Earlier this week, those of us at the National Association of Science Writers conference in Austin, Texas, had the great privilege of having Steven Weinberg talk to us about what to expect from the Large Hadron Collider (if and when it ever fires up). It was a bit… Read full post »

Austin, TX -- Should fat guys take the Pill? Maybe so. Should obese women who reach menopause undergo hormonal replacement therapy? Could be.
    Addressing journalists attending the National Association of Science Writers conference, medical re… Read full post »

    Austin, TX -- Speaking to journalists at the National Association of Science Writers conference, geo- and atmospheric scientist Kevin Gurney suggested that we could curb global warming by cutting down all the trees in the upper northern hemisphere. This… Read full post »

    Has physics finally jumped off the dock? Gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? You might well think so if you read an essay by Dennis Overbye in the October 13th New York Times. In it, Overbye, a seasoned science journalist, reports that at least two theoretical physicists are predicting fa… Read full post »

    Ricky Gervais' new film, The Invention of Lying, is at once conventional, ingenious, and incendiary. Yet, it is itself a lie, and that is what I will come to shortly. All the same, it is a terrific, triple-faceted lie.

    Conventional because -- and I don'… Read full post »

    Forget evolution. The most consequential conflict between science and religion concerns sex. Science has given us the ability to enjoy sex without necessarily having babies. Since that possibility was, if you'll pardon the expression, inconceivable at the time the Bible and other s… Read full post »

Anthropologist Breaks Myth of

Respect for Nature Among

Hunter- Gatherer Tribes 

    My last year of high school I had the coolest teacher ever. Shel, as he liked to be called (and, as his given name was Sheldon and his last name worse, who can blame him?)… Read full post »

Ardi, the largely complete fossil remains of what may have been a human ancestor, is in the news.  She's not much to look at, but then again four and a half million years from now, you won't be either. In fact,  to our eyes, she's so downright ug-uh-ly that the news… Read full post »

      We all know that some climate change deniers are paid stooges, and that others are cynical attention seekers. We should not let this knowledge blind us to the possibility that some climate change deniers are sincere and may have something to say worth hearing. Physicist… Read full post »

    In my inaugural essay for this blog, I wrote of the possibility of science as salvation for humanity. You may think it odd, then, that I should turn around and write an essay against science. But surely anyone who professes a worldview rooted in science must be willing to take… Read full post »

    It's raining numbers. Whether you're talking sports, politics, or science, the quantification of life has reached the flood stage. The other evening, looking for some escapist entertainment, I tuned into the late innings of a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Roy… Read full post »

  The death of folksinger Sam Hinton occasioned warm and well deserved tributes. Everyone recalled his whimsical and truly charming riff on the golden rule, "Whoever Some Good Peanuts and Giveth His Neighbor None." That title song from his most famous children's album certainly ranks among the f… Read full post »

Imagine being at the wheel of really sweet sportscar. Long in the hood, smooth and low in the chassis, it can go like blazes. So you take it out on the road to put it through its paces. At 80, it's merely purring. No cops in sight. At 95, it… Read full post »

    I was about seven when I first had a life-changing vision. Not the face of Jesus, nor yet a shimmering figure of Mary; it was rather a little blip of light that transfixed my attention.
    My dad, like many of the fathers of that era, often seemed to… Read full post »