Goes to this cautionary flashback: I love the New Yorker and over the years they have published many fine articles on science by bright and knowledgeable writers including Lehrer (e.g., John McPhee, Jonathon Schell, John Hersey, Rachel Carson, Jeremy Bernstein, Atul Gawande, Malcom Gladwell). Despite this excellent record of science translation, it is useful to…Continue Reading…
But I view this recurring issue the same way I view revelations of juiced baseball players: Yeah, it happens, and it sullies the game, but not nearly enough to make me consider stop watching baseball. In other words, has the use of steroids fatally compromised the sport? No. So there’s two ways to look at…Continue Reading…
If you’re gonna be a doomer, this seems like the right attitude to take: I begin the year convinced that our civilisation will collapse soon but at the same time enjoying the continuous Mozart on Radio 3, abandoning alcohol for the month with enthusiasm, and committing myself to three runs and 70 000 steps a…Continue Reading…
On the passing of Gerry Rafferty, Stoat reminisces about that famous line from “Stuck in the Middle with You” and remarks: the same problems exist: remaining sane and balanced between we’re-all-going-to-die and there-is-no-problem. Many people will undoubtedly associate the song with a classically twisted Tarantino scene. I’m glad Stoat chose this great clip in memoriam.
It’s “dangerously naive” and an “indulgent form of self-interest,” writes an engineering professor in this provocative essay. Oh, and also “seriously mistaken”: An insular community which does not trade regionally or internationally is at risk from the most basic threats, such as crop failure due to local extremes of weather. The evidence for this is…Continue Reading…
Yesterday, after the news broke of an extensive investigative report by Brian Deer, a British journalist, CNN’s Anderson Cooper took it from there and completed the evisceration of huckster Andrew Wakefield, whose infamous 1998 study supposedly linking autism to the MMR vaccine was retracted last year by the journal Lancet. Cooper doesn’t mince words, and…Continue Reading…
They don’t have much sway in the party of Limbaugh, but there is such a thing as gay Republicans, and a species known as Republicans for Environmental Protection. Cognitive dissonance aside, they’ve even been around for a while. But did you know there was also a rare breed of conservative climate scientists? There’s even a…Continue Reading…
Here’s some sobering context from an archaeologist: If you look broadly at human history, failure is the norm. What’s amazing is when things last. That observation was made in reference to the Cahokia, a little known and little appreciated pre-Columbian empire that gets the full National Geographic treatment in its current issue.
Hmm, thanks to the modern diet, plastic take out containers, and our party hardy ways, maybe the planet’s population problem will take care of itself.
Captain climate doom (also known as Mr. Hell & High Water) is sure to snarl at the headline of this new Nature article and its lead sentence: The use of dire predictions to encourage action on climate change may be backfiring and increasing doubt that greenhouse gases from human activities are causing global warming. Question:…Continue Reading…