This is the third installment in my monthly feature “Cool Sh*t I’ve Read Lately.” (Here are number one and number two.) This month I’m calling it “Cool Sh*t I’ve Read–and Seen—Lately” so I can add a movie and art exhibit...
Biologist Gerald Edelman–one of the truly great scientific characters I’ve encountered, whose work raised profound questions about the limits of science—has died.
I recently got into an argument, again, about cancer. The occasion was a talk by one of my colleagues at Stevens Institute, philosopher Gregory Morgan, on the fascinating history of research into cancer-causing viruses...
Success stories are a staple of medical communication. The clinician or reporter tells the tale of a patient whose ailment has been ameliorated by a new drug, device, surgical procedure or other intervention...
I lack the tribalism gene. I don’t identify strongly, emotionally, with clusterings of people, whether nation, religion, ethnic group, profession or sports team (although decades ago I endured the horror of being a Mets fan)...
Last month, in an effort to make this blog more upbeat, I started a monthly column called “Cool Sh*t I’ve Read Lately.” My stated intention was to draw attention to “well-written articles about compelling topics.” In this second installment, I’m breaking that rule by mentioning not only articles but also books, including a novel...
After consuming magic mushrooms in Basel, Switzerland, I ran into Albert Hofmann, the chemist who catalyzed the psychedelic era.
Corvid cleverness is making news lately. Two of my favorite science writers, Sharon Begley and James Gorman, describe a variety of experiments--reported in PLOS One by researchers in New Zealand–in which crows mimic the hero of Aesop’s ancient fable “The Crow and the Pitcher.” By dropping objects into containers of water, crows raise the water’s [...]..
Some idiot over at National Geographic just wrote a column titled “Science Is Running Out of Things to Discover,” and the commenters are hammering him.
The Sherlock Holmes era of my life has, sadly, ended. I just completed The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Kindle edition, four novels and 56 short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have agreed to a plan to end war, according to a recording of a conversation between the two Presidents recently made available to “Cross-check” by the hacker collective Anonymous...
I get tired, now and then, of being such a sourpuss–a Debbie Downer, as my girlfriend calls me, always complaining about something. The wrongness of drone strikes and neuro-weapons research, the downside of psychiatric drugs and tests for cancer, hype about optogenetics and deep brain stimulation and theories of cosmic creation...
Russian-born physicist Andrei Linde, now at Stanford, has been in the news lately because of his contributions to inflation, a theory of our universe’s creation that has recently won support (although not from me)...
Yesterday, I expressed doubts about claims that observations of gravitational waves provide “proof” of inflation, a 24 year old theory of cosmic creation.
I hoped I was wrong about inflation. For decades I’ve been bashing this theory of cosmic creation, lumping it together with strings, multiverses (which inflation has helped popularize) and other highly speculative propositions sprung from theorists’ fecund minds...
All of us--researchers, journalists, patients and their loved ones–are desperate for genuine progress in treatments for severe mental illness.
In my last post, I criticized Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the new science series Cosmos, which is premiering tonight, for downplaying historical links between science and war.
I hope Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a smash hit when it debuts Sunday night, as much so as the 1980 Cosmos hosted by astrophysicist Carl Sagan.
I’ve become, belatedly, a Sherlock Holmes groupie. I dig the BBC series Sherlock, starring the suddenly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, and the American series Elementary (which I prefer–Lucy Liu is the best Watson ever)...
Once again, the United States government is chastising another nation for resorting to military force to solve a problem. The New York Times reports today that Russian troops, acting on orders of President Vladimir Putin, have swept into the Crimea region of Ukraine after a popular uprising led to the ouster of a pro-Russian government [...]..
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