September 3 – 7 Sometimes new technology gives you a person who can only compare the moon to a tart. And sometimes it gives you Galileo, or the Beatles. This week, Richard pondered the connection. For labor day, Ann brought back her famous account of scientists being withering. Tom got irritated about the science lies […]
Month: September 2012
I was watching the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan” the other night when I got to thinking about Galileo. “Ladies and gentlemen, here are The Beatles!” cried Ed, in his imitable style, and the camera cut to curtains flying apart with an abandon that matched the song’s first notes, already slamming away. Then Paul stepped to […]
My nephew-the-biology-graduate-student sacrificed several days and a certain amount of money to come to a family reunion and seemed honestly interested in talking to the relatives, so I thought, ok, maybe this is a little vacation from the lab, maybe he’s relaxing. Except I’d look over at him sprawled on the couch and say, “What […]
I don’t know what it is with these young people thinking the violent obliteration of a planet and all its civilizations is cool. Maybe they grew up with reality being virtual and not the other kind. Never mind. Supernova 1987A — the “A” because it was 1987’s first supernova — used to be a blue […]
Some parents, especially those with writerly or scientific tendencies, cope with the shock of having reproduced by chronicling every twist and turn as their progeny move from mewling rage ball to drooling tyrant, and beyond. Not for the me the introspection and fearless truth telling of Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s […]
This post is a re-run from 7/15/2010. The situation hasn’t improved. I grew up noticing what a writer notices — stories and how things are said — and educated myself accordingly. So I never learned much science and now, after I’ve unexpectedly turned into a science writer, my questions to scientists are generally English-major questions. […]
August 27 -31 This week, guest poster Anne Casselman reported on a fascinating group of new experiments that indicate that a real solution to climate change won’t come from engineering better biofuels as much as it will come from engineering better ways to exploit our own psychological trap doors. After all, social pressure is our […]
