How do we understand the natural forces that literally shape our world? How, over time have we attempted to explain sometimes spectacular, sometimes mysterious events?

This article is filed under Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews, Science.

In The Athena Factor W. Michael Gear explores the compelling and in many ways horrifying world of biotech engineering, principally in the form of DNA research and manipulation. While this book is fictional, what the author describes is not.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Medicine, Movies, Science, Science Fiction and Fantasy.

“I do not think it appropriate to teach non-science in a biology class – especially non-science that is really a form of literalist Christianity in disguise. Even if it were appropriate, I would not want the kind of conservative evangelical religion taught, that I think ID represents. But it is not appropriate and in the US is illegal.”

This article is filed under Non-Fiction Reviews, Religion, Science.

“Getting nations to cooperate is important, but I think a quicker solution will come from what I call a carbon tax break. This involves taxing pollution at its source, whether it is generated by an oil company or a coal burning energy plant. The money raised by this carbon tax would be distributed to citizens who would then use it to purchase energy. Since gas or coal-produced energy which emit high levels of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would be highly taxed and thus more expensive, people would naturally buy the cheaper, and lower carbon emitting, forms of energy.”

This article is filed under Environment, Non-Fiction Reviews, Science.

“This means that we are a people who now live in that shadow world of quasi-existence. What matters to us is not necessarily what is real, but what is possible given the state of things. This is a big change, and constitutes a fundamental shift in the way we understand the world.”

This article is filed under Biography, Mathematics, Non-Fiction Reviews, Philosophy, Religion, Science.

“Entanglement is a strange feature of quantum physics, the science of the very small. It’s possible to link together two quantum particles – photons of light or atoms, for example – in a special way that makes them effectively two parts of the same entity. You can then separate them as far as you like, and a change in one is instantly reflected in the other. This odd, faster than light link, is a fundamental aspect of quantum science…”

This article is filed under Non-Fiction Reviews, Science.

Goethe and Tagore, separated by time and contexts, but joined in their great felicity over the literary idiom, show similar quests in the understanding of the sciences. It is alluring to jump to the conclusion of a phony and fashionable unity; that science and arts are the same after all; and literature, music, mathematics, and the physical sciences are all manifestations of the common muse.

This article is filed under Biography, India, Mathematics, Non-Fiction Reviews, Poetry, Science, Writers.

During the Apollo 15 mission, an anonymous viewer phoned his local TV station to suggest that a large rock discovered by the astronauts should be named in honor of “a taxpayer selected at random from the computers of the Internal Revenue Service.”

This article is filed under History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Politics, Science.

Meanwhile, every billion dollars spent on the supremely misguided attempt to revivify the nuclear industry is a theft from the production of cheap renewable electricity. Think what these billions could do if invested in the development of wind power, solar power, cogeneration, geothermal energy, biomass, and tidal and wave power, let alone basic energy conservation, which itself could save the United States 20% of the electricity it currently consumes.

This article is filed under Environment, Non-Fiction Reviews, Science.

O’Brian based Aubrey on a Royal Navy captain of two centuries ago, Thomas Cochrane. Lord Cochrane’s exploits were at least as great as those of the fictitious Aubrey, and hardly less than those of Britain’s greatest naval hero, Lord Nelson. But while O’Brian admitted that Cochrane was the inspiration for Aubrey, he did not tell us before he died in 2000 whether he had a real-life model for Maturin. The answer, I think, lies in the handsome bird that I see now beyond our sun room window.

This article is filed under Biography, History, Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews, Russia, Science.