We’ve been hearing the word “disaster” in connection with the nuclear reactors in Japan, usually in the context of phrases such as, “Japanese teams work mightily to avoid looming disaster.” But what is the definition of a disaster these days? … Continue reading →
Worth watching: It’s part of a much longer speech that Crichton gave a few years ago. The entire speech can be watched here (hat tip: SteveH).
Continue reading →I think I’m starting to sound like the proverbial broken record (although now that records are pretty much obsolete, should there not be another term?), but the beat goes on with the hyping of the nuclear plant problems in Japan. … Continue reading →
I’m not a scientist, but this article by William Tucker in the WSJ seems to make a great deal of sense and is worth quoting at length. The gist of it is that Fukushima Daiichi ain’t Chernobyl. Nor is it … Continue reading →
I watched “Jeopardy” last night to see what all the fuss was about Watson, the computer who’s been coolly cleaning the clocks of previous mega-winners Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. I don’t like Watson. Seems to me that, although his … Continue reading →
For obvious reasons, several people have sent me this link to a NY Times article on the overwhelming presence of liberals in the field of personality and social psychology. Conservatives? This group has barely ever heard of em, except perhaps … Continue reading →
The news that Vladimir Nabokov, illustrious author and respected lepidopterist, came up with a theory of butterfly evolution that was poo-pooed in his time but which has now been vindicated by DNA research has made me unaccountably happy. Nabokov speculated … Continue reading →
This past Thursday I wrote a post that generated quite a bit of back and forth in the comments section, about the supposed vaccine/autism connection. An issue that’s somewhat related to that discussion is how to decide whether an observed … Continue reading →
Not an error: a deliberate fraud. Let that sink in a minute. It’s not been an inconsequential fraud, either; I completely agree with the contention, voiced in the British medical journal BMJ, that Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s original study purporting to … Continue reading →
George Monbiot explains how it is that the unusually cold winters in Europe lately are actually consistent with, and probably caused by, global warming. Warm, cold, wet, dry, it’s all fodder for the global warming mill. As John at Powerline … Continue reading →
“Funes the Memorious” has long been one of my favorite short stories by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. In it, Borges describes a fictional character who has an accident and becomes unable to forget anything: Funes…reveals that, since his fall … Continue reading →
…found on earth. In California, naturally. All joking aside, this is fascinating. It’s a bacteria that can incorporate arsenic rather than phosphorus into its DNA, expanding the possibilities for the basic building blocks of life.
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