Critical views of science in the news
Success stories are a staple of medical communication. The clinician or reporter tells the tale of a patient whose ailment has been ameliorated by a new drug, device, surgical procedure or other intervention...
I lack the tribalism gene. I don’t identify strongly, emotionally, with clusterings of people, whether nation, religion, ethnic group, profession or sports team (although decades ago I endured the horror of being a Mets fan)...
Last month, in an effort to make this blog more upbeat, I started a monthly column called “Cool Sh*t I’ve Read Lately.” My stated intention was to draw attention to “well-written articles about compelling topics.” In this second installment, I’m breaking that rule by mentioning not only articles but also books, including a novel...
After consuming magic mushrooms in Basel, Switzerland, I ran into Albert Hofmann, the chemist who catalyzed the psychedelic era.
Corvid cleverness is making news lately. Two of my favorite science writers, Sharon Begley and James Gorman, describe a variety of experiments--reported in PLOS One by researchers in New Zealand–in which crows mimic the hero of Aesop’s ancient fable “The Crow and the Pitcher.” By dropping objects into containers of water, crows raise the water’s [...]..
Some idiot over at National Geographic just wrote a column titled “Science Is Running Out of Things to Discover,” and the commenters are hammering him.
The Sherlock Holmes era of my life has, sadly, ended. I just completed The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Kindle edition, four novels and 56 short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have agreed to a plan to end war, according to a recording of a conversation between the two Presidents recently made available to “Cross-check” by the hacker collective Anonymous...
I get tired, now and then, of being such a sourpuss–a Debbie Downer, as my girlfriend calls me, always complaining about something. The wrongness of drone strikes and neuro-weapons research, the downside of psychiatric drugs and tests for cancer, hype about optogenetics and deep brain stimulation and theories of cosmic creation...
Russian-born physicist Andrei Linde, now at Stanford, has been in the news lately because of his contributions to inflation, a theory of our universe’s creation that has recently won support (although not from me)...
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