Posts tagged “science”
Solar Eclipse
A dazzling solar eclipse will be on display across a broad swath of the western United States, Mexico, Canada and Asia on Monday, with as much as 99 percent of the sun obscured by the moon. The eclipse will begin at 5:13 p.m. PDT, with best viewing time around 6:20. [Update: Damn. I totally forgot to
Minds, Brains, and Science
Does John Searle, in his book Minds, Brains, and Science, succeed in explaining how mental phenomena can be nothing over and above neural phenomena and yet be caused by neural activity?
Eleven Questions
I’m not sure if this has been blogged to death and I just haven’t noticed, but there is a superb article on the Discover site detailing The 11 Greatest Unanswered Questions of Physics. What is dark matter? What is dark energy? How were the heavy elements from iron to uranium made? Do neutrinos have mass?
Three Gorges Dam
A few weeks ago I finished reading The Best American Science Writing 2001. It’s a marvelous collection of all the “best” essays written on scientific topics from last year. One article, “Running Dry” by Jacques Leslie, really shocked me. It’s all about the depletion of the Earth’s freshwater and the (disastrous) effects damming has had
Non-Fiction Addiction
Good gravy! I’ve been suffering from a severe case of non-fiction addiction lately. I managed to grab three of the five Oscar movies over the weekend, but otherwise for the last month or so I’ve watched almost nothing that wasn’t on TLC, Discovery, or A&E. I’ve seen specials on mummies, temples, “the Iceman”, pyramids, tombs,
Longitude
I finished reading Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel this afternoon. It is a wonderful book.
Organ Donation Mandatory
Experts Argue for Mandatory Organ-Donor System
Infinity
A few nights ago I finally finished reading Just Six Numbers : The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe by Martin J. Rees. I liked it. It was a good read. The author explains pretty much everything you need to know to understand the science of cosmology as it exists today. It was full of
tsetse
Every now and then I get a referral from The International Atomic Energy Agency. Sadly, though, I can never find a link on their site to mine. They have articles on radiation leaks in Georgia and upgrading nuclear security, but nothing about the atomic structure of Gagne. I’ll have to assume that one of my