Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Category Archives: Cosmology
About New Books by Phil Plait and Jamie Green
Phil Plait’s Under Alien Skies Jamie Green’s The Possibility of Life And a Facebook cartoon about the cynicism of anti-intellectuals Phil Plait on John Scalzi’s blog today, about his new book Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe, … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Book Notes, Cosmology, Lunacy, science fiction
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Recent Science Matters
What fetal tissue actually looks like; how humans inbreed dogs to the point of their inability to survive in the wild; the discovery of the enormous universe and who did and didn’t get credit.
Cosmic Websites; Recent Headlines
Let’s begin with an item from December, on a website called Topia: A World of Good, promoted on Facebook today by David Brin since it reproduces a list Brin compiled on his own blog some time ago. 21 COSMIC WEBSITES … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Cosmology, Politics, Science, science fiction
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Another Science in 2022 list; A Reading about the Medea Hypothesis
Smithsonian Magazine, Carlyn Kranking and Joe Spring, 28 Dec 2022: The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2022, subtitled “From Omicron’s spread to a revelation made using ancient DNA, these were the biggest moments of the past year”
Maps of the Universe
More things in heaven and earth. As a palette cleanser from my 26th, 23rd, and 16th November posts (and many previous), here’s a status check on the latest of what human beings have discovered, through systematic investigation (i.e. science), of … Continue reading
Neil deGrasse Tyson, STARRY MESSENGER: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
Review: Rather similarly to a couple three other nonfiction books I’ve read lately –- Ari Wallach’s LONGPATH (review here, Jim Al-Khalil’s THE JOY OF SCIENCE (review here), and even Justin Gregg’s IF NIETZSCHE WERE A NARWHAL (review here) -– this … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Science
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World Views and Cosmic Views
Two items today by Adam Lee. OnlySky, Adam Lee, 17 Jul 2022: How to tell if you’re in a bubble OnlySky, Adam Lee, 19 July 2022: My humanism comes from the stars
Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION, 2
I’ve spent my blogging time this afternoon refining yesterday’s post about Michio Kaku’s book THE GOD EQUATION. I’m not sure reducing 20 bullets about each chapter to 10 bullets will make much difference, in terms of my goal to pass … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Physics
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Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION (Doubleday, 2021)
Here’s a book I thought suspect on two or three counts, but which turned out to be quite worthwhile. It’s a succinct, crisp history of physics, from the Greeks to the present, and ending with, though not dwelling too much … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Physics
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LQCs: Bad Map Projections; Worldle; Banned Books
I’ve commented a few times about map projections, and how projections of the entire globe are invariably misleading in one way or another, because there’s no accurate way to map a spherical surface onto a flat map. Inevitably there are … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Cosmology, Films, Movies
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