The IceCube Neutrino Observatory just figured out that gamma bursts have nothing to do with cosmic rays, and that means no one knows where they come from. Via io9: …the telescope was able to conclusively contradict 15 years worth of previous predictions while still under construction, and now it’s pretty much demolished one of the …
Tag Archive: science
Feb 18 2012
The Age of Wonder: Science as a Means to Emancipation
Richard Holmes’ 2009 tome is aptly titled. It’s a wonder, and it takes an age to read it. Right. I wanted to get that out of the way, as the fact of its lengthiness weighs on me as I consider penning a reaction to its substance. It feels really long. But, as with many efforts, …
Nov 19 2011
My Atheism Will Not Save the World
After working professionally in the atheist movement, something about my passion for the cause dwindled. This happens a lot to me — I take on a given subject as my profession, and I subsequently grow disillusioned in said subject. Something about a thing becoming one’s job can spoil it. But after putting aside theatre a …
Sep 05 2011
Save Science by Not Talking about Science, Ctd.
Side note: My dad actually bought me this shirt. I love it, and my wife hates it when I wear it. She just thinks it makes me look stupid. I don’t think she cares about the rabbit. John Timmer at Ars Technica places a plague o’ both your houses when it comes to the convenient …
Aug 30 2011
Save Science By Not Talking about Science
”At last! I have discovered the formula for making the uneducated feel even MORE inadequate!” I almost wasn’t going to read the recent Paul Krugman column on the proud anti-science stance of mainstream Republican thought. You know, “this also just in: Fire is hot.” But it got so much attention in my social media circles, that I …
Aug 01 2011
Trojan Asteroid Follows Earth, Reinforces My Insecurities
It turns out that our fair planet has been tailed by a shy asteroid for perhaps thousands of years. This “Trojan asteroid” is caught between the gravitational tugs of Earth and the Sun, and is doomed to follow us around in our orbit, and there may be others like it. Per the LA Times: “This is …
May 03 2011
Darwin’s Mischief, Through Antebellum Eyes
In 1860, botanist Asa Gray reviewed the brand new book, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is a fascinating read. Not least of all for what about it induces cringing to modern liberal eyes: The prospect of the future, accordingly, is on the whole pleasant and encouraging. It is only the backward …
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