of birth may have been spring, when shepherds watched their newborn lambs by night. Let’s focus on the traditional place and time, Bethlehem in Galilee, on the night of December 24 – 25 in the year 1 BC (as historians reckon).
Articles with 1989
Photo by Tim de Groot on Unsplash
Vintage Capsela construction toy from Japan • Photo by Adrian J. Hunter (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Toys the mind can play with
Time to take a look at this year’s science toys, and what better place to see what the elves have been up to than the Boston Science Museum Shop? I’m a long way from childhood, but I found lots of stuff I wouldn’t mind finding under my tree.
Photo by David Matos on Unsplash
Heads and tails and ESP
Few subjects so rattle the equilibrium of the scientific community as ESP — extrasensory perception — especially when it comes tricked out in the garb of science. When the New York Times Magazine published a story on the work of Princeton ESP researcher Robert Jahn, one could almost hear the collective groan rise from the ivy-covered building of that New Jersey campus. This is the kind of research that most scientists would prefer to have at someone else’s institution.
Joseph Haydn and William Herschel
Choruses and quasars
Early morning. Coffee simmering. Downstairs the furnace squeaks and rumbles to life, like the tuning-up of a distant orchestra. I settle in an easy chair to read three news stories about the beginning of the world. On the stereo, Joseph Haydn’s Creation oratorio.
Early photograph of Paris by Louis Daguerre (1838)
Optics, chemistry — and images
One day in Paris, in 1827, a certain Madame Daguerre approached the famous chemist Jean Dumas. Her husband was obsessed, she said, with an apparently foolish idea. He believed he could make permanent pictures on metal plates by means of light focused by a lens. Was his dream within the bounds of science, she asked, or was he completely mad?
Photo by James Rajaste on Unsplash
The sadness of captivity
Twenty-five years ago I took my kids to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo. I swore I’d never return.
Photo by Brian Jones on Unsplash
Winter’s sparse palette
October blew through the trees of New England like a slow hurricane of color. Gone now, all gone, leaving behind more brown litter than Hurricane Hugo. Now the naturalist must seek his color in bits and pieces.
Artist's reconstruction of Burgess Shale animals • Image by PaleoEquii (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The crapshoot of history
Stephen Jay Gould has written his best book yet. “Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History” is the story of some remarkable fossils from the mountains of western Canada, and a sprightlier introduction to the history, methods, and philosophy of science would be hard to imagine.
Soviet Monument to the Conquerors of Space • Photo by L-BBE (CC BY 3.0)
Science’s silent partner
Glasnost! Perestroika! Solidarity governs Poland! The Hungarian Communist Party dissolves itself! These stunning political events will change the landscape of international science as Soviet and Eastern Bloc scientists begin to interact more freely with their Western counterparts.
Photo by Hamid Khaleghi on Unsplash
Touring the zodiac
Why should astrology buffs have all the fun looking up their birth signs in the newspaper horoscope? Herewith, a horoscope (of sorts) for real stargazers, a potpourri of light-hearted zodiac trivia.