Bernd Heinrich is a highly regarded biologist. The Birds of North America note on Common Ravens cites to him an amazing eighteen times. He’s now an emeritus professor at the University of Vermont and, at 80 years old, still runs ultra marathons. He’s also the author of some twenty popularizations, of wildly uneven quality. Here’s…
There is a measles epidemic in New York City. So far, it has sickened some 329 people, with no end in sight. This isn’t to be confused with the ongoing epidemic of measles in eastern Washington State. New York City has declared a public health emergency. The City has issued an emergency health order. ll…
WC has written of the sad death of his friend Kenelm Philip, physicist, fellow fan of good books, programmer and, above all, astonishing lepidopterist. WC has also written of Ken’s little “surprise” for WC: Ken named WC as his executor, to WC’s consternation. There have been subsequent events that merit a blot post. First, Ken’s…
To those of a geeky persuasion – a group that certainly includes WC – there is an important anniversary approaching. May 29 will be the centennial of Eddington’s confirmation of general relativity. To understand why this is important we have to go back to 1915 or so. Albert Einstein had published his four scientific papers…
We live in a world surrounded by science and the products of science. Yet there seems to be an increasing tendency among too many of us to disregard, deprecate, ignore and dismiss science. We do so at our peril. According to Fortune Magazine, 3M’s 2019 State of Science Index, which includes responses from 14,000 people in…
OSIRIS-REx, the very ambitious effort to obtain a sample from an asteroid in space, is a success to this point. The manmade satellite is in orbit around the small asteroid 101955 Bennu. It’s a triumph of celestial navigation and technology. There were serious critics of the OSIRIS-REx’s mission, who asked “What was the point, what…
At the start of WC’s legal career women and children were still property of men in many states. Women have made great progress in erasing that historic detritus. Kids, not so much. And no where is it more evident than in the childhood vaccine debates. If a parent mistreats his or her children, the state…
