I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. The few times I’ve determined to change bad habits my resolve has dissolved sometime around the middle of the first week of January. Oh, well, never mind, there’s always next year.
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Night sky’s there for the giving
If Santa has telescopes in his sleigh this year, then he should toss in a few good star books too. Here’s why.
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Beer bubble mathematics
Back in the early 1970s a physicist named Robert March published a popular textbook called “Physics for Poets.” The name caught on. Since that time dozens of schools have offered courses called “Physics for Poets” as ways of attracting non-scientists to the study of physics.
Photo by Andrew Malone (CC BY 2.0)
Winter’s coming and stones are on the march
December. Green plants have rolled up their awnings and closed shop. Even the mushrooms, November’s ragpickers, hunker down to that invisible life that mushrooms live for 11 months of the year.
And the nominees are...
An envelope filled with history’s great scientists
Who was the most important scientist of all time?
"Good gracious, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore."
Kansas was never like this
“Good gracious, Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.” No, Dorothy, this isn’t Kansas. It’s Cyberland.
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The psalmist and the astronomer
“Ancient religion and modern science agree: We are here to give praise. Or, to slightly tip the expression, to pay attention.” So says novelist/critic John Updike in a new book on The Meaning of Life compiled by David Friend and the editors of Life magazine.
Droplets produced by a sneeze • CDC Public Health Image Library (Public Domain)
We don’t need cold virus, but cold virus needs us
AH-CHOO!!! Excuse me. I had meant to write about something profound this morning, the origin of the universe, perhaps, or the evolution of consciousness. But, you see, I have this…
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No place for politicians to meddle
After the turmoil and confusion that accompanied the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, you may not want to hear any more about Washington and sex. But there is another story that has been quietly unfolding — about Washington, sex, and science — that deserves a wider airing.
Reconstruction of the Iceman as it was discovered • Photo by Thilo Parg (CC BY-SA 4.0)
DNA magic may reveal some of the Iceman’s secrets
Mystery surrounds the well-preserved 4,000-year-old body of a man found recently in an Alpine glacier. Who was he? Why had he climbed so high above the valley floor? How did he die?