Getting Things Done?  Nyuk, Nyuk, Yuk!

 Dear Dead-in-the-Water Democrats:

     Look, fellas, I know an election is coming in less time than it takes to have a baby. I know it's been a tough winter, and at this point half your caucus is so panicked they are… Read full post »

With Drives Like These, How Can We
Afford Not to Go Back to the Moon?

     In a brilliant political stroke, President Obama has proposed killing Project Constellation. This was George W. Bush's plan to return astronauts to the lunar surface, where they could once again pl… Read full post »

     I have to admit that after all these years, sex is still a mystery to me. Especially human sex. Not that I've tried any other kind.
    What I'm trying to say here is that for all that biologists and other researchers have learned about human sexuality,… Read full post »

   
Rise in Autism Cases Reported, 1992 - 2008

    Oops, it's happened again. As a science journalist, I am frequently embarrassed by the way important scientific ideas tranmogrify into gushy, silly, or scary notions in the media. The idea at stake this time coul… Read full post »

 
   Could This Be A Cure for Alzheimers?

    Awhile back, I posted a column casting doubt on the claims that cellphones cause brain cancer. Apart from well designed studies that found no evidence to support such claims, there are the simple facts of physics: cell… Read full post »

Why We Should All Resolve to Understand
Ourselves Better Before Casting Judgment

    Care to guess what Tiger Woods' New Year's resolution might be? Why not; everyone else who writes does. You'll have to get to the back of a long line, though, and endure a lot of really lame jok… Read full post »

The Real Explosive Was In Abdulmutallab's Mind 

     Many words have been wasted on the type of explosive aboard Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. Today PETN, tomorrow something else. (More on that below!) We'd do better to focus on the really scary stuff aboard th… Read full post »

The Time Has Come to Put an  End
to the Needless Conflict
Between Two Great Human Institutions

    What kind of world do we live in? That's a question that both science and religion attempt to answer. In the next few days, a pair of notable anniversaries will illuminate the… Read full post »

How Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska
Really Cares for Its Customers (See Update below!)

[Update: A sense of fairness moves me to note that BC/BS did eventually call me back, and that they have offered me a different kind of policy that will cost less. I haven't yet had… Read full post »

The Christian Right Wants to Tell Everyone
How to Celebrate the Holidays

     Christmas is fast approaching. Shoppers are shopping, carolers are caroling, and evangelicals are ... declaring holy war??? Yes, the season of joy, peace, and giving knows no respite from religi… Read full post »

 A City in North Carolina Elects an Atheist,
But the State Constitution Says He Can't Take Office

 
         Goats on the rise

    A sign of the times? Or perhaps the End Times? Either way, the unthinkable has happened: an open… Read full post »

Does Climate Change Denial Amount to
An Evolutionary Pyschopathology?

 

   The threat of climate catastrophe elicits a curous social response: the stronger the evidence grows, the more the public listens to the professional deniers and climate skeptics.

   In recent m… Read full post »

Why We Don't Need Any More Studies
Telling Us Cell Phone Signals Are Safe

 

    So. Less than a month after CNN revived the cell phone brain cancer scare, another major study claims to confirm that cell phones don't cause brain cancer. Bah! What do studies know? If you're a…

Read full post »

Why Planning for Manned Missions to the Red Planet Is Dumb
   

     It was great to see Bob Ballard on 60 Minutes this week. The discoverer of the Titanic and (more importantly, says he, tube worms) was, as always, delightful and sharp. He made a familiar poi… Read full post »

By Darwin's Lights, This Is Our True National Bird

    On this day of Thanksgiving, let us choose to accentuate the positive.  It's all too easy to be a downer. As that lately late Sultan of Style, William Safire, once noted, anyone can be a nabob of negativity. Yes, the… Read full post »

Or Will We Be Soon Be Eating This?

 

     Hi, my name is Clay, and I am a tuna addict. It's true. Even though I feel ripples of guilt every time, whether it's a tuna-fish sandwich or a translucent slice of maguro sashimi, I feel bad that I… Read full post »

The True Bloodsuckers, However, Are Hardly Supernatural

   Are you afraid of vampires? I am.

    Not thatI believe there are supernatural bloodsuckers flapping around out there. No, I am afraid that my fellow citizens… Read full post »

Can We Come To Our Senses
Over Our Single Best Shot to Defeat Disease?

     "You wanna get a flu shot?"
    My wife asked me that innocent question across the breakfast table, and to my outraged amazement I found myself hesitating. Me! The editor of a book… Read full post »

My Radio Program to Air Issues in Advance of Nov. 20th Vote

       Half of the University of Nebraska’ regents have drafted a resolution that would limit embryonic stem cell research at the university’s medical center to stem cell lines approved under former… Read full post »

    So, the Vatican has taken up the question of intelligent life on other worlds? Too rich!

    This move has, of course, prompted discussion about what effect its discovery would have on religion. Here's a snippet from science writer Hanna Devlin of the Times of… Read full post »

Can Science Provide An Excuse for Goofing Off?
(*apologies to Enya)

    With the World Series over, I could no longer put off raking leaves. The one time I wanted it to rain on a weekend, the skies were blue and the temperature fine. Muttering sullenly, I let my thoughts wander… Read full post »

 How Can Either Side Stand the Pain of Loss in Paradise?
Quantum Mechanics May Hold the Answer!

 

   Man, the Phillies are killing me! In Game Four of the World Series they lost in the ninth, and last night in Game Five they very nearly did it again. Which… Read full post »

Why I Like To Dress Up as Satan At Halloween

    I love Halloween, 'cause it gives me a chance to don my horns and play the most interesting character in all of religion: Old Scratch, Lucifer, the Devil himself. Let's face it, virtue may good, but it is booooooohring. I… Read full post »

Doesn't a Public School Teacher in America Have the Right to Brand Students with His Religious Beliefs Anymore?

 

 "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of… Read full post »

    "Be fruitful and multiply."

   

    These words from Genesis are sweet, suggestive, and quite possibly catastrophic.  That spike on the right of the chart above represents 6 billion  people. More than 1 billion of them go hungry every… Read full post »