Here’s some good news indeed. A crisis in the making has been averted as it appears that the cause of honey bee colony collapse disorder has been identified as a parasitic microorganism and a form of treatment for eliminating the… Continue Reading
At the end of December, I made sixteen predictions for 2009. Here’s how I’m doing so far: Prediction Status The United States Federal deficit for calendar year 2009 will exceed $1.5 trillion. I may have been too modest in this… Continue Reading
Well, that’s not such an extraordinary thing when the art in question is cautionary science fiction. Here, I refer to the remarkably interesting movie Gattaca, with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. (Reviewed by this blogger three and a half years… Continue Reading
Today would have been Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. There are those who think that Darwin was the most important scientist ever. That is overstating the case, although in the field of biology it is probably impossible to diminish his importance.… Continue Reading
A woman in Bellflower gave birth to octuplets yesterday. All eight tiny babies survived and are expected to survive, in what is thought to be only the second time in history that has happened. Personal details on the mother and… Continue Reading
Can we agree, at the threhshold of this post, that calculus is an immensely significant area of knowledge? It enables us to build bridges, send astronauts into space, and generate electricity by splitting atoms. I don’t pretend to understand calculus… Continue Reading
The Sun has got entirely the wrong spin on this story. It suggests that the events described in the story are somehow a fortuitous turn of events. In fact, what’s going on is damned scary. Al Qaeda is playing with… Continue Reading
An archeaologist from my alma mater, working with his father, a paleooceanographer from the University of Oregon, have located a fairly consistent layer of nanodiamonds in soil samples from around North America. From this, they conclude that 12,900 years ago,… Continue Reading
We’ll revisit this post in a year. Here are some things that I will be looking for in 2009: The United States Federal deficit for calendar year 2009 will exceed $1.5 trillion. A human being will be cloned. There will… Continue Reading
As a further evidence that torture is unnecessary to achieve our foreign policy goals — even the sub rosa gathering of intelligence about enemy movements — I refer you Readers to this piece in today’s WaPo. As it turns out,… Continue Reading