Category Archives: Science

Links and Comments: Science, Religion, and Biases

Posted on 20 April 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Neil deGrasse Tyson, creationists, religion and the intelligentsia, risk assessment. And tarantulas.

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Links and Comments: Muon news

Posted on 8 April 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s pronounced mew-on, not moo-on, I learned today.

Posted in Physics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Muon news

Links and Comments, 6 April 2021: Sciencey Things

Posted on 6 April 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

When life began in the universe; how or whether civilizations die; why people like closed-captioning

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Link and Comments: Ted Chiang interview

Posted on 1 April 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Ted Chiang is a science fiction writer who since 1990 has published a couple dozen works of short fiction (and no novel), gathered in just two books: Stories of Your Life and Others (2002), and Exhalation (2019). I’m certain he … Continue reading →

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Nonfiction Notes: Adam Grant’s THINK AGAIN

Posted on 26 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Adam Grant, THINK AGAIN: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know (2021) This is a recent book, still on the bestseller lists, by an author I had not previously encountered. He’s a professor and TED talker. The book seems … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: APOD; Trusting Science; Trusting Experts

Posted on 24 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Another amazing photo from APOD– Which as in previous photos like this that I’ve posted, shows a huge swath of sky, as we would see it with all the stars we *can* see, along with all the nebulae that we … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: APOD; Trusting Science; Trusting Experts

Nonfiction Notes: Alan Lightman’s PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES

Posted on 19 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Alan Lightman: PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES (2021) This is a new book of essays by a professor at MIT, author of earlier books including the well-regarded novel Einstein’s Dreams (Wikipedia, way back in 1993) and most recently of essay collection Searching for … Continue reading →

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Nonfiction Notes: Elizabeth Kolbert’s UNDER A WHITE SKY

Posted on 19 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

This modestly-length book is a sequel of sorts to the author’s The Sixth Extinction (2014), which won a Pulitzer Prize and which I greatly admired. (My review here.) That book was about how the human impact on the planet, especially … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: APOD: The Enormous Deep Sky

Posted on 11 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another amazing photo from APOD, Astronomy Picture of the Day, that illustrates how enormous some of the famous nebulae in the sky are, compared to constellations.

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Nonfiction Notes: Carl Sagan’s BILLIONS & BILLIONS

Posted on 10 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Carl Sagan: BILLIONS & BILLIONS: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (1996, Random House) This was Carl Sagan’s final book, it says, published in 1997 not long after his premature death in 1996 at age … Continue reading →

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