AG’s mouseover says that astronomers began charting the motions of the planets, continued through the law of gravitation, and ended up with us on the moon; so sure, the planets affect our lives. I have nothing to add. If I did, I’d probably end up telling you I read my horoscope every day. And that, […]
About a month ago, the science writing community found out that one of its leaders was sexually harassing his younger female colleagues. The young women, especially those looking for networks and jobs, took to the internet and named him in front of his own community. The internet got its shorts in an uproar which eventually focused on […]
November 18 – 22 Fairy tales have origins and evolutions, says Cameron, and were told so they’d produce “shock effects so powerful that to this day we feel compelled to talk about them, reinvent them and pass them on.” Helen goes to the zoo to see the tiger babies — “crashing and pouncing and falling off […]
Ben: OK, everyone. Forget Tesla. It’s time to start obsessing about Luis Alvarez. [That’s Luis Alvarez in the photo, standing in front of the Great Artiste. This post began, as so much in life does, with a Twitter conversation. Ben Lillie, a physicist and writer, began it; other people added to it. One of those […]
Astronomers irritate the hell out of me, NASA’s in particular, not the people but their press releases: never met a superlative they didn’t like, Biggest Black Hole, Farthest Quasar, Youngest Galaxy, and on and on, far into the night. The black hole’s size isn’t interesting unless it says something about how galaxies form. The quasar’s […]
Yup. So the battle is uphill and science writers are in the front lines. I do know words like “antibodies” and “herd immunity,” but as a biomedical writer, I write well about astronomy. I know this isn’t exactly what AG is saying, but it’s all I have to say: last week, I got my […]
I do seem to keep referring to Freeman Dyson, even writing whole posts about him. The reason, I think, is that I want to write a profile of him, even though 1) profiles of him have been done and done and done, the most recent being a full-blown biography; and 2) he’s way above my […]
This subject is dear to me at the moment: I’ve been working forever on a short, cheap news story on the National Security Agency. One thing I’m learning — or I think I’m learning, with this stuff you can’t be sure — is more or less what AG is saying, that an internet without back doors […]