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 […]
Miscellaneous
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
August 20 – 24 This week, Cassandra opened up a big, foamy can of whoop-ass all over the people who uncritically told you eggs were as bad for you as cigarettes. Cameron told us why we may get more motion sick as we get older. Ann presented an open and shut case for why you […]
I suppose you were expecting a penis? Today you’re not getting one. Let’s talk instead about Cnemidophorous uniparens, an amazon tribe of Whiptail lizard that consists only of females. Having lost all its males, it now reproduces asexually. Well, kind of. A female’s eggs begin to divide after she gets it on with another female.
August 6 – 10 This week, Cameron channels Derek Zoolander in an epic complaint about turning left. And I know we’re all about Curiosity now, but Tom’s interview with Mars rover pilot Scott Maxwell made me get a little weepy about poor old Spirit once again. Heather wonders if archaeologists should dispense with field season. […]
I shouldn’t say this. In fact, as someone who covers the field of archaeology for a living, I probably shouldn’t even be thinking this. But I find myself wondering increasingly whether it’s time for some dirt archaeologists to relinquish one of their great pleasures, namely the beloved rite of summer: field season. I say this […]
