[This is the first part of two.] So this is what it’s come to. Our largely successful struggle to eradicate the once-common infectious diseases of childhood through the mechanism of vaccines has been so successful that many parents voluntarily eschew … Continue reading →
First we had paper grocery bags. I liked them, not the least because they were versatile. Good for wrapping packages for mailing and, long ago, excellent as textbook covers. But then the news came that they were environmentally wasteful. Too … Continue reading →
In the aftermath of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, I keep reading that his assertion that the US government “lied about inventing the AIDS virus as a means of genocide against people of color” is understandable because, after all, the government … Continue reading →
It seems that a well-intentioned attempt to protect a certain kind of African acacia tree from the large beasts who would munch on it has had the opposite effect. In a complex interaction of insect, plant, and animal, the trees … Continue reading →
It used to be that virtually every society on earth had its own moral and social code and believed it was the best on earth—and not just the best for that particular society but the best, period. The only question … Continue reading →
The famous 2006 Lancet study indicating there had been more than ten times the previous estimates of Iraqi deaths in the war and postwar period engendered a storm of controversy right from the outset. How could such a huge number … Continue reading →
I have a question for all you techies out there: how (and why) do the cords of earbuds for cellphones spontaneously tie themselves into knots in a single instant? And I don’t mean modest knots, either. I mean large tangled … Continue reading →
I was in Chicago last weekend, staying in the Hyde Park area, along Lake Shore Drive. Lake Michigan is extraordinary, looking for all the world like the ocean, complete with whitecaps on a windy day and what appear to be … Continue reading →
Al Gore has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. And just what has Gore done lately to advance world peace? Nothing, really. But the Peace Prize has become a sort of worldwide Miss Congeniality contest in recent years, when it’s … Continue reading →
From the NY Times comes a reminder that it’s Sputnik’s birthday soon. The article begins begins like this: Fifty years ago, before most people living today were born… Ouch. I, of course, remember (if only vaguely) the news of Sputnik’s … Continue reading →
The hallmark of scientific research is objectivity. Its goal is the attainment of truth about the universe in which we live, knowing of course that we can only learn by bits and pieces, and that total truth is probably not … Continue reading →
The laconic, elegant, deeply intellectual, and labyrinthine Jorge Luis Borges is one of my favorite authors, and “Funes, the Memorius” from his collection Ficciones is one of his best stories. Borges had a swell of popularity in the 60s. I … Continue reading →