A GIFT FROM THE COSMOS
EVERY YEAR, TENS of thousands of meteorites survive trips through our atmosphere to reach Earth. But the one that struck in the Costa Rican rainforest last year was really special: … Continue reading
HOW COME MY RAZOR GETS DULL?
SURELY STEEL IS stronger than hair, right? Indeed, it’s fifty times stronger. Then how come razors don’t stay sharp forever? What with one thing and another, this may seem inconsequential. … Continue reading
THREE SCIENTISTS WALK INTO A BAR….
SOME PEOPLE THINK that scientists are inarticulate. Counterexamples are abundant, and I might wonder who are the inarticulate among us. Here’s scientific wisdom, wit, satire, and social commentary from three … Continue reading
BILL MACLEAN WOULD HAVE LIKED THIS SCIENCE ARTICLE PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE GLEANED details of the anole lizards of the Caribbean, as discussed in Elizabeth Pennisi’s report “Meet Lizard Man, a Reptile-Loving Biologist Tackling Some of the Biggest Questions in … Continue reading
BILL MACLEAN WOULD HAVE LIKED THIS SCIENCE ARTICLE PART 1
THE ANOLIS LIZARD is a timid little rascal known to hide behind picture frames and cavort with a spinning LP record. The male will occasionally show off his expanding dewlap. … Continue reading
CELEBRATING DIGITAL LIBRARIES
THE WORLD’S OLDEST digital library, Project Gutenberg, was founded in 1971. We’re not far from celebrating the half-century anniversary of this ambitious effort to make the world’s literature accessible online. … Continue reading
TO THE HARE, WITH LOVE
THE JULY 2, 2020, ISSUE of London Review of Books offers Katherine Rundell’s ”Consider the Hare.” This essay is something of a love letter to Lepus europaeus: “In their long-limbed … Continue reading
SCHOOL DAZE?
THERE ARE PLENTY of reasons for kids to resume conventional schooling. There are plenty of reasons that this may not yet be the time. Here are tidbits gleaned from Science, … Continue reading
COVID-19 ALGEBRA
A RECENT POSTING in the AAAS Member Community Digest discusses the relationship between a disease’s herd immunity and its R0, “R-naught.” Indeed, it turns out that, to be successful, the … Continue reading
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TIDBITS FROM AAAS
IT’S NO SURPRISE that Science, the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, should be an excellent source of information on science, you’ll excuse the term … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 