FIDO’S ANCESTORS
THE DOG EVOLVED from the wolf. It was man’s first domesticated animal, accomplished before humankind’s domestication of farm stock. Details of canine domestication are still controversial. However, part of the … Continue reading
THE BITCOIN SAGA CONTINUES
THERE’S NOTHING SIMPLE about the virtual currency Bitcoin. And there’s one helluva saga evolving. “The Satoshi Affair,” by Andrew O’Hagan, occupies 17 oversize pages of the London Review of Books, … Continue reading
HELLO, JUPITER! SUE FINLEY IS ARRIVING
IN A FEW DAYS, Sue Finley may retire. This test engineer has worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 57 years, the woman with the longest career at NASA. Sue … Continue reading
NANOTECH AND THE LITHIUM BATTERY
BATTERIES OF lithium-ion technology are the current state of the art, suppling power to everything from smart phones to Battery Electric Vehicles. Plenty of companies worldwide are striving to make … Continue reading
A LATTER-DAY STARLIGHT EXPRESS
BACK IN the 1980s and 1990s, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express captivated the London stage for 7408 performances, had Broadway and Las Vegas productions, another in Germany (that’s still playing) … Continue reading
SET AND REST A SPELL
FLYING CREATURES conserve energy by occasionally perching. And, as reported in Science, published weekly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, engineers are applying nature’s techniques to make … Continue reading
THE STATE OF CITIES
GIVEN THAT YOU’RE an Earthling, the probability is better than half that you live in an urban area. In the United States, this increases to 80 percent. So it’s most … Continue reading
WE’RE THE HIGH-ENERGY APES
“WE MAY NOT be raring to go on a Monday morning, but humans are the Energizer Bunnies of the primate world.” This wonderful opening line by Ann Gibbons in AAAS … Continue reading
ODD BEDFELLOWS: NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND IRAN
POLICY AIMED at reducing the world’s nuclear weapons has led to odd international liaisons. In particular, the U.S. Department of Energy is buying 32 tons of heavy water, D2O, from … Continue reading
ON GRAVITY CLOCKS
THE TERM “gravity clock” suggests sci-fi. In fact, though, it can be quite the traditional opposite. I learned about gravity clocks through a friend gifting me with the RM /Sotheby’s auction … Continue reading
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